How to help others through a crisis of faith

Sometimes the best way to advise doubters is to speak from a place of experience.

When Lisa Marie, now forty, was a teenager, she began to have doubts about God. Raised in a faithful Catholic family in church and attending a Catholic high school, Lisa Marie found these doubts disturbing. "I wasn't sure that everything I was learning about God was real," he explains. “So I asked God to give me the faith the size of a mustard seed. I practically prayed that God would give me the faith I didn't have. "

The result, says Lisa Marie, was a profound conversion experience. He began to feel the presence of God as he had never done before. Her prayer life took on a new meaning and focused. Now married and the mother of Josh, 13, and Eliana, 7, Lisa Marie leans on her own personal experience and feels doubtful when she talks to others about matters of faith. “I feel so passionately that all you have to do if you want faith is to ask for it - be open to it. God will do the rest, ”he says.

Many of us may feel unqualified to advise someone on their faith. It is an easy topic to avoid: those who have doubts may not want to admit their questions. People with strong faith can be afraid of becoming spiritually arrogant when talking to someone who is struggling.

Maureen, the mother of five, has found that the best way to advise doubters is to speak from a place of experience. When Maureen's best friend's previously profitable small business was facing bankruptcy, her friend felt overwhelmed by the filing process and the tribute she was undergoing for her wedding.

“My friend called me in tears and said that she felt that God had abandoned her, that she couldn't feel her presence at all. Even though the bankruptcy wasn't my friend's fault, she was so ashamed, ”says Maureen. Maureen took a deep breath and started talking to her friend. "I tried to reassure her that it's normal to have" dry spells "in our lives of faith where we lose sight of God and rely on our devices rather than trusting him in all things," he says. "I believe that God allows us these times because, while we work through them, we pray through them, our faith is strengthened on the other side".

Sometimes advising friends with doubts can be easier than talking to our children about their questions of faith. Children may be afraid to disappoint parents and hide their doubts, even if they attend church with family or participate in religious education lessons.

The danger here is that children may get used to connecting religion with the experience of pretending beliefs. Instead of risking to dive deeply and ask parents about the faith, these children choose to drift on the surface of organized religion and often move away from the church once they are young adults.

“When my eldest son was 14, I didn't wait for him to express doubts. I thought he had doubts, why who of us hasn't done it? ”Says Francis, father of four children. “I adopted a colloquial approach in which I asked him what he believed in, what he didn't believe in and what he wanted to believe but of which he wasn't sure. I really listened to him and tried to make him safe to express his doubts. I shared my experience of both moments of doubt and really strong faith. "

Francis said his son appreciated hearing Francis' struggles with faith. Francis said he didn't try to tell his son why he should have believed something, but instead thanked him for being open on his questions.

He said he also focused on faith itself rather than what his son did or did not like about the experience of going to mass. faith developed, it was more open to listening, because I had also spoken to him about times when I felt really confused and far from faith.