<em></em>Dear friend,

<strong>You possess a rock-solid certainty </strong>of the truth and accuracy of your faith. <strong>This is a gift.</strong> Did you know that? Certainty is not a universal thing.

<strong>I long for it.</strong> But, at least for now, I don't have it.

Sometimes I think you fail to understand that about those of us who are less certain.

<strong>I often wonder if you think doubters <em>want </em>to doubt,</strong> that we like this uncertain world and make a conscious choice to stay there.

Is this why you declare your answers to my questions as though pummeling them into me with a sledgehammer? <strong>It's as if you think that saying it hard enough or often enough will transform doubt into certainty.</strong>

Sometimes when you speak about doubt, <strong>it sounds like you think doubt is contagious.</strong> And not only contagious but deadly. Like you think it must be isolated at minimum and ideally, destroyed.

I may not know <em>for certain </em>what God has said on certain issues, but<strong> I know this</strong>. <em><strong>You have never doubted. </strong></em>If you had, you would know better.

You would know that it doesn't work that way.

It isn't that easy.

<em>If only it were that easy.</em>

<strong>For those of us who wrestle with doubt, </strong><strong>your confident faith is like a lush amusement park in the middle of the Nevada desert. </strong>Inside, everyone is smiling, riding, eating, splashing in refreshing water fountains, having fun.

I am stuck on the outside. I want the carefree joy I see on your face. I'm parched, starving, my skin is burned and cracking from the sun and the heat. <strong></strong>

<strong>But I can't find the way in. </strong>

I stagger along the perimeter, searching for a way in. Hope rises as I spot something... I've finally found it!... only to be shattered again ... it's a mirage dissolving into dust. Or a new question sends me on another detour.... waaaaay out into the desert.

Do you get it?

<strong>When you scold or rebuke or pound on me for doubting, it's like you're yelling "Why aren't you in here, you stupid person? GET IN HERE." </strong>

<strong>But you don't tell me <em>how</em>.
</strong>

That doesn't work, does it?

<strong>I  need directions,</strong> a map, the secret word, a key, the keypad code, <em>something</em> that will lead me to the gate and, at long last, gain me entry.

I <em>want </em>to get in. I want that confidence and peace that you have.

I just haven't found it yet.