I was delivering newspapers on my bike one
afternoon while throwing a hissy fit at God. I was twelve years
old, and my first doubt had occurred a year earlier. A hundred more had joined it, but my focus at the moment was God’s inexplicable failure—inexplicable
if he existed—to keep his Biblical
promises; for example, “whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do.” It
was the first time I used profanity during a prayer, and I was laying it on
thick as I railed at God for his interminable silence in the face of my desperate entreaties for a reason to believe. I still remember the very spot upon which I felt the horrific fear
that I had probably, not more than a minute past, committed the unpardonable
sin—a sin that, oddly enough, the Bible mentions but doesn’t define. I was so
burdened with fear for the next three years that I was sometimes on the verge
of panic, which was why I finally drove out to talk with Brother
Stewart. When he seemed sleepy and distracted and made no attempt to draw me
out, I let pass my one shame-laden attempt to share my angst. I never blamed him for this because he was too good a man to blame for anything.
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