OVERCOMING FEAR AND EMBRACING FAITH: (A Story of Courage, Questions, and Unshakable Hope).
CHAPTER THREE:
THE VOICE OF DOUBT
(Meet Eliana’s closest friend was MAYA CARTER; a bold, intelligent girl who never went to church and never hesitated to say what she believed).
If the night was where Eliana’s questions were born, then the day was where they were tested.
Maya Carter had been Eliana’s closest friend for years. She was bold in a way Eliana had never learned to be; sharp-minded, outspoken, and unafraid of challenging anything she considered illogical. While Eliana grew up in pews and prayer circles, Maya grew up questioning everything. She didn’t attend church. She didn’t believe in miracles. And she certainly didn’t believe in God.
Yet, despite their differences, Eliana felt safe with her. Or at least, she used to.
They often sat together beneath the old tree behind the school, backpacks at their feet, watching the world rush past them. One afternoon, as Eliana absentmindedly traced the edge of her Bible notebook, Maya tilted her head and studied her closely.
“You know,” Maya said casually, “you don’t actually believe all that stuff, do you?”
Eliana stiffened. “What stuff?”
“God. Faith. Prayer,” Maya replied, her voice light but deliberate. “You believe because your parents told you to. If they weren’t pastors, would you still believe?”
The question struck Eliana harder than she expected. It echoed the same thoughts that haunted her at night, the same fears she buried beneath memorized verses and polite smiles. She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came.
“There is no God, Eliana,” Maya continued, not cruelly, but confidently. “You’ve never seen Him. You’ve never heard Him. You just accepted what you were taught.”
Sometimes Maya laughed when she said these things, brushing them off as harmless conversation. Other times, her voice lowered, sharper, more intentional, aimed directly at Eliana’s hidden fears.
“If God is real,” Maya whispered one day, leaning closer, “why are you so scared all the time?”
That question lingered long after Maya walked away.
Eliana tried to pray that night, but the words felt tangled. Maya’s voice crept into her thoughts, blending with her own unanswered questions from the dark hours. Why am I afraid if I believe? Why does faith feel like certainty for everyone else but confusion for me?
The seeds of doubt took root quietly, growing fast and wild. They wrapped themselves around her heart, tightening every time she tried to ignore them. At church, she listened to sermons about bold faith and unwavering trust, but Maya’s words replayed in her mind, challenging every declaration.
Eliana began to notice how easily doubt disguised itself as reason. It didn’t shout, it whispered. It didn’t demand, it suggested. It told her that fear meant failure, that questions meant weakness, that silence meant absence.
And yet, part of her resisted.
Even as doubt grew, Eliana felt a quiet ache whenever she imagined a life without God. If there was no God, then who had she been talking to all those nights in the dark? Who had she been searching for with such desperation? Why did her heart still long for something more, something real, something eternal?
She realized then that Maya’s voice was not just her friend’s, it was an echo of the fear already living inside her. The same fear that kept her silent. The same fear that told her she was alone.
But somewhere beneath the doubt, beneath the questions and confusion, Eliana sensed a truth she could not yet explain: doubt was loud, but it was not final.
This chapter of her life was not the end of her faith, it was the battleground.
And though Eliana did not yet know how to silence the voice of doubt, her story was quietly moving toward something greater. Fear had found its voice, but faith was learning how to answer.
Thank you for Reading 💜
CHAPTER FOUR. . . Stay Tuned!
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