I too know the agony of crisis of faith. My faith journey has been through its own share of dark nights of the soul. And the deeper I go into God, the more questions I need to ask - always more questions than answers.

But the one thing that keeps me going is my experience of mercy...I hit rock bottom and should not have survived, but while I was unconscious (and everyone else around me was fighting for my life) I had a dream where Jesus held me in His arms and rocked me for what I can only describe as "an eternity's worth of time", saying over and over again, "I love you and I understand". Then at the end of the dream He said "Now it's time to give you back to the people who will love you back to life".

That was 23 years ago and the experience of that tender love and mercy continues to impact me - and is at the root of my own profound conviction that He loves us infinitely more than we can ever imagine and is on our side, rooting us on, filling our lives with the resources, wisdom and people we need to help us through whatever dark patches of life we're traveling through.

I think that if our faith is going to be authentic and dynamic enough to sustain us, we each have to dare to search within that dark night of the soul for who this God really wants to be for us...and allow ourselves to be pleasantly surprised (perhaps even delighted) by what we discover!

And it's my own opinion that anything or anyone that leads us to doubt that we are loved isn't leading us to God.

I too send you hugs and prayers, and hope that our love and support will help "love you back to life" too!