December 18, 2023 • 17 mins
Do doubts ever creep into your journey of faith? Don't worry, you're not alone. Join me as I bare my heart, describing my own battle with doubt in the midst of a health scare. In this episode we get vulnerable. I'm sharing my conversations with God that have been filled with questions and uncertainties to turn the tables on the stigma attached to doubts in faith. Far from being mere crises, doubts can be activators for spiritual growth and a deeper understanding of God. So, let's change the conversation. Here's an invitation to bring your doubts into the light, not as signs of weakness, but as instruments for growing in faith.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Tilded Halo.
This is a new podcast and it'sfor anybody who's a woman in
ministry.
You might be a pastor likemyself, a bishop, a priest, a
rabbi, music minister, elderchildren's minister whatever
your title is, you're absolutelyin the right place, especially
if you're someone who loves yourministry and you're doing it
(00:24):
well and you're feeling pressureto sometimes be perfect and
deep down inside you know you'renot.
And how in the world to dealwith that?
And, men, you're absolutelywelcome here too, because this
is about ministry and the samething can happen to you.
So you're all in the rightplace.
Let's get started with the show.
(00:47):
When I was growing up, Iremember hearing sermons from
more than one pastor about doubt, and it was usually in the
negative.
To be very honest with you.
There was came up any time,talked about doubting Thomas.
(01:09):
Oh bad guy.
He doubted that Jesus actuallyrose from the dead.
You know he's got a lot ofcompany even these days, but the
whole idea was that doubt was abad thing.
We're not supposed to have anydoubts, supposed to accept faith
lock, stock and barrel and justkeep going with it.
(01:32):
I remember hearing a number ofyears ago that Mother Teresa,
you know that wonderful,non-petite lady, powerhouse
woman in Calcutta who spent herlife dedicated to helping people
(01:52):
with leprosy in India and shewas given a Nobel Prize for that
and she scraped by many timeswith what she had and yet always
seemed to be able to haveenough, but that she had doubts.
(02:15):
And when I heard that I waslike, oh wow, a woman like her,
who has dedicated her life andservice to God, who did
everything seemed like based onfaith and the power of faith,
and that she had doubts.
Hmm, what could that mean?
(02:39):
Well, number one, it can meanthat doubts are pretty normal,
that doubts are not a bad thing,like I said when I grew up
hearing the sermons aboutdoubting Thomas and how bad it
was that he was doubting.
It was like doubts were agentsof the devil in one, to put it
(03:05):
bluntly, and that doubts weresomething we should push away
and never admit to having anydoubts and that, you know,
doubts about anything,especially about faith, were no
good.
Anything about God.
Don't doubt that, just believe,just believe.
(03:27):
And that's what I believed andgrew up with.
And yet there was a time in mylife where that became quite
problematic, because I faced myown time of a great deal of
(03:47):
uncertainty and a great deal ofwhat's happening in my life and
a great deal of time ofquestioning, questioning God,
questioning my faith,questioning what I was feeling
as a call to ministry.
(04:11):
I share this story in anothermedium.
It's part of my book, in fact.
It's that when I was startingmy junior year in college had a
routine physical, had one everyyear just before started.
(04:32):
My junior year went off toschool just like normal.
School started, I think it wason a Wednesday, and I always
talked to my parents on theweekend.
This was back in the good olddays, long before modern
technology, which means that inthe dorm all women back in those
(04:56):
days on each floor there wasone telephone, just one.
It was a pay phone in themiddle of the hall, no phones in
rooms and cell phones weren'teven imagined yet.
Anyway, that's where we went tomake phone calls and if the
(05:23):
phone rang, somebody who waspassing by or lived in one of
the rooms near the phone wouldanswer the phone and then go
grab whoever was requested onthe phone.
Well, it was Monday of thatwasn't the first full week of
school and somebody cameknocking on my dormer and door
(05:47):
and said I had a phone call Idon't get phone calls in the
middle of the week Couldn'timagine who in the world was
calling me.
And I picked up the phone andit was my mom.
But it was one of thosesituations where, from the word
hello on and just how she saidhello or it's mom, I knew
(06:09):
something was wrong.
I went through my brain that,okay, who died?
It?
Has dad been in an accident,because my dad traveled a lot
for work.
Something bad has happened.
And I found out it wasn'tsomebody else, it was about me.
(06:32):
See, when I had that routinephysical, the doctors suggested
I have a baseline chest x-ray.
Okay, no problem, went off anddid that, never thought of
another thing of it.
Well, it come to find out thathe had a reason for suggesting
(06:52):
that and that something showedup on that chest x-ray and what
showed up was that the rightside of my heart was greatly
enlarged and so my mom wascalling to tell me that.
And that led to a visit to acardiologist and it led to a
diagnosis that I had a hole inmy heart where there wasn't
(07:15):
supposed to be one, and thatmeant that, although it wasn't
an emergency right at that time,if I did not have that
corrected, I would have alreadylived half of my life or more.
In other words, if I, chancesof living to the age of 40 were
(07:39):
very slim, and that really shookmy world because I was feeling
a call to ministry.
And here I had this hole in myheart and it meant having open
heart surgery.
This was in a day and age wherethat was still very risky and I
(08:02):
knew of only one person who hadhad any kind of heart surgery
and he died and complications tothat surgery.
And this was somebody I knewpersonally not just knew of, but
someone I knew personally andit was not an old man, and so it
(08:24):
scared the daylight side of methinking I have to have open
heart surgery.
They have to cut into my heartliterally to fix that hole.
There was no remote, robotic,microscopic surgery in those
days either.
(08:47):
I got to wondering what was thisfeeling about being called into
ministry?
I might not live to do any ofthat.
In fact, I was pretty convincedfor several months that I
wasn't going to live after thesurgery and so I had all kinds
(09:12):
of doubts and I had someextremely long conversations
with God and I started writingsome of them down into a journal
.
But even before I startedwriting them, there were long
conversations I had with God.
What's up, god?
Why?
All kinds of questions and, yes, in many ways doubts, and so I
(09:43):
had to deal with my feelingsabout doubts as well as all of
this.
Can I still be a faithfulperson and ask these questions?
Can I still be a faithfulperson and feel this way?
Can I be a faithful person andeven be angry with God?
And I was angry with God attimes.
(10:04):
I was angry about the wholeexperience and I was scared More
than anything else.
I was scared.
Years later I obviously had thesurgery and everything went fine
, but years later, afterbecoming a pastor, I ran across
(10:31):
a book by a fellow namedFrederick Beekner
B-U-E-C-H-N-E-R, I think is thecorrect spelling of his last
name A Episcopalian priest andauthor, and he wrote a little
book called Wishful Thinking atheological ABC, and in it he
(10:53):
takes words and ideas that areoften thrown around within faith
communities and gives a newperspective on them, and one of
them is the word doubt, and Idon't have the full quote here
with me, but there's one part ofthat quote that is very
(11:21):
powerful for me and I want toshare that with you as a maybe a
different way of thinking aboutdoubts.
He says that, whether you havedoubts or not, I mean, and
basically that we all have them.
And then he goes on to say andthis is pretty near quote the
(11:43):
doubts are the ants in the pantsof faith.
They keep it awake and moving.
I got the thinking about that.
You know, doubt, the ants inthe pants of faith, that's not
the most delightful imagery, butyou know, it keeps us from
being sedentary, keeps us fromjust relying on the way we've
(12:11):
always thought about things.
Doubts can be a way of askingquestions and realizing that
asking these questions of Godit's okay.
It's okay to do that, it's okayto have those doubts, because
those doubts are the questionsand the questions open us up to
(12:33):
the possibility of seeing newanswers, to seeing ourselves, to
seeing other people, to seeingGod in the world in a whole new
way, expanding our faith.
Yes, doubts could shrink ourfaith, but usually only if we
see them as bad and judge thedoubt and judge ourselves for
(12:56):
doubting.
Then we can shrink our faiththat way, but doubts can keep
our faith awake and moving,moving and thinking and
expanding and deepening andenriching enriching us and our
life and our faith and our worktogether.
(13:17):
And as I think back on thatexperience, when I was doubting
and asking all kinds ofquestions with God and having
all kinds of long conversationsand arguments even with God, it
(13:38):
so deepened my faith Number onebecause I realized that's okay,
it's okay to ask those questions, it's okay to not know, to have
my halo tilted, it's okay to bequestioning, questioning myself
(13:59):
, questioning life, questioningeven God.
And what are you up to God?
Why that question of why?
Wanting an answer?
Didn't always get answers to myquestions, by the way, but the
biggest answer came in knowingthat I could ask and I could
(14:21):
leave that why in God's hands tobe able to hold that and to
hold me in the midst of that, inthe midst of the not knowing,
not having all of the answers,in the midst of my doubts.
Sometimes, within what as aChristian I call the Old
(14:45):
Testament and the New Testament,we get an image of God as a
heavenly parent and those doubtsand those questions and those
agonizing times, kind of like ifyou've had the experience of
being a child and curling up inloving parents' arms when
(15:10):
something didn't go right inlife and just knowing that warm
embrace helps to make thingsbetter.
That's what it's like when webring our doubts into that
relationship with God.
That's what it's like to sharethose doubts, to ask those
(15:31):
questions, to let thought be theanswer in the pants of our
faith, to keep us awake andmoving, to keep our faith
growing and becoming richer inmany, many respects.
So doubts, are they devilish?
(15:54):
No, they can be very helpful.
They can be a gift that even,in a sense, a gift that God
gives us to grow.
So remember, doubts are theants in the pants of faith and I
thank Frederick Beekner forthose words.
(16:17):
Until next time, I am the TiltedHalo and this is the Tilted
Halo.
God's peace, god's blessings.
Come back again for anothershow.
You have been listening toTilted Halo with me, kathleen
Panning.
What did you think about thisepisode?
I'd really like to hear fromyou.
Leave me some comments, be sureto like, subscribe and share
(16:39):
this episode and catch anotherupcoming episode for more
conversation on ministry life,mindset and a whole lot more.
Go to wwwtiltedhalohelpcom,where I've got a resource guide
and other resources waiting foryou, and be sure to say hi to me
, kathleen Panning, on LinkedIn.
(16:59):
See you on the next episode.
Welcome to the Tilded Halo.
This is a new podcast and it'sfor anybody who's a woman in
ministry.
You might be a pastor likemyself, a bishop, a priest, a
rabbi, music minister, elderchildren's minister whatever
your title is, you're absolutelyin the right place, especially
if you're someone who loves yourministry and you're doing it
(00:24):
well and you're feeling pressureto sometimes be perfect and
deep down inside you know you'renot.
And how in the world to dealwith that?
And, men, you're absolutelywelcome here too, because this
is about ministry and the samething can happen to you.
So you're all in the rightplace.
Let's get started with the show.
(00:47):
When I was growing up, Iremember hearing sermons from
more than one pastor about doubt, and it was usually in the
negative.
To be very honest with you.
There was came up any time,talked about doubting Thomas.
(01:09):
Oh bad guy.
He doubted that Jesus actuallyrose from the dead.
You know he's got a lot ofcompany even these days, but the
whole idea was that doubt was abad thing.
We're not supposed to have anydoubts, supposed to accept faith
lock, stock and barrel and justkeep going with it.
(01:32):
I remember hearing a number ofyears ago that Mother Teresa,
you know that wonderful,non-petite lady, powerhouse
woman in Calcutta who spent herlife dedicated to helping people
(01:52):
with leprosy in India and shewas given a Nobel Prize for that
and she scraped by many timeswith what she had and yet always
seemed to be able to haveenough, but that she had doubts.
(02:15):
And when I heard that I waslike, oh wow, a woman like her,
who has dedicated her life andservice to God, who did
everything seemed like based onfaith and the power of faith,
and that she had doubts.
Hmm, what could that mean?
(02:39):
Well, number one, it can meanthat doubts are pretty normal,
that doubts are not a bad thing,like I said when I grew up
hearing the sermons aboutdoubting Thomas and how bad it
was that he was doubting.
It was like doubts were agentsof the devil in one, to put it
(03:05):
bluntly, and that doubts weresomething we should push away
and never admit to having anydoubts and that, you know,
doubts about anything,especially about faith, were no
good.
Anything about God.
Don't doubt that, just believe,just believe.
(03:27):
And that's what I believed andgrew up with.
And yet there was a time in mylife where that became quite
problematic, because I faced myown time of a great deal of
(03:47):
uncertainty and a great deal ofwhat's happening in my life and
a great deal of time ofquestioning, questioning God,
questioning my faith,questioning what I was feeling
as a call to ministry.
(04:11):
I share this story in anothermedium.
It's part of my book, in fact.
It's that when I was startingmy junior year in college had a
routine physical, had one everyyear just before started.
(04:32):
My junior year went off toschool just like normal.
School started, I think it wason a Wednesday, and I always
talked to my parents on theweekend.
This was back in the good olddays, long before modern
technology, which means that inthe dorm all women back in those
(04:56):
days on each floor there wasone telephone, just one.
It was a pay phone in themiddle of the hall, no phones in
rooms and cell phones weren'teven imagined yet.
Anyway, that's where we went tomake phone calls and if the
(05:23):
phone rang, somebody who waspassing by or lived in one of
the rooms near the phone wouldanswer the phone and then go
grab whoever was requested onthe phone.
Well, it was Monday of thatwasn't the first full week of
school and somebody cameknocking on my dormer and door
(05:47):
and said I had a phone call Idon't get phone calls in the
middle of the week Couldn'timagine who in the world was
calling me.
And I picked up the phone andit was my mom.
But it was one of thosesituations where, from the word
hello on and just how she saidhello or it's mom, I knew
(06:09):
something was wrong.
I went through my brain that,okay, who died?
It?
Has dad been in an accident,because my dad traveled a lot
for work.
Something bad has happened.
And I found out it wasn'tsomebody else, it was about me.
(06:32):
See, when I had that routinephysical, the doctors suggested
I have a baseline chest x-ray.
Okay, no problem, went off anddid that, never thought of
another thing of it.
Well, it come to find out thathe had a reason for suggesting
(06:52):
that and that something showedup on that chest x-ray and what
showed up was that the rightside of my heart was greatly
enlarged and so my mom wascalling to tell me that.
And that led to a visit to acardiologist and it led to a
diagnosis that I had a hole inmy heart where there wasn't
(07:15):
supposed to be one, and thatmeant that, although it wasn't
an emergency right at that time,if I did not have that
corrected, I would have alreadylived half of my life or more.
In other words, if I, chancesof living to the age of 40 were
(07:39):
very slim, and that really shookmy world because I was feeling
a call to ministry.
And here I had this hole in myheart and it meant having open
heart surgery.
This was in a day and age wherethat was still very risky and I
(08:02):
knew of only one person who hadhad any kind of heart surgery
and he died and complications tothat surgery.
And this was somebody I knewpersonally not just knew of, but
someone I knew personally andit was not an old man, and so it
(08:24):
scared the daylight side of methinking I have to have open
heart surgery.
They have to cut into my heartliterally to fix that hole.
There was no remote, robotic,microscopic surgery in those
days either.
(08:47):
I got to wondering what was thisfeeling about being called into
ministry?
I might not live to do any ofthat.
In fact, I was pretty convincedfor several months that I
wasn't going to live after thesurgery and so I had all kinds
(09:12):
of doubts and I had someextremely long conversations
with God and I started writingsome of them down into a journal
.
But even before I startedwriting them, there were long
conversations I had with God.
What's up, god?
Why?
All kinds of questions and, yes, in many ways doubts, and so I
(09:43):
had to deal with my feelingsabout doubts as well as all of
this.
Can I still be a faithfulperson and ask these questions?
Can I still be a faithfulperson and feel this way?
Can I be a faithful person andeven be angry with God?
And I was angry with God attimes.
(10:04):
I was angry about the wholeexperience and I was scared More
than anything else.
I was scared.
Years later I obviously had thesurgery and everything went fine
, but years later, afterbecoming a pastor, I ran across
(10:31):
a book by a fellow namedFrederick Beekner
B-U-E-C-H-N-E-R, I think is thecorrect spelling of his last
name A Episcopalian priest andauthor, and he wrote a little
book called Wishful Thinking atheological ABC, and in it he
(10:53):
takes words and ideas that areoften thrown around within faith
communities and gives a newperspective on them, and one of
them is the word doubt, and Idon't have the full quote here
with me, but there's one part ofthat quote that is very
(11:21):
powerful for me and I want toshare that with you as a maybe a
different way of thinking aboutdoubts.
He says that, whether you havedoubts or not, I mean, and
basically that we all have them.
And then he goes on to say andthis is pretty near quote the
(11:43):
doubts are the ants in the pantsof faith.
They keep it awake and moving.
I got the thinking about that.
You know, doubt, the ants inthe pants of faith, that's not
the most delightful imagery, butyou know, it keeps us from
being sedentary, keeps us fromjust relying on the way we've
(12:11):
always thought about things.
Doubts can be a way of askingquestions and realizing that
asking these questions of Godit's okay.
It's okay to do that, it's okayto have those doubts, because
those doubts are the questionsand the questions open us up to
(12:33):
the possibility of seeing newanswers, to seeing ourselves, to
seeing other people, to seeingGod in the world in a whole new
way, expanding our faith.
Yes, doubts could shrink ourfaith, but usually only if we
see them as bad and judge thedoubt and judge ourselves for
(12:56):
doubting.
Then we can shrink our faiththat way, but doubts can keep
our faith awake and moving,moving and thinking and
expanding and deepening andenriching enriching us and our
life and our faith and our worktogether.
(13:17):
And as I think back on thatexperience, when I was doubting
and asking all kinds ofquestions with God and having
all kinds of long conversationsand arguments even with God, it
(13:38):
so deepened my faith Number onebecause I realized that's okay,
it's okay to ask those questions, it's okay to not know, to have
my halo tilted, it's okay to bequestioning, questioning myself
(13:59):
, questioning life, questioningeven God.
And what are you up to God?
Why that question of why?
Wanting an answer?
Didn't always get answers to myquestions, by the way, but the
biggest answer came in knowingthat I could ask and I could
(14:21):
leave that why in God's hands tobe able to hold that and to
hold me in the midst of that, inthe midst of the not knowing,
not having all of the answers,in the midst of my doubts.
Sometimes, within what as aChristian I call the Old
(14:45):
Testament and the New Testament,we get an image of God as a
heavenly parent and those doubtsand those questions and those
agonizing times, kind of like ifyou've had the experience of
being a child and curling up inloving parents' arms when
(15:10):
something didn't go right inlife and just knowing that warm
embrace helps to make thingsbetter.
That's what it's like when webring our doubts into that
relationship with God.
That's what it's like to sharethose doubts, to ask those
(15:31):
questions, to let thought be theanswer in the pants of our
faith, to keep us awake andmoving, to keep our faith
growing and becoming richer inmany, many respects.
So doubts, are they devilish?
(15:54):
No, they can be very helpful.
They can be a gift that even,in a sense, a gift that God
gives us to grow.
So remember, doubts are theants in the pants of faith and I
thank Frederick Beekner forthose words.
(16:17):
Until next time, I am the TiltedHalo and this is the Tilted
Halo.
God's peace, god's blessings.
Come back again for anothershow.
You have been listening toTilted Halo with me, kathleen
Panning.
What did you think about thisepisode?
I'd really like to hear fromyou.
Leave me some comments, be sureto like, subscribe and share
(16:39):
this episode and catch anotherupcoming episode for more
conversation on ministry life,mindset and a whole lot more.
Go to wwwtiltedhalohelpcom,where I've got a resource guide
and other resources waiting foryou, and be sure to say hi to me
, kathleen Panning, on LinkedIn.
(16:59):
See you on the next episode.
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