My friend Meredith will be confirmed next week. She is terrified. She thinks she might run away. She says she would be less scared if she were getting married or being crowned the queen of England.

She says she is not having new doubts, just the same ones she has every Sunday, only magnified.“Every time I stand up to say the Creed, I wonder if I can say I believe these things,” she says.

I tell her what I told her two years ago when she told me she wasn't enough of a Christian to go to church. I told her, “Go to church for a while and one day you may look down and discover you've become a Christian.”

I tell her there is a Hasidic story. A student goes to his teacher and says, “Rabbi, how can I say 'I believe' when I pray, if I'm not sure I believe?”

His rabbi has an answer: “'I believe' is a prayer meaning, 'Oh, that I may believe!'”

~ Lauren Winner, Girl Meets God, p. 271]