I believe it matters how you treat people. I believe in Heaven.

The words of Melissa McCarthy—“I believe it matters how you treat people. I believe in Heaven. I don’t believe that this is it, and then we’re done. I have a lovely relationship with God, although when I’ve lost someone or I’ve seen a sick child, I’ve had conversations with Him in which I’ve had to ask, ‘How can that be right?’”—carry the weight of faith both tender and questioning. They remind us that belief is not the absence of doubt, but the courage to wrestle with it, to hold fast to love and to goodness even when the world seems cruel.

The ancients knew this path well. They spoke of Job, who sat in ashes and questioned the justice of heaven; of prophets who cried out against sorrow; of mothers who wailed at the loss of their children yet still lifted prayers to the skies. To have a relationship with God is not to stand silent before mystery, but to speak, to question, to plead, and still to believe. It is the bond of child to parent, forged in both trust and pain.

Her words also remind us of the eternal truth: that how we treat people is the measure of our lives. The ancients declared that virtue was not found in temples alone, but in the daily dealings of man with man—mercy to the weak, justice to the stranger, kindness to the friend. McCarthy binds this earthly ethic to the hope of Heaven, declaring that our actions here echo beyond death, carrying meaning into eternity.

And yet, she does not hide the struggle. To see suffering, to witness innocent pain, is to confront the hardest question of faith: how can such things exist beneath the gaze of a loving God? To raise this question is not rebellion, but honesty; it is the mark of a heart engaged in true relationship with the divine, one that dares to ask rather than turn away. This is the heroic faith, not blind, but enduring.

So let this teaching endure: faith is not the absence of grief, nor the silence of unanswered questions. It is the persistence of love, the resolve to keep speaking with God, even in anguish. To believe in Heaven, to honor life by how we treat people, and to seek meaning in sorrow—this is the path of those who refuse despair. For the ancients knew, and McCarthy reminds us, that the truest bond with the divine is forged not only in peace, but in the fires of pain and the courage of hope.