My Christian faith has sustained me.

Host: The rain had stopped, leaving the air thick and clean, and the church—an old wooden one at the edge of a forgotten town—stood against the mist like a memory refusing to fade. Inside, the candles flickered softly, their flames trembling as if alive with the same quiet uncertainty that filled the room. Dust motes floated like gold threads through the dim light, landing on worn pews and hymn books that smelled faintly of age and faith.

Host: Jack sat in the front pew, elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together, though not in prayer. His eyes were sharp, shadowed—watching the altar as though it might whisper an answer he wasn’t ready to hear. Behind him, Jeeny’s soft footsteps echoed across the wood. She stopped a few feet away, her silhouette framed by the faint glow of stained glass.

Jeeny: “You’ve been coming here more often lately,” she said quietly. “I thought you didn’t believe in this kind of thing.”

Jack: “I don’t,” he muttered. “I believe in survival. In logic. In cause and effect. But…” —he hesitated— “…B. J. Thomas once said, ‘My Christian faith has sustained me.’ And maybe I’m starting to wonder what that kind of sustenance feels like.”

Host: The silence that followed was thick, almost sacred. Outside, the distant sound of a train moaned through the valley—a sound that always felt like both departure and return.

Jeeny: “Faith isn’t something you feel, Jack. It’s something you live through. It’s what holds you when everything else collapses.”

Jack: “That’s the problem. I don’t want to be held by something I can’t see. I want proof, not poetry.”

Jeeny: “Proof?” She smiled sadly. “You ever seen the wind?”

Jack: “Don’t start with that.”

Jeeny: “No, listen. You can’t see it, but you see what it does—the trees move, the leaves scatter, the air shifts. Faith is the same. It’s not visible, but it moves things inside you.”

Host: Jack leaned back, staring up at the ceiling where the wooden beams met in a cross. The candlelight threw faint shadows across his face, tracing the years of skepticism like cracks on stone.

Jack: “You really believe faith sustains you? That it’s enough?”

Jeeny: “It’s not about enough. It’s about endurance. When B. J. Thomas said that, he wasn’t talking about easy days. He was talking about the nights when you can’t breathe and nothing makes sense—and yet something inside whispers, ‘Hold on.’ That’s what faith is. It’s not a crutch, Jack—it’s oxygen.”

Jack: “Oxygen doesn’t care if you deserve it. Faith does.”

Jeeny: “No, it doesn’t. Real faith doesn’t ask for qualifications. It just asks that you trust. That you stop trying to carry the entire weight alone.”

Host: The candlelight flickered, catching the tear that shimmered briefly at the corner of her eye. Jack noticed, and his expression softened—barely, but it was there.

Jack: “You sound like someone who’s been broken.”

Jeeny: “Aren’t we all?”

Host: The two sat in that admission, the truth heavy but gentle between them.

Jack: “You know, I remember when my mother died. The pastor kept saying she was in a better place. I looked at her empty chair for years after that, waiting to feel comfort. I never did. If faith’s supposed to sustain, where was it then?”

Jeeny: “Maybe it was in you. In the fact that you kept going. Faith doesn’t erase pain—it gives pain a reason to exist. You kept breathing, didn’t you? That was faith in disguise.”

Host: A gust of wind crept through the cracks in the church door, making the candles flicker like nervous souls. Jack looked at Jeeny, really looked at her—her eyes calm, her posture steady, her belief unshaken.

Jack: “You make it sound easy.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. Faith isn’t a shield—it’s a scar that keeps healing. Look at B. J. Thomas himself. He had his demons—addiction, loss, doubt—but he found a way to keep singing. To say, ‘My faith sustained me,’ isn’t boasting—it’s confession. It means he fell and still found something to stand on.”

Jack: “And what if there’s nothing to stand on?”

Jeeny: “Then faith becomes the act of standing anyway.”

Host: The words struck him like a soft hammer. He looked down, his hands trembling faintly, fingers stained with old ink from a day’s work—proof of his endless search for reason in a world that didn’t always care to explain itself.

Jack: “You think faith can replace logic?”

Jeeny: “No. I think they need each other. Logic tells you how to walk. Faith tells you why.”

Host: The rain began again—gentle this time, a quiet percussion against the roof. The air smelled of wet earth and candle wax. Jeeny stepped closer, sitting beside him, their shoulders almost touching.

Jeeny: “You don’t have to call it Christian, you know. Faith wears many names. Sometimes it’s love. Sometimes it’s hope. Sometimes it’s just the stubborn will to get up when you don’t want to.”

Jack: “And you think that’s divine?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s human. And maybe that’s the same thing.”

Host: Jack let out a slow breath, his voice softer now, stripped of its armor.

Jack: “You always find a way to make belief sound beautiful.”

Jeeny: “It’s not always beautiful. Sometimes it’s just a whisper in the dark that says, ‘Not yet.’”

Host: The organ in the back of the church creaked softly, as though some forgotten note had been waiting all this time to breathe again. Jack stood and walked toward the altar, stopping just before it. He reached out, his hand brushing the edge of the wooden cross.

Jack: “You think people like him—like B. J. Thomas—found peace in this?”

Jeeny: “Not peace. Strength. Peace is the gift you get later. Strength is what faith gives you when you’re still in the storm.”

Host: Jack turned back, eyes glinting in the low light. Something fragile had shifted—skepticism giving way to something quieter, humbler.

Jack: “Maybe… maybe faith isn’t believing everything will be fine. Maybe it’s believing you’ll survive even when it’s not.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The candles burned low. Their flames no longer trembled. Jack sat again, this time with a calmness that hadn’t been there before.

Jack: “You know,” he said, almost smiling, “for someone who talks about faith so much, you make it sound less like religion and more like endurance training.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s both. After all, even the soul needs exercise.”

Host: The rain stopped once more. A thin beam of moonlight slipped through the stained glass and fell upon the cross, lighting it faintly in silver. The two sat in silence, not as skeptic and believer now, but as two souls sharing the same fragile understanding.

Host: Outside, the world was still soaked and cold, but inside, something had quietly warmed.

Host: The camera would pull back—out through the open doors, past the flickering candles and the soft glimmer of faith—and as the image faded into the night, one truth remained suspended in the air:

Host: That sometimes, faith doesn’t lift you out of the storm—
it simply teaches you how to stand within it.