The sad pattern of lack of trust in God has persisted since the

Host:
The churchyard lay in silence beneath a silver moon, its stones bathed in pale light, its air heavy with the scent of old earth and rain. The night was cold but not cruel — one of those quiet hours when the world seems to pause, suspended between sorrow and reverence.

A small chapel stood at the edge of the hill, its wooden door cracked open just enough to let the faint glow of candlelight spill across the grass. Inside, the flame wavered before an altar — delicate, trembling, alive.

Jack sat alone in the front pew, elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loosely together as if trying to remember how to pray. Jeeny stood near the back, her shadow long across the aisle, watching him with the patient sadness of someone who has waited too long for an answer that may never come.

Jeeny: (softly, voice carrying the tremor of reflection) “Henry B. Eyring once said, ‘The sad pattern of lack of trust in God has persisted since the Creation.’”

Host:
The flame flickered, catching the polished edge of the cross and throwing it across the walls like a broken halo. Jack didn’t turn, didn’t answer right away — he simply stared at the altar, his jaw clenched, his eyes lost somewhere between defiance and longing.

Jack: “Yeah. Maybe that’s because God stopped giving people a reason to trust Him.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe we stopped listening.”

Host:
Her voice echoed softly through the empty chapel, wrapping around the wooden beams like a question too tender to break. Jack sighed — the kind of sigh that carried years of disappointment, not just in faith, but in the world itself.

Jack: “How do you trust something that never speaks back? You pray, you plead, and what do you get? Silence. That’s not faith, Jeeny — that’s madness dressed as devotion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe silence is the answer. Maybe it’s not that He isn’t speaking, but that He’s asking us to learn the language of stillness.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Stillness doesn’t stop people from dying. It doesn’t heal wars or stop hunger. The world’s bleeding, Jeeny, and all we get are whispers.”

Host:
The wind outside howled softly against the stained-glass windows. One of the candles sputtered, then steadied, as if the flame itself refused to surrender.

Jeeny: “You think trust means getting what you want. It doesn’t. It means believing there’s meaning beyond what you can see — even in the pain.”

Jack: “Meaning? Don’t feed me riddles. Children starve, prayers go unanswered, good people break — and we’re supposed to call that divine purpose?”

Jeeny: “We’re supposed to call it human growth. Maybe God doesn’t stop the pain because the pain is what teaches us to reach for something higher.”

Jack: “And if there’s nothing higher?”

Jeeny: (gently) “Then we’ve still become better for believing there was.”

Host:
A deep silence settled between them, like the pause before confession. The flicker of candlelight danced across Jack’s face, softening his defiance, exposing the small fracture of sorrow beneath.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic. But when I buried my brother, I didn’t feel poetry. I felt absence. That’s all faith has ever given me — absence.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that absence is what faith is built for. Trusting even when the absence feels infinite.”

Host:
Her steps echoed softly as she walked down the aisle toward him, her hands folded before her. The air between them shimmered with that quiet electricity born of opposing convictions that still love each other.

Jeeny: “The pattern Eyring spoke about — it’s not just lack of trust in God. It’s lack of trust in love, in goodness, in anything we can’t measure or prove. Since the beginning, humans have feared what they can’t control.”

Jack: “And God’s the biggest uncontrollable of them all.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s why faith exists — not to give control, but to teach surrender.”

Jack: (coldly) “Surrender sounds a lot like submission.”

Jeeny: “It’s not submission. It’s humility — the kind that says, ‘I don’t have all the answers, and that’s okay.’”

Host:
She stopped beside him, the candlelight catching the wet shimmer in her eyes. Jack turned slightly, the tension in his shoulders breaking under the weight of her calm.

Jack: “You really believe He’s out there? Watching all this — watching us — and doing nothing because He’s teaching us a lesson?”

Jeeny: “I believe He’s watching and waiting. That’s different. Waiting for us to see the divine in each other instead of demanding it from the sky.”

Host:
A distant bell tolled somewhere outside, its sound low and mournful, each strike like a heartbeat fading into eternity.

Jack: “You talk like faith is some kind of art form.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. An unfinished one. Each generation adds a brushstroke, even through doubt. Especially through doubt.”

Jack: “So even disbelief serves God?”

Jeeny: “It does, if it’s honest. Even wrestling with faith keeps the conversation alive.”

Host:
The candle flame wavered again — a pulse of fragile life. Jeeny reached out, touched the edge of the pew, and whispered as if speaking to the flame itself.

Jeeny: “I think that’s what Eyring meant. That our lack of trust isn’t the tragedy — it’s the pattern. We repeat it because we forget that trust isn’t proof, it’s choice.”

Jack: (quietly) “Choice.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Trusting in what you can’t verify. Loving what you can’t explain. Hoping in what keeps disappointing you — and doing it anyway.”

Host:
Jack looked down at his hands. They trembled slightly — not with fear, but with the exhaustion of a man who’s been fighting shadows too long.

Jack: “And you call that strength?”

Jeeny: “I call it grace.”

Host:
The word lingered, fragile and luminous. Grace — the thing that doesn’t demand belief, only openness.

Jack stood slowly, turning toward her. His eyes were tired, but softer now, as if the fight had drained into reflection.

Jack: “Maybe the pattern never broke because we never stopped wanting control. We keep remaking God in our own image — conditional, transactional, human.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Trusting God isn’t about Him being reliable — it’s about us learning how to be.”

Host:
A single tear slipped down Jeeny’s cheek, catching the flicker of light. She didn’t wipe it away. It belonged there — a small, shining confession of her own imperfection.

Jack: “So maybe the real act of faith isn’t trusting that He’ll save us… but trusting that He hasn’t left.”

Jeeny: “And maybe He never will — even when we stop believing He’s here.”

Host:
Outside, the moon rose higher, silvering the edges of the chapel window. The last of the candles began to burn out, one by one, until only a single flame remained. It quivered — but it endured.

Jack reached forward and placed his hand near the light, feeling its small warmth against his palm.

Jack: “Strange. It’s almost too small to matter.”

Jeeny: “That’s faith. It looks small until you realize it’s the only thing keeping the dark from winning.”

Host:
Their eyes met — his full of reluctant wonder, hers shining with quiet mercy.

And for a long moment, the pattern that had haunted mankind — doubt, rebellion, distrust — seemed to falter, suspended in the fragile glow between them.

Then, as the last candle gave its final flicker, the light curved gently across their faces — and in that small, holy silence, both found something they hadn’t sought but somehow always carried:

not certainty,
but trust.

The night held still — the kind of stillness that feels like forgiveness.