I remember when prayer felt like conversation.

Not hope whispered into silence. Not words offered to uncertainty. Actual conversation with someone who listened, who answered, who was as real as my father sitting across the breakfast table.

I was seven. God was everywhere. Faith was easy.

Now I’m forty-three. And I don’t know what I believe anymore.

My son asked me to pray with him last night.

Simple prayer. Thanking God for the day, asking for protection through the night. The kind of prayer I used to say without thinking.

But I hesitated. What was I teaching him? To talk to someone who might not be listening? To trust promises that might not be kept?

“Dad?” He was waiting.

I prayed. For his sake. But the words felt hollow in ways they never did when I was his age.

My wife noticed I’ve stopped going to the mosque for Jummah.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“Since when?”

Since always, maybe. Since I started asking questions that didn’t have comfortable answers. Since I learned that good people suffer and evil people prosper. Since prayers went unanswered and tragedies went unexplained.

Since faith became complicated.

I remember my grandfather’s faith. Pure, unquestioning, simple.

He prayed five times a day without fail. Read Quran every morning after Fajr. Never missed a single salah. Believed without doubt. His faith was a rock—solid, unmovable, certain.

“How do you know Allah is real?” I asked him once, maybe fifteen years ago.

“I know,” he said. “The way you know the sun is real. You feel it.”

I used to feel it too. That certainty. That presence.

Now I just feel empty.

My therapist says I’m grieving.

“Grieving what?”

“The loss of certainty. The simple faith you remember having. It’s a real loss.”

“But maybe that faith was never real. Maybe it was just ignorance. Childhood naiveté before I knew better.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it was a different kind of knowing. One that complexity obscures rather than clarifies.”

I started reading about faith and doubt. Turns out I’m not alone.

Countless people who grew up believing, who felt God’s presence as clearly as morning light, who prayed with confidence that someone listened—all of us arriving at the same crisis.

The questions that complicated everything:

Why do children suffer? Why do prayers go unanswered? Why does science explain what we attributed to God? Why do other religions claim the same exclusive truth? Why does the universe seem indifferent to human suffering?

Questions my childhood faith never had to answer because I never thought to ask them.

My father called last week.

“Your mother says you’re struggling with faith.”

“I don’t know if I believe anymore, Dad.”

Silence. Then: “I went through that. In my thirties. Lost everything for a while.”

“You did? You never told me.”

“Wasn’t easy to talk about. Everyone expected me to have answers. But I didn’t. I had questions. Doubt. Anger at God, which felt ridiculous because I wasn’t sure God existed.”

“What changed?”

“Nothing dramatic. Just… time. Different kind of faith. Less certain, maybe. But more honest.”

I tried going back to how I used to pray. Simple, direct, assuming God was listening.

It felt like talking to myself. Or worse, like performing for an empty room.

The innocence was gone. The simplicity felt like pretending.

I couldn’t unknow what I knew. Couldn’t unfeel what I’d felt. Couldn’t go back to childhood faith any more than I could go back to childhood.

My son prayed tonight: “Thank you God for my family and my toys and my school and please help the sad people feel better.”

Simple. Direct. Confident someone was listening.

I envied him. That certainty. That simple trust.

But I also knew: one day he’d have questions too. And I’d have to decide what to tell him.

My wife and I talked about this.

“Do you still believe?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. Not the way I used to. But maybe in a different way.”

“What way?”

“Less about certainty, more about trust. Less about having answers, more about living with questions.”

“That doesn’t sound like faith.”

“Maybe faith isn’t what we thought it was. Maybe it’s not certainty. Maybe it’s showing up anyway, even when you’re not sure. Praying even when you don’t know if anyone’s listening. Choosing hope even when you have doubts.”

I met with an imam last week. Told him I was losing faith.

He surprised me: “Good.”

“Good?”

“The faith you’re losing needed to be lost. Childhood faith is beautiful but it’s not built to last. It’s a foundation, not a finished house.”

“So what am I building?”

“Adult faith. More complicated, less certain, but potentially deeper. The kind that can hold doubt and mystery without collapsing.”

“What if I can’t get there? What if I just… stop believing?”

“That’s a risk. But it’s also honest. Better honest doubt than false certainty.”

Here’s what I’m learning: I can’t go back to simple faith.

The questions exist. The complexity is real. The innocence is gone.

But maybe that’s okay.

Maybe faith isn’t supposed to be simple. Maybe the nostalgia I feel for childhood belief is really nostalgia for childhood ignorance.

Maybe real faith—adult faith—has to grapple with complexity. Has to hold doubt alongside hope. Has to pray into silence and trust without certainty.

Last night, I prayed. Not like I did as a child. Not with confidence that someone was listening. Just… prayed.

“I don’t know if you’re there. I don’t know if this means anything. But I’m here. And I’m trying.”

No answer came. No presence felt. No certainty returned.

But something shifted. Some small opening. Some possibility that faith might not require the certainty I’m nostalgic for.

My son asked me this morning: “Dad, do you believe in God?”

The question I’d been dreading. The answer I didn’t have.

“I’m trying to,” I said honestly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t have the simple faith I used to have. But I’m learning that maybe faith isn’t supposed to be simple.”

“Is it okay to have questions?”

“I think it has to be. Otherwise faith is just pretending.”

He thought about this. “I have questions too sometimes.”

“That’s good. Questions mean you’re thinking. And maybe thinking is part of faith too.”

I’m not back to believing yet. Maybe I never will be, not the way I remember.

But I’m learning to hold the complexity. To pray without certainty. To trust without answers. To hope without guarantees.

It’s not the simple faith I’m nostalgic for.

But maybe it’s more honest.

Maybe it’s stronger.

Maybe it’s the only kind of faith that can survive reality.

Tonight, I’ll pray with my son again.

Not performing certainty I don’t feel. Not pretending I have answers I don’t have.

Just being present. Being honest. Being open to whatever comes.

The morning sunlight of childhood faith is gone.

But maybe there’s a different light. Harder to see, harder to trust, but real in a way I’m only beginning to understand.

Not the faith I remember.

But the faith I’m learning.