006 I When Faith Feels Fragile: How to Support Your Missionary Through Doubt

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• Why faith questions commonly emerge during or after missionary service
• How faith development frameworks can help normalize spiritual questioning without prescribing outcomes
• What strengthens connection—and what unintentionally creates distance—during belief differences
• How mothers can remain grounded in their own faith while honoring their child’s agency
• Why relationship safety matters more than certainty during seasons of spiritual change

Referenced Works & Frameworks:

• Brian D. McLaren, Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It A developmental framework describing how many people move through stages of faith, doubt, and reintegration, emphasizing compassion, humility, and integrity rather than fear or coercion.
• Patrick Q. Mason, Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt Explores how belief, doubt, and belonging interact in modern religious life, especially within the Latter-day Saint tradition, and why questions do not disqualify faith or devotion.
• David B. Ostler, Bridges: Ministering to Those Who Question Offers practical and relational guidance for supporting loved ones who question their faith, focusing on empathy, listening, and preserving connection over debate or correction.
• James W. Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning A foundational theory describing faith as a lifelong process of meaning-making and trust, rather than a fixed set of beliefs, helping normalize spiritual development across the lifespan.