The Space Between Faith and Fear

I don’t know if I believe in God, but I still do the sign of the cross every time I drive past a church. It’s instinct now, a muscle memory handed down from my mother, who said it would protect me. Her voice echoes in my head every time I do it—soft, urgent, and a little weary. “You never know, cariño,” she used to say. “Better safe than sorry.”

She meant it, I think, both as comfort and as warning.

I was raised to believe in a God who was always watching, a God who could see every misstep, hear every unspoken thought. A God who could protect me or punish me.

There’s safety in that, I suppose.

Safety in knowing that the rules are clear, the boundaries sharp and well-marked. But it’s also suffocating, and somewhere along the way, I started to wonder if this God was watching at all.

The questions began slowly, slipping into the quiet spaces of my mind like water seeping through a crack. By the time I was in my twenties, the questions had turned into a flood. Did I pray because I believed or because I was afraid not to? Did I love this God or did I just fear the consequences of His absence?

Even now, with years of doubt behind me, I still can’t quite let go. I still do the sign of the cross. I still mutter half-formed prayers before long flights, before doctor’s appointments, before the results of a job interview or a phone call I’ve been dreading. It’s not faith exactly, it’s more like superstition. Or hope. And maybe hope is its own kind of faith.

When I was eight, I asked my mother why we had to go to Mass every Sunday. Her answer was practical, almost dismissive: “It’s just what we do.” She was ironing when I asked, her hands moving in precise, deliberate strokes over my father’s shirt. I remember the sharp hiss of steam as the iron pressed into the fabric. I don’t know why that moment stuck with me, but it did.

“It’s just what we do.”

That’s how religion felt for most of my childhood. Not a choice, not a belief system, but a set of habits. Lighting candles. Kneeling. Reciting prayers in unison, our voices rising and falling in the same familiar rhythm. It was comforting. But it was also hollow.

As I got older, I started to wonder if anyone else felt the same hollowness. I never asked. Maybe I was afraid of the answer.