Emily Parker spoke with author Andrea Lucado about her new book English Lessons, what it was like growing up as a pastor's kid and how to handle doubt.

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That was one of those things that really stuck out. Also, seeing my friends who hadn't been raised in any sort of religious context or home, and wondering for myself, if I hadn't been raised in this, would I still believe in it? I did get to have some interesting conversations, and those things would rattle me a lot while I was there.

I can look back on them now and be grateful for them, but at the time I was really frustrated and doing a lot of journaling and thinking and asking God, and trying to pray about what was happening in those conversations.

Emily: You quote Oswald Chambers in your book, 'Always make a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly, to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study.' What is your understanding of this quote and how have you seen that work out in your life?

Andrea: I love that quote! I remember when I came across that, I felt yes, this really summarises what happened in Oxford and also what's happened for me in my religious faith since Oxford.

You can be spoon fed beliefs and you can be spoon fed things, but you are not going to truly believe that until you have grappled with it yourself. I compare it to being in a dark room and having to find your way through; you have to hold on to objects like the table and the lamp and the door, to really know it and to know where you are and how to get through, but in doing that you can grasp your own beliefs even better.

It's a painful process, the suffering part, because that can mean letting go of old beliefs that you no longer believe anymore. The studying part, if it's Christianity, is through studying the Bible, or maybe having conversations like I did with friends.

Then eventually if you allow yourself to go through that suffering and go through that study, you will get to a place where you have a deeper, stronger belief in something. For some people that can mean letting go of faith entirely. I saw that in my friend Ben, and I've seen that in people. I came out the opposite direction for whatever reason, but at least they're living honest lives rather than pretending to believe in something that you don't.

Emily: You use this really great analogy in the book about how beliefs and morals and convictions are a bit like ice cubes in our hands. You say that if we hold them too tightly, if we bury them in our palms and wrap our fingers around them that they melt. What have you found have been some of the hardest lessons that you've learnt and how have you learnt to not try and control these things?

Andrea: One of the beliefs that I came away with, from having 18 years of growing up in the church, was that everyone else, if they were around me enough, would also want to be Christians, because they would see what sort of life I was living, or they would see how nice I was, or they would see how loving I was. What I learned from my friends in Oxford, was that they totally accepted what I believed and appreciated it, but they didn't want it for themselves. They had found a peace for themselves in something else. I had to let go of this idea that I'm going to be some sort of magnet for people who don't believe in Jesus, or don't believe in Christianity. I really wasn't. I think maybe occasionally I was off-putting, and I think for the most part people were indifferent towards my beliefs; they didn't really care.

I found myself desperately trying to believe. I think that was a lot of when I felt myself holding on to those ice cubes, trying to force myself to believe in something by reading certain books, and I went to an apologetics lecture by an apologist named John Lennox. I was desperately trying to get the knowledge and the facts and hold on to those things, but that's not ultimately what helped me have faith. It was ultimately holding those things with open hands and saying, "This could not be true. I could be wrong about this. What's gonna happen now?" Almost giving myself permission. That actually led to my having a deeper faith.

Emily: So if somebody is asking some of these big questions and trying to hold things too tightly, or can relate to some of those things you've just said, what advice would you give to them?

Andrea: Give yourself permission to be having the doubts that you're having. A part of that holding on too tight is that we can be pushing away the doubts as much as we can, and pretending that they're not there. That doesn't help, because those doubts will come up at a different point in life.

The questions I was asking myself in Oxford were questions I had always had. I had just never really given myself permission to ask them. So I would say, let yourself be where you are, and address where you are, and those questions and give yourself that permission. Then maybe from that place of release and surrender to whatever you're holding on to and grasping, from there you'll have more of an open mind and an open heart that will move you toward whatever direction you're meant to go in your journey of faith, or religion, or whatever it is you're struggling with.

Emily: We live in a world where there are lots of voices telling us what to believe. How have you managed to decipher which voices are the right ones and which ones are the wrong ones to listen to?