It's doubtful if there are many adults on earth today who do not know Mother Teresa. Her life of compassion and faith led to the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, and in my mind has no rival for Christian service in all the world. Before her death, she was in the news very often. And now, several years after her death, she is still in the news. According to Mark Phillips, a news reporter for CBS News, "It emerges that Mother Teresa was so doubtful of her own faith that she feared she was being a hypocrite."

I'm not surprised or hurt by such an announcement. Though not near of the renowned or servant hood of Mother Teresa, I know that a person of great faith is capable of witnessing things which raises doubts as to one's understanding of the presence, the nature and the reality of God. Can you imagine the horrors of which Mother Teresa witnessed daily in the many places in which she served? According to her letters, it was shortly after beginning work in Calcutta's slums that she began to have doubt about her faith. Such realities in her work there must have been enough to cast doubts on anyone's faith, especially faith in one's concepts of a loving, compassionate and merciful God. Only faith, doubtful as she was, could have sustained the loving, caring and merciful person Mother Teresa was, and the One on whom she relied. "God has made my heart faint, the Almighty has terrified me; for I'm hemmed in by darkness,and thick darkness covers my face" (Job 23:16-17).

At this point, we should look at two definitions of the word faith: (1)"a religion or a system of religious beliefs," (2) "complete trust, confidence or reliance" (Webster's New World Dictionary). Perhaps Mother Teresa's doubt involved the first definition, the creed but not the essence of which the creed speaks. Like the prophet Job who said, "Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand I seek him, but I cannot behold him; I turn to the right hand, but I cannot see him. But he knows the way that I take, and when he has tried me, I shall come forth as Gold" (Job 23:8- 10). That's Mother Teresa's kind of faith. Even though, "according to her letters," the reporter said, "she died with her doubts." Persons of a strong faith can be doubtful of his or her perception of truth and reality without "losing it." But persons who have truth in the bag are prone to mix faith with truth and not know the difference. Mother Teresa may have died with her doubts, but she lived within her faith. An e-mail to CBS makes this point well. "Mother Teresa's greatness did not come from lack of doubt, but from living the way she did even in the presence of those doubts."