So here I am, driving a pickup truck for the first time. I feel like a boy tagging along on “take your kid to work day,” and maybe that feeling is right: At the ripe age of 33 I have been given permission to be childishly curious again. Every day, everything I do is a first. First time using a cat’s paw. First time laying baseboard. First time demo-ing a kitchen. First time worrying if there will be a place at the job site for me to poop. It feels fun—and terrifying. When was the last time I let myself be the amateur in the room?

A crisis of faith is not like puberty: no one sits you down and tells you what to expect. That’s unfortunate because most of us will enter times of unraveling, when we wonder what will become of our walk with God. Lacking a frame for this kind of experience, we proceed with fear and trembling, braced for the worst, not knowing that there is beauty and goodness to be found. I’d like to pass along a few tools that have helped me to reconstruct my faith. I can’t map out the wild territory God is leading you into, but I can point out a few landmarks and landmines you’re likely to find along the way.

Having survived Y2K and come of age during the peak of the Left Behind series’ popularity, I am familiar with end-times musings. With these fictions and the very real advent of global warming and nuclear proliferation, our generation has never been far from the apocalypse. So yeah, I’ve thought about the end times. I’ve let my mind wander through some emergency scenarios, the same way I’ve pondered how to escape quicksand (lay back and float until you can grab a branch) or kill zombies (headshot, idiots). And yet, the Bible is not so glib.

It’s the end of a long day, and you need something. You need junk food. You need to jerk off. You need a joint. You need nachos, Netflix, a bottle of whiskey. You need.

Last week I was on my couch watching YouTube when the Verdict found me again. The comedian, a young woman, opens her standup routine by saying how terrible it is to be a straight woman in 2019. In her words, to love men is like going to a restaurant that keeps giving you food poisoning. “Turns out, boys, you’re no good. You’re no good.”