Several years ago, Teena L. Myers picked up a copy of Pamela Ewen's Faith on Trial at the Louisiana Book Festival and developed a friendship with the author that gave her insight into Ewen's journey from faith to agnosticism and back to faith again through decades of research and investigation. Myers published an article on nola.com last week detailing Ewen's fascinating story:

Many years elapsed before a thought slipped into Pamela's consciousness and refused to leave. What is the meaning of life if this is all there is? She loved the practice of law, the problem solving, traveling, and working with people she admired her partnership in a large international law firm required. But her success could not quiet the question that distracted her in noisy, crowded conference rooms and pursued her as she ran through airports to catch a plane. She was able to dismiss the unanswerable question until her father died. The idea that death was the end and her father nothing more than dust tormented her.

"One day I gazed at the bookshelves in my office filled with thick, gold embossed leather binders, each one representing months, even years, of my life. One by one, I took them down and checked the dates. Suddenly, I realized everything that I'd accomplished as a lawyer was temporary—concerns that drove these deals would abate, become outdated. Contracts would be modified, terminated, replaced with new agreements to be negotiated and written by new lawyers. Goals would change. Friends, partners, and clients would come and go. As Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes 2:11, 'Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless ...'"

You can check out the rest of the article on nola.com.