My daughter is dipping her toes into sacred waters, seeing what it feels like to surrender and finding a sense of meaning to life that is bigger than herself

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

My teenager has decided to believe in God. She bought herself a silver cross pendant and has begun wearing it every day.

When I was a teenager, I also wore a cross around my neck, and I also believed in God. I had been raised as a churchgoing, tithe-paying Catholic but, as I hit puberty, my faith became more than cultural. It became deeply personal, with the full spectrum of emotions which characterise first love.

Jackie Bailey is the author of The Eulogy, winner of the 2023 NSW Premier’s literary multicultural award. When she is not writing, Jackie is helping families to navigate death and dying. She is an ordained interfaith minister with a master of theology and is working on a nonfiction book about spirituality in a post-religious world