All Pentecostals Go to Heaven

My mother had a special weeping closet. When I was a small child, this was where I would watch her cry for her lost family members. When my aunt backslid, left the church, my mother wept for days. I watched her face crease with anguish and knew she was in physical pain at the thought of her sweet sister burning alive forever. This was where I was first truly afraid. Everything good in life dangles over a precipice of torture, mutilation, agony. It is real. It is permanent. Aunt Jessa will have the skin ripped off her face and will sob and cry and no one will save her. Heaven may make you forget but, here, on earth, you always know.

Falling asleep was a Russian roulette of nightmares for the first 19 years of my life. In my dreams, my loved ones faces would morph into scaled, melted demonic masks. Their voices would deepen. I would know that there was no way out. I would scream at the demons to flee in the name of Jesus. They never did. I knew this meant that I did not have enough faith. My emotions were not right. Demons know when you are not right. That is when they get you. God knows when you are not right. Invoking his name will not work then. This is why I suffered. It was my own fault.

Waking up was a relief. I could then begin the process of prayer, bible reading, and weeping. This would help atone for my sins of not loving Him enough. What to do once this was done? Something fun? Something I would enjoy? When you are in this situation, ask yourself this: Is there something that you could be doing that would honor God more instead? If the answer to the second question is yes, abandon what you wanted to do and pray some more. Repeat.

God is a god of joy, not fear or sadness. Stop feeling afraid. Stop feeling sad. God always blesses the sincere. If you don't feel his joy, you are not sincere. This is when you know you need to pray more. The demons are probably already feeding on you. God would help you if you did not secretly resent him for your own failures. Forgiveness may be endless but sin is not without consequence. Stop. Feeling. Wrong.

Thoughts are dangerous. What did Aunt Jessa do wrong does the idea of eternal torture make any kind of sense how is this defensible to anyone his ways are greater than ours you can never fully understand God don't be deceived don't let Satan take your faith you will lose your family you will lose your friends you will lose your community you will lose your place in heaven don't lose faith don't lose faith don't lose faith don't lose faith don't lose faith don't lose faith.

Ten years ago today I sat in a college hallway and I cried over my faith for the last time. This time, I sobbed with raw, visceral relief. An invisible house had been lifted off my shoulders. I gasped in the first free air I had ever breathed. It was gone. It was all gone. Nothing in my life had ever come close to this delirious bliss. Nothing has since. Demons vanished. My guilt vanished. I got up off of my belly. Never again.

I lost faith that day. I lost heaven. I lost the assurance of immortality. I think about that sometimes.

On the other hand, Aunt Jessa is going to be just fine.