Chelsea woke in a cold sweat. Her boyfriend had been telling her about going to hell, and now his words were affecting her life in a way she didn’t understand and didn’t ask for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She got up to make a coffee. The fear grew less as her human existence and the waking reality of the real world once again dominated the landscape. Hell might just as well be fiction in the real world. Yet as she poured her coffee she still had this nagging sense of what if?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What if it really was a real place, and there really was a God who would send her there for eternity for offences that, in terms of the world, weren’t that bad? Everyone lies, steals, cheats, uses profanity, or has slept around. What did he say it was called \u2014 fornication. In fact, as far as human society went, it was even encouraged, like a rite of passage, or try-before-you-buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She tried to shrug off the impending doom that hung like a cloud over her mind. She didn’t need this, didn’t want it. Sometimes she wished her boyfriend would just shut up about it. But what if?<\/em> That same thought kept playing over and over in her brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She longed for distraction, but the kids were asleep and it was still too early to start the day. She picked up her phone and let her fingers scroll down the latest feeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was distracting but not satisfying. What if<\/em> wouldn’t go away. What was hell, anyway, she asked herself? She had heard a few variations \u2014 constant burning, separation from God, eternal torment. What even is that? Could your soul be tormented forever? What would happen to it, to her? She didn’t know, didn’t want to know. She drank the last of her coffee and went back to bed. Sleep was as elusive as the answers she sought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was God even real? She had been an atheist all her life and it worked for her. Whether they came from apes or were just a passing vapor in the cosmos, she didn’t know and it didn’t matter. You live, you die, the end of the story. She had accepted that, she thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why was she questioning it now? Was it just her boyfriend, or her uncle constantly telling her that God loved her when she was young? That was so annoying. She didn’t believe in God, so it didn’t matter whether he loved her or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as she sat with that thought of God’s existence and life, she began to realize that she deep down knew that it was true. Well, that something<\/em> existed, anyway. It took more faith to believe that her whole existence on earth was a little pointless. Even after having children, if she looked into the future she knew that one day they would die, and their kids would die, and so on and so on \u2014 and in the end, what’s the point? Scratch what joy she could get out of life? Grasp for experiences as though they were some kind of currency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fuck,<\/em> she yelled in her head. Just shut the fuck up and go to sleep.<\/em> She was pissed off. Partly because her boyfriend wouldn’t shut up about it, and partly because deep down she wanted God to be real, she realized. She wanted there to be a point to it all, to her existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She couldn’t entirely blame him for extending her understanding of reality. After all, he was trying to give her hope, not confusion or impending doom. The fear, the dread \u2014 they were hers. That’s what she brought to the table. He was only presenting the facts as he saw them, and it shouldn’t have been an issue. She could have shrugged it off as easily as her uncle saying God loves you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n So what changed? Why couldn’t she let it go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She couldn’t get it all in. The understanding she needed to make a decision was like a gap so wide she didn’t know how she could ever cross it. She didn’t read the Bible, didn’t even understand the language of it, or that of her boyfriend telling her about it using Christian words. Righteousness, redemption, sin \u2014 they all seemed like they belonged to another time, not the modern world. Relics of the passage of time, easy to shrug off from her modern life. But what if?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Before she realized it, the answer came like a bolt of lightning. She was screwed. That’s what if. If God was true, and he was going to have her review her life’s decisions, her thoughts and actions, then she was fucked. That’s what if.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She felt an injustice well up inside her. Well, who gives God the right to judge her? She didn’t ask to be born, or to have the life that she did. Almost as though God was at her right shoulder, she knew the answer just like she knew the what if.<\/em> Because he’s God, and is responsible for the creation of everything on earth. That alone gives him the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a brief moment she felt it was unfair, unjust \u2014 and yet she also felt that he had every reason and freedom to do anything he wanted with his creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had all the power, and she had none, except for this one thing. Accept him, or refuse him. That’s what she finally realized the what if<\/em> was bringing her to. It was like the door to the unknown, and it scared her more than she liked to admit. What would happen if she opened it? What would she find, and how would it affect her life afterward?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She tried to picture God in her mind. He appeared angry and far off. Dispassionate and uncaring. Her uncle’s words broke through the image like mist. God loves you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n How? Here she was worrying about God sending her to hell, and she’s supposed to believe God loved her? That doesn’t make sense. If he loved her, why doesn’t he just say that and forgive her anyway, so she didn’t have to be afraid of hell and judgment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the word Jesus<\/em> came to mind, and for the first time in her life she realized the truth. For God so loved the world that he sent his son to the world to die for it and all his creation, so whoever chooses him will never need to be afraid of hell, torment, or judgment. The price of their forgiveness has already been paid. They pass from judgment to life, completely free. Jesus took every punishment for every person for all eternity, and all she had to do was say yes. Yes to God, yes to Jesus, yes to whatever life he had to give her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That felt more scary, more imminent, and more present than the fear of going to hell. After all, that was a lifetime away, and this was asking something of her now. She couldn’t defer it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something her boyfriend said replayed in her mind: “Today, if you hear his voice, don’t harden your heart. Don’t refuse him.”<\/em> She pictured Jesus, his arms open wide to her, and she understood that God knew she was unable to do enough to make it right with him. She had nothing to give him. She could only go to him. The love in his eyes told her everything she needed to know about God’s love. He really didn’t want anyone to die or come into judgment. From beginning to end he had had his arms open to his creation, and they had refused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had, like everyone else, not lived up to the standard of goodness that God expected. She knew some parts were not her fault, but equally knew some things were. Deserving of death, though? I mean, she hadn’t killed anyone. Her boyfriend’s words cut into her. If you harbor hate in your heart toward someone, it’s still murder. They may not be physically dead, but it proves you have the same intent, and God judges the intentions of the heart just as deeply as the actions. The crime wasn’t just the action but the intent of heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She knew it was true, but she always felt if she was basically a good person, it would all balance out if she did more good than bad. But if we’re talking about thoughts, she knew she would fail to balance the scales \u2014 and as for her goodness, could she really say it was good and not motivated by self-interest?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What could she ever do to be good enough? How much longer would she leave him standing there with his arms open wide to her? Refuse the love he so wanted to give her? Why was she holding back?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She thought about her life, what she wanted to do with it, her autonomy, her life, damn it. She would have to hand over her life, and that’s what terrified her. It was that wall of separation between what she had now and what was on the other side of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could she really let it go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet his eyes held such promise, like an invitation. Come find out. Come and taste what I have for you. Come and see that I am good. I’m not asking you to trust me without reason, or to guess if I love you. Let me show you.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"