I went to a funeral week before last. A man I had known my entire life died. I grew up with his daughters. The service was at the little Church of Christ I grew up attending. I had not set foot in there in several years. It looked exactly the same. I was filled with a flood of emotion, not only because of empathizing with his family but from being in the building and seeing people I had not seen in years. My first thoughts were that I kind of missed it. I missed the covered-dish dinners and fellowship. I missed some of the sweet and generous people there. I missed sitting in the building and admiring the craftsmanship of the wood in the room, work done with my grandfather's own hands. The next thoughts that came racing through my head were not good. I started remembering how preachers there would tell stories of hell and how easily your salvation could slip through your fingers. What if you're having inappropriate thoughts and entertaining those thoughts and you die suddenly? According to them you receive eternal torment. The way they verbally and dramatically pounded the fear of hell into our heads would have me awake all night - afraid to fall asleep. I remembered being a little girl who just sometimes would not sit still and quiet enough during services so we would go to the bathroom and I would get a spanking. Except they would leave the light off so it was pitch black in the room and they would tell me the devil was in there and he was happy I was misbehaving because that meant he could have me. All of those emotions came rushing back and I started crying. I'm sure everyone thought it was because of the man who had passed, but it wasn't. I knew that the only way I would ever go back there was for another funeral or a wedding. I was glad to be away from there. If any of those people there want to spend time with me it will have to be somewhere else. Now, I don't understand why people teach hell. For me, those times in that dark bathroom felt like hell. A loving, merciful creator would never create such a place or put his children there and turn away.
Thank you for letting me share. Putting these feelings down is like therapy.