Am I Going To Hell? (Questions People are Asking Us at the End – and Sometimes Throughout – Life)

Life can only be understood backwards. But it must be lived forwards.         Søren Kierkegaard

 Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.      Mother Teresa

We met the elderly man in his home. He was dying of lung cancer. The disease had progressed to a state that was no longer treatable. His eminent death, lurking any time, any moment, caused him to reflect deeply on his life. Hooked up to oxygen, between breaths, he wanted to ask something very personal, something which was keeping him up at night and breaking out in cold sweats during the day.

 Am I going to hell?

Curious, we asked the man why the question was weighing so heavily on his heart and mind (even though we knew his approaching death was a big part of the reason). He recited a litany of wrongs he had committed over his lifetime. He was genuinely worried that his hurtful and unfaithful actions would damn him to an eternal torment. Every time we saw him after that, he raised the same question, over and over. The concern clearly obsessed him.

 I so badly want God to prepare a place for me! Do you think he will?

Later that same day we met another woman whose husband had died suddenly under a cloud of ethical suspicion. She had this plaintive cry:

Is he in hell for what he did?

 She, like the man we had met earlier in the day, was restless and apprehensive over her loved one’s undecided future.

 The tears pouring down her anguished face drove home her overwhelming distress – that what she had learned all her life was that God will eternally punish those who do certain things. The thought that her husband might be cast into a fiery cauldron tormented her and only made the pain of his death all the more agonizing.

There is so much baggage associated with that question about an eternal hell.

Many of our friends and closest confidents, when hearing of our recent encounters, wondered how we have responded:

So what do you tell them?

 They really want to know, too. They want to know what happens to us because of the “immoral” things we (all) say and do in this life.

We tell them our response centers on this –

• First, it is neither our right nor privilege to be determining who should be damned and sent to an eternal punishment after they die. It is no human’s right or privilege to pronounce that kind of judgment.
• Second, the approach or aftermath of someone’s death is not the humane, compassionate or loving time to denounce or condemn the life of one who is dying or who has just died. That’s simply cruel and it prolongs the healing process.
• Third, we believe that God is loving, gracious, forgiving, understanding and wants nothing more than for us to live forever in peace. God is neither vindictive nor wants any of us to live in separation from that love, grace, understanding and peace. We offer the constant reminder that God prepares a place for all of us in the many “rooms” of eternity.

In moments of pain or regret or grief, there are very few of us who don’t feel fear or shame or despair. We already hurt, terribly. We know what we’ve done wrong. We are aware of the harsh realities of our lives. We don’t need others to point all that’s corrupt and to remind us of our flaws.

People live bound by chains enough as it is, looking back with humiliation and lament for our imperfect lives. We believe that, instead, we need to live for what is, today. It’s the only day we really have. Yesterday’s gone. Tomorrow hasn’t come; it possibly never will. But today is all that’s guaranteed.

The today’s we get are meant, we believe, to be lived simply in goodness and with love.

So, in those moments when others are scared or lonely or ashamed we simply try to offer them the comfort they need, to help enable their today’s to be a little better. We remind them that no matter what, they are loved by a Creator who wants only the very best for them and who wants to show them that it can be better by living in response to that love.

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. (2 Corinthians 1:4)

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash