Terror

 “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.”

—- Matthew 24:38-42

Fear. Absolute deep down bone chilling, hair raising fear. I just knew that I was going to be left behind. According to those books everyone was reading, the rapture was imminent. Any day now, you’d just be minding your own business and then boom, someone next to you would just vanish. Cars would careen out of control down the highway crashing and killing those poor unraptured souls who undoubtedly would be going straight to hell. This idea of rapture tormented me. Made worse by a popular play at the time “Heavens Gates, Hells Flames”. Seems like there was another play about people in a waiting room, waiting to be called to heaven. Those who are left are dragged violently into hell while strobe lights flash and teenagers dressed in black, drag the unfortunate souls into hell. It was like some kind of live action Dantes Inferno but without any real conviction. A sort of cheesy bible tract in theatrical form. But to a small boy it was absolutely terrifying. Upon witnessing that, my typical fears became even more entrenched and I couldn’t sleep through the night. My nightly ritual was to lie on my bed wide awake with the covers pulled around me and just my mouth sticking out enough to breath. I could feel the demons crawling around the edges of my bed. I knew if I looked up, some kind of gollum would be crouching in my room. I would stay there as long as I could stand and then jump up and run down the hall and knock on my mom and dads door (which was kept locked) and stand with my back to it so I could see clearly down the hall. 

 The idea of sinning so bad that the demons could drag you to hell haunted my mind. The first time I kissed a girl, I knew I was done for. I knew that doing those things before you were married was a sure way to get on Gods naughty list. So the first time that happened, I vividly remember blaming it on Satan. Not my raging hormones. Not the fact that I was a young boy going through puberty and I was curious. Nope, none of those things. It was obviously part of Satan’s diabolical scheme to get me to kiss that girl. And I did. And I cried bitter tears over it.

The big question in those days was “If you died tonight, do you know where you’d be spending eternity?” I always thought it was a little presumptuous to know the answer to that question. “If the rapture happened today, would you still be here?” That’s a lot for a 10 year old child to deal with. And at a certain point, you start feeling like you’re never gonna get to live your life. I remember crying over the fact that I probably wasn’t going to ever be given the chance to get married, have children or be any of the things I wanted to be. A person told me that Jesus was probably going to return in about five years. Well, that was when I was 13. So I just figured my life was over.