A month ago I began questioning heaven and hell. I wondered about the questions, “Why would a loving God send so many people to hell for eternity?” and “What if God’s love is so big that he lets us choose between heaven and hell even after we die?”

God’s mercy endures forever. That means forever. This deeply troubled me when thinking about people going to hell. I began leaning on the other side of things. I was ready to believe God’s love really is so big that that he lets us choose between heaven and hell even after we die. I just couldn’t grasp the idea of a loving God sending any of his own creations to eternal torment. I started bringing it up in conversations and I either convinced them of the same thing or discovered that they already believed it.

I was scared about siding with this view though because I know many Christians who literally hate other Christians who side with this view. It blew my mind that one of the most loving views of God was the most hated.

I was coming to a discipleship/internship program at a church in OrangeCounty in a couple weeks and I was especially afraid of having this view around the people there. I already knew people who were strongly against this view who I was going to be around constantly so I knew it could be an issue.

The night before I left for the program I read a quote from Demosthenes that said “Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself; for what we wish, we readily believe.” Then I went to sleep and had a dream that changed everything.

In the dream I wanted to go to heaven/my parent’s bedroom. I knew in the dream that my parent’s bedroom symbolized heaven. I was in a hotel hallway and the door to the bedroom was a hotel door. It was about 3am and I was afraid of waking them so I kept opening the door to check inside and waiting for the right time to go in. In the dream I knew my mom had told me that I could go in and lay down if I wanted to.

I finally snuck in the pitch black bedroom and lay on the bed. My dad had left and my mom was on the phone with someone, getting ready for the day. My mom leaned on the bed and felt me with her arm and was startled. Once she realized it was me she left me alone and I fell asleep.

I woke up in the dream in the same hotel room bed I fell asleep in. I was being shaken awake by one of the women I used to go to church with. I was trying to stay asleep because I was peaceful in ‘heaven’. Staying asleep in the bed symbolized me staying in heaven. I knew that if she woke me up then I would have to really question whether I was really in heaven or not. I wanted to just stay asleep and pretend that it really was heaven.

She finally woke me up and I cried to her, “Do you know how traumatic it is to wake up not knowing if this was real or not!”

I stood up to see about seven of my friends waiting for me in the dark hotel kitchen lit by a single small kitchen light. I began crying to them saying “I don’t want to go back!” I didn’t want to admit it really wasn’t heaven because if I did then I would have to go back to Earth. I started listing all the terrible things I hated about Earth and why I didn’t want to go back to that.

They started trying to encourage me to leave by going along with pretending that it was heaven in kind of a reverse psychology way. They started saying “How else are you supposed to get other people here then? You’re still called to stay and get other people to get into heaven.”

Then they tried encouraging me by reminding me that my friends and family were supposed to buy me things before I left to the program. I told them “For me it’s not about the material though; it’s about the people!”

They said “Then you need to back then,” since they were saying I need to go back for other people and I was saying it’s about the people.

I said “But I have people here!” referring to them. “And I don’t know if heaven is even real!”

Then one friend sarcastically said “Well it obviously is since we’re having a conversation in heaven.”

That’s when I knew I couldn’t stay and live peacefully in this false heaven with the people I loved because it required pretending it was real and the people I brought didn’t believe it was real. And if they didn’t believe it was real I knew I had to face up to the truth sooner or later. Then the dream ended and I woke up.

This is how I interpreted it:

In the dream I was trying to create my own safe and personal heaven. I say safe because it was my parent’s bedroom and my parent’s bedroom represents safety. I say personal because I only had a few close friends there. If it was really heaven then everyone else (even people I didn’t know) would be there. Not even God was there.

And in my actual life I was also trying to create a safe and personal heaven; a heaven that even Hitler could get into. The people in the dream were telling me that I’m not seeing the bigger picture. I believe that’s what God was trying to tell me through the dream: I’m not seeing the bigger picture.

I do not have all the answers about heaven and hell and I still get uneasy around the people who think they do but what I do know is that my perspective is limited. For now I am fine with not having the answer. All I will be focused on now is this place. I was put here for a reason and I won’t take advantage of the time I have here by putting my energy into worrying about the afterlife.

Jesus prayed “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is what I’m interested in. This is all a part of my journey that is just beginning.