WHO'S UP FOR SOME HELL RAISING?

Watch out. I have been in a real mood the last couple weeks.

I am not going to go to Hell. Except for that part about I AM going to Hell on a one-way speeding bullet. Hell, I am already in the line for getting into Hell and I can see the velvet ropes. The last time the bouncer demons opened up the Gates Of Hell they spotted me and I heard one of them yell: “Oh, Fuck! Satan! Pansy is out there and when SHE gets in Hell it’ll fill the whole fucking place up. Godammit.” Now, I know with some of you out there, well, we’re going to have to fight over who actually gets to go into Hell first. I know it will be me because I am elderly and feeble and you’ll cheat and fake me out and pull some trick hot jukey moves on me, which will make me stumble and plunge headfirst into the inferno. Don’t worry. I’ll keep the light on for ya!

But, wait a minute. Didn’t I say up there something about I ain’t going to Hell? Yep. Because I am “saved”. Yes, I are too! And because I am not totally stupid, I will agree that merely having been born hopelessly white in the United States Of America By God in whom we trust just about automatically guaranteed I would be raised, or at least exposed to, Christian teachings. No, not the Catholic priest kind of exposure! I will always have great and wonderful memories of Easter Morning sunrise services on the beach of the Texas Gulf Coast. I went to church every week until my senior year in high school. But I never really “got” religion. I still don’t got religion. I am just saved.

When I started a new job and met my Very Most Christian Friend who, upon first spying me, said “Would you like to go to a Bible study class at lunch?” I should have suspected something. I went and and my hands magically knew where to find any and all Bible verses we studied. I remembered all the names of the Bible people. My gracefulness was amazing.

Years earlier I had exorcised my childhood through secular counseling. But I had never grappled with or resolved the issue of “forgiveness” of those who had wronged me. I knew I had made a life-altering decision in that first lunch hour Bible study. Still, it took over a year but one day I realized I could and wanted to forgive. In person. So I did. I had to literally pull over halfway through the drive to pray for strength and for the words I wanted to say.

My thoughts are that one’s God/Higher Power is the best father/parent a person could ever hope to have. A father who forgives and forgets every bad thing you have ever done. You are made new and all the old is gone. Literally gone. Never happened! If God (Christian) can forgive a wretch like Paul (the apostle) and murderers and even ME, PANSY…………how can I not likewise forgive another person’s terribleness? Not to God’s level of forgiveness. But me thinking that someone else’s sins are unforgiveable due to them being unworthy of forgiveness is the height of arrogance. Yes, arrogance.

After all, what makes MY sins so special as to warrant God’s forgiveness? Aren’t I just as despicable and unworthy? And because MY sins are forgiveable, everyone’s sins are forgiveable. For humans (at least me, anyway) to be able to forgive does require the Hand of God, however. And there have been and always will be many a moment when I want to retract/take back my forgiveness. Or at the very least, I feel angry and unforgiving. But, luckily, just like accepting Jesus into my heart , I cannot unforgive. My angry thoughts/feelings do not undo my forgiveness. They are just my human feelings.

It took me becoming a parent to find the courage and then 2 years and 10 months of scorched earth counseling to begin the real and final healing. I could not do it for my unworthy self but by God I could and would and did do it for my children. And, yes, things did get extremely way worse before they got better during the counseling. But everyone involved did not go running off a cliff (though if some had, good riddance), the world did not come to an end. What happened was: the world got refracted through the prism of truth.

It took many more years to want to extend my forgiveness. And certainly only after those lunchtime Bible studies helped me to seriously ask Jesus into my heart. I don’t pretend to understand “correct theology” but I also don’t worry about it a lot. I grasp the basic concepts and I am happy to leave the details to God to sort out. Oh, dear. That sounds like some military bumper sticker slogan! Hahahhahahahha!

I don’t know how or even if prayer works but it is a good way to give something over to God. What I am sure of is that literally lifting my burdens up to God works completely for me. I actually feel my muscles pushing stuff up there. I don’t pray for a specific outcome or result. I agree to accept that what happens will be okay. And then I step off into the abyss. So far, so good.

I am just glad so much of my spiritual work got started/done before cancer. I hate to think what a mess I would be if that groundwork had not already happened. The best part is, I lost my “scorn”. Scorn is a very powerful and destructive thing. My best example of lost scorn is this:

There is a bumper sticker that says “Christians are not perfect; just forgiven.” I used to really sneer at that. When I changed sides, so to speak, I realized that phrase says it all. I will continue to sin. I will never be perfect. But I know God is working on me even if it is really starting to piss Him off.

When my counseling concluded I had the epiphany of “I can die now” because I realized I was now through the fires of counseling and confrontation, etc. And believe you me, them fires was as hot as anything that sissy-ass Hell has to offer. I even found a fine sweater with “1986” knitted into it. Obviously made just for me by some slave labor factory child in China via JC Penney. I bought the sweater so that I would never forget that 1986 was when I moved on. As if it could remotely slip my mind!

Sorry (not) if I’ve exploded a few Christian heads here. But that’s just a party bonus! Hahahahhahaha!


NOTE TO SELF: Don’t ever say “I can die now” again. Hahahahahhahha!

I WARNED YOU I HAVE BEEN IN A MOOD OVER HERE.