The reason I share this, is not for me, but my desire for more for you, than for myself. I give you the only thing I have, which is my story.
Many believe that hell is permanent separation from God—meaning you simply no longer exist. For those who have truly suffered, not existing for eternity doesn’t sound that bad.
To live is to suffer, and to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. That is what I’ve read, what I’ve heard countless times, and what I’ve fought to believe. Yet the weight of my circumstances threatens to suffocate me. Deep inside, I feel as though I’m speaking into a great silence—begging for something, not sure if I’m even asking for the right thing.
Where does the story begin? Well, Scripture teaches that God knows the precise moment of every single death without necessarily causing it. At the same time, those same texts speak of a divine hand guiding—or even predestining—when our end will come. If I take both ideas at face value, I’m forced to consider two heart-wrenching conclusions:
1. God foresaw that I would end the life of my sibling and chose not to intervene.
2. I myself was the instrument of His will, fulfilling a decree I can’t possibly comprehend.
Either possibility is hard to stomach. On the one hand, why would a holy God allow me to do something so monstrous when He could have stopped it? On the other, was I unknowingly acting out a tragic part in some grand tapestry of fate?
But it doesn’t end with my sibling’s death. By all rights, the same flames should have claimed me, too. There was a moment during that incident, when I nearly passed from this world with her. The warmth I felt in that near-death moment was so inviting, so free of pain, that returning to my flesh covered in burns felt worse than descending into a void. But somehow, I believed that even if God was pulling me back into a harsh reality, maybe just wanting deliverance—longing for it—was itself part of the journey. It’s as though the very act of wanting is the prayer, whether or not the gift arrives.
Now, either my rescuer happened upon me by sheer coincidence, or God deliberately placed him there. If I had died back then—as an unaccountable child—I would have gone on to eternal rest, then heaven. Instead, my life was preserved, and I was left to navigate a cold reality of remorse, subject to the temptations of satan, fighting to keep faith and possibility of hell. The world feels like an endless corridor of fire, but somehow, I force myself to step forward, as though I have no choice but to walk through it.
The moment I drew that next breath, I was forced to abandon the innocent eternity I might have known. And so I wonder: did God preserve me so He could later bless me? What possible future blessing could outweigh the gift of being sheltered from suffering altogether? In saving me, God must have known a part of me would spend each day aware of the trauma I had caused to those around me, wishing I hadn’t survived. It’s a cruel twist—an inescapable tension between divine will and human pain—that leaves me asking whether nonexistence might actually be a mercy compared to the burden of guilt and sorrow I’m left to bear.
Yet in another sense, perhaps the reason God spared me goes beyond me alone. Just as He sent His Son, Jesus, from the perfection of heaven to the brokenness of earth—“hell,” relatively speaking— to drink from the cup of Gods wrath in full strength. He might have returned me from the very gates of heaven for a higher purpose.
I’ve encountered death many times, but no death is more harrowing than a child’s—a life brimming with promise, cut short. When a child dies, a part of the parents dies, too. It’s as if a piece of their heart is ripped away and never returned. For my family, that gaping hole turned into an all-consuming darkness. They got caught in a tangle of fury and desperation, their grief so overwhelming it scared them into withdrawal. When you’re terrified of losing someone else, sometimes you cling tighter—but other times, you shut down completely. And that cold distance scars everyone left behind.
In my home, they turned this distance on me. Maybe they believed that if they never let themselves love so deeply again, they could avoid the agony of losing another child. But grief doesn’t work that way. Where there should have been warmth, I felt walls. Their heartbreak left them unrecognizable—Anger and Addiction were like companions they embraced instead of me. But I only saw it for what it was years later: a protective instinct so powerful it destroyed the very bond it was trying to preserve.
And I? I watched it all happen, knowing I was the one who lit the fatal flame.
I didn’t mean to do it. But still, it happened. No matter how many times I replay that moment—fantasizing about stepping in a second earlier—I can’t undo it. Even in my most desperate pleas to a Higher Power, I sense a silent question: if my fate is to walk this road, can I accept it? Do I have the strength to stay true to myself, no matter how searing the guilt?
Then comes the echo in my mind: Part of the grieving process is finding justice.
But what happens when justice can’t be found? When the scales never balance, and no restitution is possible for a life so abruptly stolen? The grief lingers like a dull, insistent ache, denying me the closure I so badly need.
Grief is love with nowhere to go. To this day, I ache with a love I can’t give to my lost sibling, and the ache stays bound to my sorrow. This endless cycle feeds on itself—a reminder that sometimes, in fear of more pain, people pull away and leave those who remain feeling more alone than ever.
For me, that isolation blurred the lines between what was real and what was only a twisted projection of my guilt. I landed somewhere between psychotic and iconic, between “I want it” and “I got it,” blindly seeking out people destined to reject me. In their coldness, I found the only truth I believed I deserved. Sometimes, I wish I had known that pushing away can be as destructive as any other form of grief—that the caregiver’s absence can shape a child’s future just as much as the love that was withheld. But by the time I realized, it was too late to erase the damage. All I can do is keep walking, forever haunted by the bond that broke under the weight of a child’s death.
Tempered by my reality, I normalized giving love without accepting any in return, believing, in that way, it could never be taken away from me. Yet all the while, I wrestled with the feeling that if this was a test, I was destined to fail. That if my life was doomed to pain, maybe I was better off embracing the fire than hoping for shelter from it. And so, in a moment of desperation, I did the one thing I vowed never to do: I handed over my soul to the devil, convinced that if darkness was all I knew, maybe submitting to it would finally bring relief.
Ironically, even as I walked this dark path, He continued to extend blessings throughout my life. I traveled the world, saw many countries, indulged in luxuries like a king, and found unexpected mercy in the midst of my sins—yet I discovered it was all empty in the end. All I longed for was eternal rest until resurrected for heaven, falling with my face to the ground and praying, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. What do awards and letters following a name mean, when you can’t give love to someone who’s passed? No amount of success could buy me a clean conscience, and every celebration felt hollow. It was like constantly speaking into the void, asking for something I couldn’t name, uncertain if I deserved to receive it.
Reconciling what I thought was silence from Jesus and being forsaken, I turned to Buddha for meaning in my suffering. It meant that everything in my life was a consequence of karma, and the meaning of my suffering was enlightenment. That I had endured so much that I was destined to achieve nirvana, a peace without will. But even then, a quiet voice asked if there was a Creator behind it all, one who might want me to keep pressing forward despite my flaws. Over time, I couldn’t deny the pull of Jesus—One who loves, heals and redeems and wants me to draw near to Him, whether I’m lost or found.
Now I’m left in the tension between faith and despair:
- Faith, which murmurs that even my darkest deeds can be woven into a greater plan for good.
- Despair, which warns I might be doomed, too broken to walk a narrow path still paved with sorrow.
For the moment, I linger in that fragile space between faith and despair, praying that somewhere within my suffering lies a truth profound enough to save me. Yet if my purpose now is to create disciples, how can I lead other souls to eternal life when my own spirit barely finds the strength to go on? Sometimes I think: if I keep it authentic, if I own both my failures and my hopes, maybe that’s all I can do—maybe that’s enough to point someone else in the right direction.
I know what Solomon meant when he said, “And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.” God has commanded me not to complain; therefore, I gather up my pain and endure it in silence. In this quiet acceptance, I wait—hoping that one day this burden of suffering will illuminate a path forward, for both myself and those I am called to guide.
I look at Jesus, remembering how He was sent from the perfection of heaven to a broken world. In a smaller, human way, I realize that I, too, was sent back—pulled from the brink of heaven’s gates to endure an existence of pain. Not because God delights in suffering, but because through my wounds, I might help others find their way toward hope. It’s a daunting calling, one that seems impossible given my faults. Yet if God trusted me enough to place me back here, then maybe—somehow—He believes I can bear it. And so I cling to His promise, believing that I was spared to help save souls, just as Jesus once suffered to save us all.
In the end, I come back to that trembling conversation in my heart: whether I’m wrong or right, I keep speaking. I keep wanting something—mercy, clarity, purpose—even if I don’t know how or when it will come. If this path is filled with fire, then I will walk it, trusting that simply wanting a better way might itself be the prayer that carries me through. May your pain, whatever it is, transform you, and not break you. Trust in Gods plan, while it might not make sense and seem cruel, His ways are eternal and higher than the temporal. May you know that to our father in heaven you are very special.
Many believe that hell is permanent separation from God—meaning you simply no longer exist. For those who have truly suffered, not existing for eternity doesn’t sound that bad.
To live is to suffer, and to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. That is what I’ve read, what I’ve heard countless times, and what I’ve fought to believe. Yet the weight of my circumstances threatens to suffocate me. Deep inside, I feel as though I’m speaking into a great silence—begging for something, not sure if I’m even asking for the right thing.
Where does the story begin? Well, Scripture teaches that God knows the precise moment of every single death without necessarily causing it. At the same time, those same texts speak of a divine hand guiding—or even predestining—when our end will come. If I take both ideas at face value, I’m forced to consider two heart-wrenching conclusions:
1. God foresaw that I would end the life of my sibling and chose not to intervene.
2. I myself was the instrument of His will, fulfilling a decree I can’t possibly comprehend.
Either possibility is hard to stomach. On the one hand, why would a holy God allow me to do something so monstrous when He could have stopped it? On the other, was I unknowingly acting out a tragic part in some grand tapestry of fate?
But it doesn’t end with my sibling’s death. By all rights, the same flames should have claimed me, too. There was a moment during that incident, when I nearly passed from this world with her. The warmth I felt in that near-death moment was so inviting, so free of pain, that returning to my flesh covered in burns felt worse than descending into a void. But somehow, I believed that even if God was pulling me back into a harsh reality, maybe just wanting deliverance—longing for it—was itself part of the journey. It’s as though the very act of wanting is the prayer, whether or not the gift arrives.
Now, either my rescuer happened upon me by sheer coincidence, or God deliberately placed him there. If I had died back then—as an unaccountable child—I would have gone on to eternal rest, then heaven. Instead, my life was preserved, and I was left to navigate a cold reality of remorse, subject to the temptations of satan, fighting to keep faith and possibility of hell. The world feels like an endless corridor of fire, but somehow, I force myself to step forward, as though I have no choice but to walk through it.
The moment I drew that next breath, I was forced to abandon the innocent eternity I might have known. And so I wonder: did God preserve me so He could later bless me? What possible future blessing could outweigh the gift of being sheltered from suffering altogether? In saving me, God must have known a part of me would spend each day aware of the trauma I had caused to those around me, wishing I hadn’t survived. It’s a cruel twist—an inescapable tension between divine will and human pain—that leaves me asking whether nonexistence might actually be a mercy compared to the burden of guilt and sorrow I’m left to bear.
Yet in another sense, perhaps the reason God spared me goes beyond me alone. Just as He sent His Son, Jesus, from the perfection of heaven to the brokenness of earth—“hell,” relatively speaking— to drink from the cup of Gods wrath in full strength. He might have returned me from the very gates of heaven for a higher purpose.
I’ve encountered death many times, but no death is more harrowing than a child’s—a life brimming with promise, cut short. When a child dies, a part of the parents dies, too. It’s as if a piece of their heart is ripped away and never returned. For my family, that gaping hole turned into an all-consuming darkness. They got caught in a tangle of fury and desperation, their grief so overwhelming it scared them into withdrawal. When you’re terrified of losing someone else, sometimes you cling tighter—but other times, you shut down completely. And that cold distance scars everyone left behind.
In my home, they turned this distance on me. Maybe they believed that if they never let themselves love so deeply again, they could avoid the agony of losing another child. But grief doesn’t work that way. Where there should have been warmth, I felt walls. Their heartbreak left them unrecognizable—Anger and Addiction were like companions they embraced instead of me. But I only saw it for what it was years later: a protective instinct so powerful it destroyed the very bond it was trying to preserve.
And I? I watched it all happen, knowing I was the one who lit the fatal flame.
I didn’t mean to do it. But still, it happened. No matter how many times I replay that moment—fantasizing about stepping in a second earlier—I can’t undo it. Even in my most desperate pleas to a Higher Power, I sense a silent question: if my fate is to walk this road, can I accept it? Do I have the strength to stay true to myself, no matter how searing the guilt?
Then comes the echo in my mind: Part of the grieving process is finding justice.
But what happens when justice can’t be found? When the scales never balance, and no restitution is possible for a life so abruptly stolen? The grief lingers like a dull, insistent ache, denying me the closure I so badly need.
Grief is love with nowhere to go. To this day, I ache with a love I can’t give to my lost sibling, and the ache stays bound to my sorrow. This endless cycle feeds on itself—a reminder that sometimes, in fear of more pain, people pull away and leave those who remain feeling more alone than ever.
For me, that isolation blurred the lines between what was real and what was only a twisted projection of my guilt. I landed somewhere between psychotic and iconic, between “I want it” and “I got it,” blindly seeking out people destined to reject me. In their coldness, I found the only truth I believed I deserved. Sometimes, I wish I had known that pushing away can be as destructive as any other form of grief—that the caregiver’s absence can shape a child’s future just as much as the love that was withheld. But by the time I realized, it was too late to erase the damage. All I can do is keep walking, forever haunted by the bond that broke under the weight of a child’s death.
Tempered by my reality, I normalized giving love without accepting any in return, believing, in that way, it could never be taken away from me. Yet all the while, I wrestled with the feeling that if this was a test, I was destined to fail. That if my life was doomed to pain, maybe I was better off embracing the fire than hoping for shelter from it. And so, in a moment of desperation, I did the one thing I vowed never to do: I handed over my soul to the devil, convinced that if darkness was all I knew, maybe submitting to it would finally bring relief.
Ironically, even as I walked this dark path, He continued to extend blessings throughout my life. I traveled the world, saw many countries, indulged in luxuries like a king, and found unexpected mercy in the midst of my sins—yet I discovered it was all empty in the end. All I longed for was eternal rest until resurrected for heaven, falling with my face to the ground and praying, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. What do awards and letters following a name mean, when you can’t give love to someone who’s passed? No amount of success could buy me a clean conscience, and every celebration felt hollow. It was like constantly speaking into the void, asking for something I couldn’t name, uncertain if I deserved to receive it.
Reconciling what I thought was silence from Jesus and being forsaken, I turned to Buddha for meaning in my suffering. It meant that everything in my life was a consequence of karma, and the meaning of my suffering was enlightenment. That I had endured so much that I was destined to achieve nirvana, a peace without will. But even then, a quiet voice asked if there was a Creator behind it all, one who might want me to keep pressing forward despite my flaws. Over time, I couldn’t deny the pull of Jesus—One who loves, heals and redeems and wants me to draw near to Him, whether I’m lost or found.
Now I’m left in the tension between faith and despair:
- Faith, which murmurs that even my darkest deeds can be woven into a greater plan for good.
- Despair, which warns I might be doomed, too broken to walk a narrow path still paved with sorrow.
For the moment, I linger in that fragile space between faith and despair, praying that somewhere within my suffering lies a truth profound enough to save me. Yet if my purpose now is to create disciples, how can I lead other souls to eternal life when my own spirit barely finds the strength to go on? Sometimes I think: if I keep it authentic, if I own both my failures and my hopes, maybe that’s all I can do—maybe that’s enough to point someone else in the right direction.
I know what Solomon meant when he said, “And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.” God has commanded me not to complain; therefore, I gather up my pain and endure it in silence. In this quiet acceptance, I wait—hoping that one day this burden of suffering will illuminate a path forward, for both myself and those I am called to guide.
I look at Jesus, remembering how He was sent from the perfection of heaven to a broken world. In a smaller, human way, I realize that I, too, was sent back—pulled from the brink of heaven’s gates to endure an existence of pain. Not because God delights in suffering, but because through my wounds, I might help others find their way toward hope. It’s a daunting calling, one that seems impossible given my faults. Yet if God trusted me enough to place me back here, then maybe—somehow—He believes I can bear it. And so I cling to His promise, believing that I was spared to help save souls, just as Jesus once suffered to save us all.
In the end, I come back to that trembling conversation in my heart: whether I’m wrong or right, I keep speaking. I keep wanting something—mercy, clarity, purpose—even if I don’t know how or when it will come. If this path is filled with fire, then I will walk it, trusting that simply wanting a better way might itself be the prayer that carries me through. May your pain, whatever it is, transform you, and not break you. Trust in Gods plan, while it might not make sense and seem cruel, His ways are eternal and higher than the temporal. May you know that to our father in heaven you are very special.
