When I was little, there was one fear that eclipsed everything: the rapture.
In the Pentecostal church, it wasn’t some vague idea tucked in the back of a dusty Bible. It was urgent, imminent, and terrifying. Every revival service seemed to end with warnings—Don’t be left behind. Get your heart right with God tonight, because He could split the eastern sky before morning.
I was just a child. And I would wake up in the middle of the night, the house silent, shadows shifting across the walls. My heart would start to race—What if they’re gone? What if I’ve been left behind?
More than once, I couldn’t find my parents. Maybe they were outside, maybe in another room, but in those moments I was convinced I was alone forever. I remember once breaking down completely, sobbing in the middle of my mom’s bedroom (they slept in separate rooms). My breathing would get tight, my chest would ache, and I would have what I now recognize were mini panic attacks.
Sometimes I’d think about banging on my grandma’s door—she lived right next door—but I knew she’d be angry if I woke her up in the middle of the night. So I stayed there, paralyzed in that terror, until I finally heard someone’s voice or saw a light switch on.
Looking back, I can’t help but think that fear like that is a form of emotional abuse. What else can you call it when a child believes that any moment they might be abandoned by God and everyone they love? When is fear like that okay?
But even if you set aside the fear of being left behind, the idea of being taken wasn’t much better. If heaven was anything like the church services I grew up in—hours upon hours of shouting, crying, guilt, and performance—then I didn’t want to go.
I still don’t, if I’m honest.
Everyone says, I can’t wait to see Jesus, as if that longing is proof of their faith. But I don’t feel that longing. What I feel is more like dread. Because the heaven I was taught about never sounded like freedom. It sounded like another place where I wouldn’t belong. Another place where my curiosity and individuality would be policed. Where the books I love, the music that moves me, and the art that makes me feel alive would be condemned or discarded.
I grew up being told that pop music was sinful, that pierced ears were rebellion, that dyed hair was vanity. Now I fantasize about dyeing my hair purple and getting my nose pierced. About finally inhabiting a body and a life that feels like my own.
What kind of heaven would it be if even there, I wasn’t allowed to be fully human?
If there’s an afterlife, I don’t want it to look like an eternal church service in the sky. I don’t want the same sermons, the same songs, the same suffocating expectations.
If there is any version of heaven I can even begin to hope for, it’s simply this:
A place where I can be with the people I love, without fear.
A place where no one ever uses God as an excuse to control or shame another person.
A place where art, music, and curiosity are gifts, not threats.
A place where I finally feel at home in my own skin.
Maybe that sounds selfish. Maybe it sounds unspiritual. But it’s honest. And after all the fear I grew up with, honesty feels a lot closer to sacred than pretending ever did.
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