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(June 9, 2017 at 5:04 pm)JamieB Wrote: I had a long breakfast with my christian best friend from high school the other day. I thought we agreed to disagree, but I got this long text of concern today. Its the same plea I've heard all my life, but she made it personal. She was diagnosed bi-polar and schizophrenic, so her experiences of hell felt very real to her. Maybe I should let her believe I got my ticket to heaven for her sake, but that is really hard for me. Here's her text:
Hi Jamie. God's love is deeper than any song lyric. The death of Jesus on the Cross was horrible and brutal. Beyond horrific. The difference between His crucifixion and a horror movie, is that in the end, the horror movie does not have a happy ending. It leaves you even more terrified. BUT with Jesus' death, it only lasted 3days. Then He rose from the dead. Over three hundred people witnessed His resurrection. He was alive. He is the God of joy and peace and love and forgiveness. And He is also righteous and Holy. He is so much bigger than this world and this earthly life. Eternity lasts forever. There is no ending. With the Lord, is your Grandma and Bumpa. Your Mom and Dad, your sissies too. Pastor Bear. All those times of joyous laughter, and purity and love. Being goofy. Dancing around singing in our shower caps. So innocent and sweet. All the lullabies you can sing. Those will all be in Heaven. The love and protection we feel with our families. It's the love of the Lord. Forgiving each other and being forgiven. That's Jesus and His love. Why would anyone ever want to not have any of that. Apart from the Lord we cannot and would not have any of that. No good times. Just being alone and feeling alone, and guilty and scared forever and ever. All those horror movies become the reality. And one cannot turn it off. There is no ending and relief that's over or will come to an end. I speak as someone with just a hint of what that would be like, and my nightmares and terrors only lasted around 10 or 11 years. Hell is never waking up or having them go away. Please reexamine what you are believing in. I love you so much. Start praying again and pray hard. Tell God everything you are feeling. Tell Him how hard it is for you to believe. Know that He is still with you. In fact, you are His because you asked Him into your heart when you were 13 or 14. His voice resonated with you because you knew He was telling you the truth. The Holy Spirit written about in the New Testament is the same Spirit of God that is talked about in the Old Testament. We can talk more about Him later. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God distinctly portrayed in three persons. Jamie, similarly you are made up of three persons too. You were created in HD image. Your physical body, your emotions/feelings/mental thoughts, and your spirit. I love you, Jay jay, and Jesus does too. That deep intimacy that you long for can only truly come from Him. No other man can fulfill that. At least, not for long. Anything or anyone else we try for is only counterfeit, and won't last long. It will fade and die like our bodies and the flowers. I know this is really long, but there was so much left unspoken. If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't have said anything. BUT I DO.✝ ❤ ? ? ? Good night. His joy comes in the morning.
Sent from my iPhone
This is exactly the kind of awkward stuff that comes up when you deal with grown people with special feelings about a secret friend for which we have no analogue experience. Avoiding spilling the beans about Santa comes the closest. Of course if you care for this person you'll tip toe around it. But the effort just undermines any sense of being in any kind of relationship with a peer. Unfortunate.
