Hell is NOT a fiery inferno!

Most people don’t like to talk about Hell.

It’s uncomfortable. It’s unclear. More often than not, when people do talk about Hell, it’s to manipulate and scare someone to Christ.

Hmmmm yeah...not a good idea.

So, Hell is typically a subject that people avoid and there is no need to feel uneasy about it or to use it as a weapon. Let’s take a look at Scripture to see what it says.

Who will go to Hell?

No one wants to hear that their dearly departed is in Hell, so most people just stick with “they’re in a better place” and with good cause…that would be just plain rude to imply the opposite, but some people do, in fact go to Hell.

Who?

Matthew 25:31-46 implies that all who love toward those less fortunate will gain eternal life and those who reject them will receive eternal punishment. Revelation 21:8 says that the “cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.” However, the lake of burning sulfur is NOT the Hell (or Hades) that people go to at the first death. That is the second death. Hades is thrown in the lake as well.

So, wait…

...being a good person gets you into heaven?!

No, not exactly.

Acts 16:31 tells us that simply believing in Jesus Christ as your Lord will save you.

So, who goes to Hell?

Everyone who does not believe that Christ saved them will. If you simply accept your salvation, you’re golden. Literally.

Now that sparks the question of “well what if they had lived a few more years? What if they would have eventually accepted Christ, but they died too soon?”

That will not happen.

If a person has not yet reached an age of accountability, or was simply taken before they were ready, then He will send them wherever they would have chosen to go. He is GOD after all; He is all-knowing.
He knows where you would have placed your faith had you been given the chance.

As unimaginable as it is that someone could have a true God experience and still turn away from Him…well I do not have an answer for that.
I can’t imagine someone coming face to face with Him and not falling to their knees in awe, but the Bible says that it will happen.

What is Hell like?

Well the Bible says that there will be flames and moaning and weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Do I take this literally? Heck to the no!

Flames are used several times in the Bible to represent judgment.
God is a fiery God.
Jesus returns to Earth engulfed in flames.

These are symbols of judgment and because Hell is the result of your judgment…it makes sense for it to be referred to as fiery.

I do not think people will actually burn for eternity.

God puts people in Hell because they don’t want to be around Him.

It would be quite childish to say “well, since you don’t want to be around me, you can just burn! Ha!”

What about weeping and moaning and gnashing of teeth? Well…I can imagine that if you spend your life condemning He who gave you life and ultimately land yourself in Hell…once you have realized that you really messed up…you’re going to be pretty upset!
People weep and moan and gnash their teeth when they mourn the loss of a fellow human, a loved one, so can you imagine the mourning that would occur after realizing that they lost God, lost all love?

God is love, so it’s safe to say that there is no love in Hell.

Pretty depressing, really.

People don’t need to be whipped and burned and tortured for eternity to make Hell scary. Just being away from God is scary enough all on it’s own.

Why does God use an infinite solution for a finite offense?

Well…there is actually a really simple explanation for that. The length of time it took to commit a crime has no bearing on how severe the crime was.

For example…if you were to rob a bank, it would probably take days, maybe even weeks or months to plan and perfect your escape and then, eventually, to pull off the heist. In the state of California, that would earn you three to nine years of prison.

However, let’s say you kill someone. No planning at all. You just pull out a gun and shoot a man and it takes you all of ten seconds. In most every state that would be a minimum of 25 years, but you’re really looking at life in prison.

So, the crime that took months gets you 9 years and the crime that took ten seconds gets life.

Because the time it took is not relevant to how heinous the crime was. 

What is the worst thing a person can do? How about to mock and dishonor the One being they owe absolutely everything to? Not to mention the influence they may have had on taking others from God. Not a finite crime when you look at it that way, is it?

Why doesn’t God just force people to go to Heaven?

Well honestly, that’s just dehumanizing.

God had given us the power of free choice and nothing speaks of His love and respect for us more than his willingness to send us to Hell.

He respects our decision to be apart from Him, no matter how much it grieves Him.

What a gentleman!
To think…if you want nothing to do with Him, He will respect that and stay away from you! Wow!

Why doesn’t God just destroy people who don’t choose Him?

Well come on now…that’s worse than forcing them to go to Heaven! That’s totally immoral!

He respects your choice.

Period.

End of story.

Why doesn’t God give people a second chance?

Well now, here’s where things get tricky. Many people think that once you go to Hell, well then that is that.
Others, however, think that Judgment Day is the final say. I happen to fall into that second group. Let’s look at the Scripture now and make sure I’m not just spouting fantasies…

Revelation 20:11-15 talks of the judgment of the dead. It says that all dead come forth to be judged based on what is written in the book of life.
Now, there is much disagreement on the book of life and the Lamb’s book of life. I, myself, believe that they are different.

The book of life contains the names of every single person who has ever lived.
The Lamb’s book of life contains the name of every individual who is born again, and only those who are born again.

That can be argued seven ways to Sunday, and we will never really know the true answer until we die, but for now, this is what makes sense to me.

Now, every person will be judged based on what is written in the book of life. The name implies that what is written is from your life, but let’s not assume, we all know what that does. I believe that what you did in death is also recorded. The amends you made and the forgiveness people may have asked for whilst in Hell. At this point of judgment all of that will come into play and every soul will have the choice to accept or reject God and His son. Those who reject will be thrown into the lake.
Will anyone reject Him? Seems highly unlikely, but the Bible says it will happen.

Also, anyone who’s name is not written in the book of life will be thrown in. Who is this? These are the “people” Satan has created in his pathetic attempt to imitate all that God does. I could go on into much more detail and pull on all sorts of Scripture, but I already put my husband through that, and quite frankly, if you want the verses, leave a comment and we can chat.

The bottom line:

Everything that anyone will ever tell you about Hell is just speculation. This entire post is just my speculation. You can study Hell until kingdom come and you will never truly know any answers.

God is blatant about many things in His word and Hell is not one of them.

Some things He gives you a taste of, but nothing more. Why? Because He knows we are imperfect and we will misuse information and become arrogant.
Maybe.
I don’t know...

That’s the point.

No one knows.

So then what do you tell people when it comes up?
You tell them just that. “I have an idea. I have something I believe in, but I don’t know.”

We know that God is perfect and holy and ultimately good, and so with that knowledge we trust that Hell is necessary and that it is not a cruel or evil way of dealing with a sad situation and we accept that we just don’t know all there is to know.

You know Hell is only mentioned in the NIV translation 14 times.
Grace is said 123 times, Faith 254 times, and Love 232 times.

So you tell me…what should we be talking about more?

What is the message God is sending?

Should kids watch Avengers: Infinity War?

The new Avengers movie has had comic book nerds and normies alike on the edge of their seats for months. With such dramatic trailers, and 10 years of build, it's not hard to understand why!

The question is...as intense as the trailers were, is the new Avengers movie too much for kids? Our kids have loved watching the movies that Marvel has churned out over the last decade (save for a couple that were just a bit too inappropriate).
Our 5yo girl is totally in love with Captain America.

No really.

In love.

She nabbed a kiss from the Cap at Disneyland when she was three. Yep...THREE.

Our 7yo son loves Iron Man and they both are fans of Spiderman. Just to name a few.

Bottom line is that we are a Marvel family! So, we wanted to take the kids to see the new movie but were a bit anxious about the possible deaths that were implied in the trailers.

So, I looked up who died, just to be sure it wasn't any of their favorites and we took a chance and saw it today, opening day, and I'm gonna break it down for you other concerned parents!

Bottom line: I would NOT recommend this movie for children under 13. It was very hard for our kids to see and this is why...

WARNING: SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

Avengers: Infinity War starts off with a bang with two deaths within the first ten minutes.

Heimdall and Loki die at the hand of Thanos almost back to back and the loss of those characters (Thor's best friend and brother) was not the problem. The camera does not leave their face as they die and you get a front row seat to the life leaving their eyes.

....in the first ten minutes.

Powerful opening to a dramatic movie, highlighting the horror of war, but something that was haunting for our 7yo. I looked to both of them at the moment that "Lougie the bad guy" (Loki) died and while my 5yo seemed totally zoned out, the 7yo had wide eyes and an unreadable expression.

After the movie he informed me that it made him feel terrible and like his heart was being smashed.

Which makes my heart feel pretty smashed, too, of course.

We then see several scenes of violence and heroism as per what you would expect in a superhero movie. Nothing super bothersome.

Then, we see some blood when Gamora slices Thanos' neck and stabs him in the chest.

It turns out to be an illusion and we are soon seeing Gamora held by Thanos, begging her love, Peter Quill to kill her rather than let Thanos take her. We see a very emotional interaction between them.

Thanos tortures Nebula and we can hear her screams as he gets Gamora to reveal the location of the Soul Stone. Karen Gilman did an amazing job there because the screams were quite haunting.

Thanos discovers that he must lose the soul he loves most in order to get the Soul Stone. We see him break down in tears before he wrestles with a frantic and terrified Gamora and throws her from a cliff. Pan to her broken body on the ground.

Our 5yo seems incredibly disturbed by this. She keeps talking about how sad it was that her daddy killed her.

Wanda Maximoff has to destroy the Mind Stone from Vision's forehead. She has a very hard time as she, sobbing, attacks the stone, killing the man she loves, with one hand while she fights Thanos off with the other.

And finally, at the end, we see several characters turn to dust when Thanos wins. Yes, he wins. Evil winning is a hard thing for small children to wrap their head around. And the mass death that follows really shook up our son.

Some are quick and some we see slowly blow away with heavy emotional farewells.

It was very sad. Quite dramatic. Lots of intense emotions.

Throw in the snarky one liners, a tad bit of questionable language and the usual superhero violence plus what I mentioned above....yeah, not for small children.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone who follows MCU, but I cannot in good conscience recommend letting children see it. My husband and I are already doing a fair amount of repairing with our littles in trying to redirect their focus to the good morals and noble sacrifices made. The heroics.

Have you seen the movie, yet? What was your opinion on it?

Why Moms Take Bubble Baths

I feel like a freaking mermaid, dude.

I'm sitting in blue water, and no it didn't come from my toilet. I just used a bath bomb and it turned my water blue and now I feel like a mermaid.

Except mermaid probably don't drink and swim and I got me some wine.

And I'm totally at peace with said wine and tub, so I am blogging. Cause the whole world needs to know...

Or "Why Moms Take Bubble Baths."

Well, moms take bubble baths because we have in laws that stress us out. And by "stress us out" I mean "drive us to drink."

Moms take baths because we heard the word "mom" 752 times today.

We take baths because our daughters tell our elderly neighbors that their penis is hanging out of their pants....when it's not....Just because they want an excuse to say "penis" because they are a little jelly that they don't have one.

We take baths because we gave 4 hair ruffles, 26 hugs, 12 high fives, and 6,287 kisses today and we are All. Touched. Out.

We take baths because our babies are teething molars and nursing around the clock and this is the first time they have slept for more than 10 minutes in the last two days

We take baths because we didn't get dinner on the table until 7.30 and we need a place to hide from the guilt.

We take baths because we stress-drank a Mountain Dew at 3'o'clock this afternoon and are sorely regretting it.

We take baths because our husbands are stressed out about the same in laws we are stressed out about and we hate seeing them so upset.

We take baths because our muscles hurt from all of the cleaning and the lifting of tiny humans.

We take baths because our children ran away from home and were brought back by police at 5am. And then again at 3am, two months later, after we installed very high up locks and alarms, so now we have to go buy even MORE locks and now our house feels like a prison and said cops threatened to call CPS. Yeah. That really happened.

They found the key, climbed a stool, unlocked it and disabled the alarm, little sneaks.

We take baths because our sons have smart mouths and have somehow managed to perfect a teenage attitude at just six years of age.

We take baths because we need a quiet place to think (and blog 😉).

We take baths because our husbands work graveyard, so we are sleeping alone. Again. Because the baby that spits up all over you all night long every night doesn't count.

We take baths because the bubbles cover up our mommy apron and make us feel like we did when we were sixteen.

We take baths because no one questions a glass of wine in the tub. Whereas a glass of wine when you're watching Netflix. In bed. By yourself. On a Monday night may raise some eyebrows.

We take baths because they make us feel like mermaids.

We take baths because behind a shower curtain is a great place to hide. Seriously, they never look there.

We take baths because candles rock and candles that are just for you are even better.

But most of all, we take baths just because we can, dammit.

So the next time your life is freaking crazy as all get out and you just wanna shoot something. Pour a glass of vino, light a couple candles, grab a book or Netflix, and take a bath, mama. You totally deserve it.