I want to make it to Heaven so bad.

I am not ready to die. Not at all. I hope to live to 99, to stretch my years as far as they will go. Yet beneath that hope lies a deeper longing. More than anything, I want to make it to heaven.

What weighs on me is not death itself but what comes after. Where will I be when my life here ends? For context, I am a Christian.

The idea of hell has always terrified me. Even now, I avoid the Book of Revelation because its images feel too intense to bear. The thought of burning forever is unbearable. I cannot even stand waking up sweaty in my sleep, and that is only a glimpse of the fear that lives inside me.

I was saying the other day that if I want to be scared, I read the Bible not Stephen King.

For years I believed my fate depended on my own behavior. Every day felt like a test. One mistake, one bad thought, and my place in eternity could be lost. Life began to feel like walking on shards of glass, careful but never safe.

I would catch myself worrying. What if God disliked the way I spoke to someone? What if I told my brother some shit I knew would purposely hurt him? What if a habit I knew was wrong condemned me? Even fleeting thoughts filled me with panic. If I saw my home girl Phatty walking by and a lustful thought crossed my mind, I remember Jesus’ saying that If you look at a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery inside yourself. And then the fear came rushing in. If that were my final thought, if I died in that moment, would I go to hell?

This quiet terror has followed me for decades, maybe since I was a child. Almost every day I think about death and the afterlife. I think about money and living a good life too, but this shadow circles my mind far more often than I want it to.

Then, a few days ago, something shifted. I opened the Bible to Romans and began to see things differently.

It is not my deeds that decide where I will end up. It is my faith. My total trust in Him is what pleases God. Simply believing is enough. There is nothing I can do or not do to secure my place in heaven. It is only my faith in Him.