Nightmares

A middle of the night and can’t sleep post: 

Lately I have been taking a new bottle of a sleep aid, melatonin. I have enjoyed it in the past because I am a very light sleeper and sometimes have a hard time initially falling asleep, and this is a natural substance that your body produces to make you fall asleep. For some reason this bottle has had an interesting side effect. Every time I take 2 pills, which equals the milligrams of 1 pill from the bottle I previously had, I wake up in the middle of the night having just had a nightmare. The dreams have varied in subject, like someone close to me (like Julie or my mom) dying, or my Dad hating me. Just tonight I woke up after having watched my dog be shot in the neck from point blank and seeing her limp away struggling to breathe, and then dying. As I lay awake in bed just contemplating my feelings and wondering why I was having such bad dreams, especially when I have grown up very rarely having any dreams at all that I can even remember at all, I came to a realization. I think I know what hell feels like. I know hell is not fire and little devils stabbing you with their spears. I believe that hell will be like the feeling you have after a nightmare. It is that heavy, awful, sinking feeling in the most sensitive region of your heart. It is experiencing such awful guilt or sadness, forever. The beautiful thing about this experience for me has been that I think I know what it will feel like after the judgment also. All of your misdeeds on earth will be brought to light, and you will have to stand accountable for those deeds. I believe that most of us will experience fear, just like a nightmare, realizing all the things we have done wrong and what the consequence is for those things. But then we will experience pure ecstasy when our savior stands up and says, “Father, yes they have done these things, but they have repented and tried to live good lives. I have forgiven them and I have already paid the price for those sins”, and our Father in heaven will say “Then as my only begotten has forgiven you, so do I forgive you”. Just like waking up from a nightmare and to my purest joy realizing that it was just a dream and everything is ok, and the heavy awfulness being lifted away, so too will the judgment be, for those who repent, and follow Christ.