by Vicki Brown

Created on: August 26, 2008   Last Updated: February 27, 2009

I believe in life after death. As a Christian, my faith assures me that when my body dies my soul will live on in heaven. Exactly, what that means isn't important. What's important is that we understand why we have been given this promise.

It isn't a reward for good behavior or for killing the infidels. God doesn't sit up in heaven with a big book making check marks next to our names. He has no naughty or nice list. To him we are all nice. Our behavior may not be nice but we were made in his image. We were given free will. What we do with the life he gave us, is up to us.

All God asks is that we accept his love and believe in the promise that Christ's death made certain. God asks two things of us. The first is to return his love and love him. The second is that we love each other. There is no long list of rules that we have to abide by in order to graduate to heaven when we die.

God accepts us as we are in all of our imperfections. He knows when we succeed and he knows when we fail. Either way, he loves us. He has promised through his son's words that he will always love us. We are his children. A parent always loves its child no matter what. God will never turn away from us. Even when we turn away from him.

I have three children. I have always told them that I love them and there is nothing they could ever do that would change that. That promise was tested several times. Each time I assured my child that I loved them and would do anything I could to help them. If I can make a promise like that and keep it, I could never question whether God could do the same.

I went to Catholic schools back when nuns wore garments that covered everything but their faces and their hands. The particular order that taught (and I use the word loosely) at my school were known to be the worst. The worst teachers and the worst people. They were mean. They literally put the fear of the lord into you. We went to confession every Friday. My list was always the same; I disobeyed my parents 3 times; I had impure thoughts twice (I didn't even know what that meant); I called my brother names. One Friday I decided to shake things up a bit. I confessed to committing adultery 3 times. I definitely didn't know what that meant. And the priest must have been very surprised. My guess is he had a chat with the nun who taught my class.

As an adult, I decided to use that free will and learn for myself what God was all about. What a change from what had been hammered into my head as a child. I read the

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