Hell and Jug of Juice and a Cautionary Tale

One of my classes requires us to recount a traumatic experience we have had as a part of a journaling exercise. The class is a pastoral care class. We journal about the traumatic experience and then we have a classmate walk us through this traumatic experience as if we were coming to them to receive pastoral care. It’s a neat experience and I have done a similar things for other classes. It’s essentially pastoral care practice in a controlled environment.

What is different about this class is that we are asked to recall a time when we experienced a stressful event surrounding our system of beliefs. This seems rather niche and I couldn’t readily pull up an experience of that sort. I remember as a kid constantly questioning what I was being taught in church, so of course there were times when a grown-up told me I was wrong. This wasn’t really traumatic and it was definitely deserved most of the time.

And then it hit me: jug of juice.

Vacation Bible School was a time that I remember vividly- mostly for the snacks. I remember punching my finger through the tinfoil cover of a jug-o-juice (I have since learned that this is not what they are called, nor have they ever been called this. Childhood is weird) and hearing the story of Jesus. I can’t remember exactly what was told to me at each Vacation Bible School but I can remember that spent my whole childhood being told about Jesus and yes, drinking sweet juice out of barrels.

The other thing that I remember was this: hell. I remember hearing hell described in vivid detail and death being something I grew accustomed to hearing about. I don’t think it was the only thing I was taught. I know that I was taught that God loved me and wished for me joy and union with God for eternity. I know that I was taught all sorts of joyous and wonderful things.

But it is hard to remember that.

It is not hard to remember how scared I was of the idea of hell. I remember spending hours crying myself to sleep, begging that God would save me so that I wouldn’t go to hell. I would spend hours lamenting over any possible misstep or mistake I may have made against God. I was certain that as soon as I did so, I would lose my salvation, then lose my life, and then earn eternity in hell.

That’s a lot for a six year old.

I cannot stress this enough: my church mostly taught me about happy Jesus. The Jesus that carried lambs over his shoulders and the God who walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, the cool guy Jesus that collected all the children of the world at his feet. The people who taught couldn’t have known that these things would be whispered to me and the slight mention of hell would be blasted through big speakers, right into my soul.