The author doesn’t know what he’s talking about. God doesn’t adhere to your beliefs or interpretation of scripture you happened to piecemeal. You adhere to His reality, written or unwritten.
Purgatory is real. Just as levels of Hell are real. Look at it this way. A soul has a buoyancy. God doesn’t need to create Hell or Purgatory. It exists because you’re there by your own actions, and your own actions create those conditions.
So, for example, if you say killed yourself to escape some kind of pain or for whatever reason, you just told God to go F himself. Take this Life and shove it. That pushes you away from Him, by your own choosing. And that leaves in a place with people at that level of darkness(away from God).
How do I know this? Because I remember what happened to me. And time doesn’t work the same way it does up here. Everything is faster there. Which means 1 day here could be a month there. Some people get out via resuscitation(lucky) or reincarnation(because they screwed up before). Some people don’t. And when you get out, after realizing how you screwed the pooch, you get a choice. Either a clean slate, which is encouraged, or you can hold onto what you did for dear life and you have a chance to remember.
I remember most of it. And I remember how long I was there. And I remember who I was in life and the time it was here, compared to there. And it’s a vast difference. Imagine spending 300 years in a grey fog of desolation.
Others haven’t been as lucky as me. Go to an ER and ask a veteran MD how many people he’s had climbing up the ceiling tiles after they were revived. Not that many, but when it happens, everyone remembers it. Especially the blood curdling “I’m burning!” part. Scares the hell out of everyone in the ER, especially the people being treated.
So, just to let you know. You play by God’s rules. Not the other way around. And He doesn’t tell you everything for a reason. And for that reason, being good for Goodness sake is a valuable rule to live by. Oh, and pro-tip, as most of you know, nobody dies. And that’s something people destroying themselves need to understand. There is no running away from life- ever. There is just the distance between you and God. That’s it. That’s all there is. Closer or farther. So that’s my story. YMMV, but the rules remain the same.
“Purgatory is real. Just as levels of Hell are real. Look at it this way. A soul has a buoyancy. God doesn’t need to create Hell or Purgatory. It exists because you’re there by your own actions, and your own actions create those conditions.”
THAT is some wild stuff you’re smoking!
The Holy Spirit indwells the believer You can’t get any closer than that Either Christ has the power to forgive your sins and remove them as far as the East from the west or He does not. There is no room for purgatory unless you believe in an impotent God
Sorry about your experience in hell, but seek some spiritual help...The Bible is probably a good place to start...
Reincarnation has no place in any Christian belief system...at all.
Thank you, JFoobar, for posting your personal testimony. That takes courage. You are not alone!. There are many stories that share your experience. One in particular, has remained with me since I first read it. It has been approved by several in positions of authority who scrutinize such testimonies to prevent it from being used to mislead faithful christians.
Gloria Polo died after being terribly burned by a lightning bolt on May 5, 1995 in Bogotá, Colombia; she was judged, and then came back to life. This is her testimony. It is an English translation from the original Portuguese; hence the stilted text.
That which I am about to recount to you happened May 5, 1995 at the National University of Bogotá, starting from 4:30 pm.I am a dentist. I and my 23-year-old cousin, who is also a dentist, were studying in order to get the specialization. On that day, which was a Friday, about 4:30 pm, we were walking together with my husband toward the Faculty of Dentistry to find some books that we needed. With my cousin I walked under a small umbrella while my husband wore a rain coat and to shelter himself better he was walking near the wall of the General Library. We two were jumping from one side to the other in order to avoid the puddles while staying close to the trees. When we jumped over a rather large puddle we were hit by a lightning bolt which left us both carbonized.
My cousin died immediately. The lightning bolt entered from behind, burning him inside totally, and came out through his feet, leaving him intact externally. Not withstanding his young age, he was a very religious young man. He had a great devotion for Baby Jesus and he always carried around his neck His image, a quartz medal. The authorities said that it was the quartz that attracted the lightning bolt to my cousin, because it entered into the heart burning everything…
Remaining intact externally, he immediately had a cardiac arrest which did not respond to the attempts of reanimation by the doctors, and he died on the spot.
As for me, the lightning bolt entered from my shoulder, burning terribly the whole body, inside and out; in short my flesh disappeared including my breasts, especially the left one, leaving a hole. It caused to disappear the flesh of my abdomen, of my legs, of the ribs; it carbonized the liver, it gravely burned the kidneys, the lungs, the ovaries… and came out through the right foot.
For my contraceptive, I was using a spiral (an intrauterine devise in the form of a T), and because of the material with which it is made (copper) it is a good conductor of electricity; the lightning bolt carbonized and pulverized also the ovaries which became like two raisins.
I remained in cardiac arrest, just about without life, with the body that was jumping due to the electricity that was still present in that place.
This body that you see here, now, this reconstructed body, is the fruit of the mercy of Our Lord.
Note that I was an atheist, but there I began to cry out: “Souls of Purgatory! Please, pull me out of here! I beg you, help me!”While I was crying out, I began to hear crying thousands and thousands of persons, youth… Yes, above all youth, with so much suffering! I perceived that there, in that horrible place, in that quagmire of hate and of suffering, they were gnashing their teeth, with screams and laments that filled me with compassion and that I will never be able to forget… (Already 10 years have passed, but I still cry and suffer, when I remember the suffering of all those persons)… I was saying, I understood that in that place there were those persons who, in one moment of desperation, they committed suicide… Now they are in those torments, with those horrible beings near them, surrounded by demons that torment them. But the cruelest of these torments was the absence of God, because there one does not feel God. I understood that, those who in one moment of desperation took their lives, had to remain there, within those torments, until all the time that they might have spent on the earth had passed: because all those who kill themselves, go out of the Divine Order.
Those poor persons, above all so many youth, many, many… They cry and suffer much… If man might know the suffering that awaits him, never would anyone make the decision to take his life!
Do you know what the greatest torment is, there? It is to see how one’s own parents, or relatives, who are alive, are crying and suffering with a tremendous sense of guilt: if I would have punished, or if I would not have punished, if I had said to him, or if I had not said to him, if I had done this or that… In the end, these regrets so terrible, - a true hell for those who love them and remain in this life - , they are what makes them suffer the most. It is the greatest torment for them, and it is here that the demons rage, showing these scenes:
“Look how your mother cries, look how she suffers, look how your father suffers, look how they are desperate, how they are distressed, how they blame themselves and discuss, accusing each other reciprocally, look at all the suffering that you caused them. Look how they rebel against God. Look at your family… All this because of your fault!”
That which these poor souls need, is that those who remain down here might begin a walk of conversion, that they might change their life, that they might do works of charity, that they might visit the sick… And that they might offer Masses in suffrage for the soul of the dead. These souls benefit enormously from all of this. In fact, the souls who find themselves in Purgatory can no longer do anything for themselves. Nothing! But God yes, through the Mass. Also we must help them in this way.
I thus understood that those poor souls could not help me, and in this suffering, in this anguish, I began again to cry out: “But here there is an error! See I am a saint! I never stole! I never killed! I never did anything evil to anyone! On the contrary, before failing in my business, I imported the best products from Switzerland, I extracted and adjusted teeth, many times I did not require the clients to pay if they were unable. I bought things and I gave them to the poor! What am I doing here?!...”
I was vindicating my rights! I, who was so good, who would have to go straight to Heaven, what was I doing here?!
I went every Sunday to Mass, even though I considered myself an atheist and I did not pay attention to what the priest was saying, I never missed Mass. If I missed Mass five times in my whole life, it was a lot! What is it that I was doing there?!
“But what am I doing, here? Pull me out of here! Take me out of here!” I continued shouting terrified, with those horrible beings hanging on to me!
“I am Catholic! I am Catholic, please, get me out of here!”
All that and not one bit of Scripture to support it.
Why should we take your opinion about it when we have what the Creator of the universe told us?
And He didn’t mention a thing about a place called *purgatory*.
Oh?
And why do you claim THIS?