By Nicole Hilton, August 1, 2019
I experienced that which awaits those facing utter damnation. It was bleaker than the worst trauma I’ve experienced in spirit or in body.
I remember one night in particular when my mental, emotional, and spiritual illnesses combined in such a way where the resulting product was the darkest of the darknesses I have ever experienced. Even during my spiritual SRA torture, I had an inkling of hope in the back of my mind that God would surely stop the pain—that there would be an eventual end to it—because I knew that I must matter. Even in the worst Atonement attack I’ve experienced, there was hope and a sacred reason for all the suffering. Even in my worst panic attack, I have known deep down that the sun would rise the next day, and that I would live to see it.
But as I lay in someone else’s bed one night when traveling with my family, I stared up at the slanted white ceiling. Everything looked normal in the room. Then, I felt that I was spiritually plunged down to the deepest and darkest part of the universe, where no light could ever reach me. This was so dark—so evil—that there was not even a semblance of hope left. The suffering was eternal…infinite…absolute. I felt a complete and all-consuming desire for annihilation. There was a certainty of destruction, of damnation.
Only now—all these years later, remembering this one night and aching for my past self—do I understand that this must be the reality that the sons of perdition (the truly damned) face. Given a choice, I am sure that I would rather go through elemental annihilation and be unmade rather than face such an existence.
Knowing how they feel, being unmade would be a blessing—a deliverance from the hopeless state they have chosen.
I, for one, hope never to feel that all-consuming and never-ending darkness again.
Healing with Christ 