I was part of a strict fundamentalist group that believed Jesus would come any moment. Everything I desired was denied as 'worldly.' Music, dancing, pleasure, beauty - all forbidden. We were waiting to die.
That theology almost killed me. It created anxiety and shame. I left the faith.
But recently I read Revelation's vision of the New Jerusalem, and there's the tree of life, and you can eat from it. Not denied. Not in heaven so distant we can't imagine it. Present. Accessible. Healing the nations.
I'm slowly coming back to faith with a different theology. God didn't create beauty and pleasure and delight as traps. God created them as gifts. The redemption isn't escape from earth - it's earth restored, healed, abundantly alive.
I'm learning to enjoy things again. To dance. To taste carefully. To find God in beauty instead of only in denial. The tree of life is about restoration, not punishment.
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