judgement day

on standing toe to toe with omnipotence

there was a version of me who rehearsed her apology more than her joy.

she practiced kneeling.
she practiced lowering her eyes.
she practiced the language of unworthiness until it sat on her tongue more naturally than her own name.

i was ready —
if the sky split open and the throne descended —
to fall flat on my face
and thank him.

thank him
that a wretched and vile thing like me
had not been discarded.

i was taught that this was humility.
that this was good news.
that grace required a proper understanding of how disgusting i was without it.

so i catalogued my failures.
i interrogated my motives.
i searched for hidden rot in every corner of my heart
so that when the day came
i could confess thoroughly.

i was prepared to atone over and over and over again.
to weep with gratitude
that i had not been crushed beneath holiness.

i called that love.

i called that freedom.

i called that salvation.

but it was self-hatred
dressed up in white robes.

it was humiliation
marketed as mercy.

it was being made to despise myself
so that the relief of not being annihilated
would feel like a gift.

and somewhere along the way
i began to wonder

why good news
required me to loathe the person i was created to be.

now, i do not believe in a judgment day.

not the kind i was handed.
not the cosmic courtroom.
not the ledger and the gavel and the trembling.

i do not believe restoration looks like public shaming before a throne.
i do not believe eternity hinges on perfect theology or proper fear.

but if i am wrong —
if the god of my childhood is the one waiting —
if the pearly gates are real
and the throne room gleams

then it will not be my judgment day.

it will be his.

i will not lay prostrate.

i will stand.

i will stand toe to toe with omnipotence
and i will ask him
where he was.

where were you
when men who bore your name
abused women and children in your houses.

where were you
when silence was called submission
and suffering was called sanctification.

where were you
when i was told that my pain glorified you.

if you are all knowing
you saw it.

if you are all powerful
you could have stopped it.

if you are ever present
you were there.

so tell me —

why did it fall on our shoulders
to be the ones who intervene.

why were we responsible
for action
for justice
for advocacy
while you sat back
and watched your creation bleed.

why is your silence called sovereignty
but our anger is called rebellion.

why does your inaction become mystery
but our survival becomes sin.

if this is the economy of heaven
if this is the architecture of saving
then i am not impressed.

if eternity demands that i pretend
you did not see
you did not know
you did not have the power

i will not participate.

i will be david
at this goliath of a god.

and if the stone in my sling
is nothing more than moral clarity
so be it.

i would rather stand with integrity
outside the gates
than kneel in a kingdom
built on fear.

because it is not good news
if grace requires self-erasure.

it is not good news
if justice is deferred forever
while victims are told to forgive.

it is not good news
if omnipotence watches
and calls it love.

so we must reckon with this —

either what we were taught about god
is not true.

or it is true

and we are required
to have a spine
that walks us away
from that particular brand of saving.

i no longer prepare to grovel.

i no longer rehearse my apology.

if there is a reckoning
i will arrive as myself.

not wretched.
not vile.

but human.

and if heaven cannot make room
for a woman who refuses to hate herself
for the sake of good news

then i will turn
and walk myself
back out those pearly gates

and into the hell they threatened me with

because they were my hell, anyways.