Neither is it hard to imagine a person at death being sent to one or the other of those places.
But none of that is true! Emphatically not true.
Among all the restoration truths, we learn that a Loving Father in Heaven wants eternal happiness for all his children.
"This is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."
He will always be there like a lighthouse beckoning us home!
Heaven to a latter-day saint is a state of happiness created by living laws or principles that create happiness. The ultimate destiny of man is to become like God - to adopt his attributes and to live once more in his presence surrounded by your family and friends.
Hell is a state of being - experienced when you know that your own choices are preventing you from experiencing heaven.
to be damned, is to be stuck - to not be progressing toward our eternal destiny. No one can do this to you. It is something you do to yourself - the result of your own choices.
During our earthly experience, we get to learn what both heaven and hell feel like. We have moments of bliss and we have moments of misery. We also learned that most of the time we bring those things upon ourselves.
But not always. Life is filled with hellish horrors. Wars rage. A child sex industry thrives. Racism shows its ugly head. The Holocaust reminds us how horrible human beings can be.
For all too many, earth is their hell and we wish for them that loving arms will greet them and heal them and that heaven will be their reward.
But the one thing I do know is this: God is not a sovereign judge watching our every move - ready to consign us to heaven or hell.
We are the children of Heavenly Parents who want us back home with them, living by the principles of happiness, and they are doing and will always be doing everything in their power to bring us there. And that will eventually happen for each of us that wants it.
And that is a Heavenly truth.
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