Brimstone Belly

The adolescent anxieties of the pastor’s daughter

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Most days, I was fairly certain that when I died, God would take me into heaven. When I awoke blearily to the beeps of my alarm each morning, blinking and groaning and needing to shower, this was my thought: heaven or hell? When I shampooed my dirty-blond hair and soaped my greasy forehead with salicylic acid scrub, this was my thought: heaven? Or hell…