There has been a bizarre amount of upheaval with my in-laws lately. In brief, my father-in-law has a very...limited...understanding of who God is and what God wants and he applies this limited understanding with rigorous authority. In a very real way, he's made a false idol of the living God, and his idolatry is ruining his family.
And- this is going to sound awful, but I don't mean it that way- I am excited for him when he dies. I don't mean I want him to die, I mean, when he does, discovering who the real God is, is going to blow his mind and heart wide open.
Catholics believe in something called "Purgatory," a place of purification and transformation before you get into heaven. (The belief is actually based in scripture.) But rather than some place of judgment or fiery retribution, I think purgatory is the very moment you come face to face with God, when you see clearly for the first time who God really is, and how big God's love for you (and everyone else) is. In the face of a love so big- you experience overwhelming gratitude, but also sorrow. You feel sorrow for the times you hurt others, sorrow for the times you misrepresented God, sorrow for the times you rejected God's love. You see who God really is, and it breaks you open, demolishing the idols you have called God, so that you can finally experience the real God in all His/Her fullness and truth.
And I am excited for my father-in-law to experience that. He lives in this world of rules and punishment, where sexual choices carry the highest price and all the other stuff is secondary. He passes out his love the way he thinks God does, giving it only to the people who stay in the boundaries and don't break the rules. But God doesn't work that way. God doesn't play by our rules, and God loves beyond our boundaries. And watching my father-in-law worship a false god, an idol of conditional love, breaks my heart.
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