Some of us led completely different lives. We had different friends, different partners, different attitudes, and different values.

I was a Mormon in my past life. For 18 years I attended church every Sunday. As a teen I attended for 3 hours on a Sunday, 2 hours at youth group on a Tuesday and an hour and a half every morning before school for the last 4 years of high school. I was a youth leader, a teacher and a mentor. The girls at church looked up to me and it felt good knowing we were all working for the greater good.

5 years on and I am an openly gay woman, happy with my sexuality, and somewhat satisfied with my place in life. I have friends I cherish and a family who, despite their disappointment in my life choice, still love and care about me and I still believe in God. For the majority of the time I am extremely happy and I should be.

But then there are the times where I question everything in my life. When I can no longer push questions from my mind. I like to tell myself I’m being courageous and facing my demons, but in all honesty I think the fear becomes so overwhelming I realise I need to deal with it for fear it will destroy me.

It’s the fear of going to hell. As I grew up I was taught that hell isn’t all fire and brimstone, filled with Nazis and pitchforks. My dad would say “hell is a very wide river. You are on one side and your family and friends are on the other. You can see them but they can’t see you. You can’t talk to them or touch them, in fact you will never be able to be any closer to them than you are right then for the rest of eternity.”

He would say hell is a spiritual torment. A never ending agony where all you have are your memories of everything you did wrong and your imagination of how wonderful things ‘could have been…’.

And I am now destined for this because I love women, not men.

This is not an attack on the Mormon faith, for which I still have great respect. This is simply an article for all those girls (and guys) out there who not only have to struggle with issues of acceptance, sexuality and ____ like all gay folk, but also with the immense spiritual consequences that come with following your heart.

For me, I ask how I could possibly give up the one thing that evokes such a freedom inside me, allows me to be myself, to desire, to be desired and to connect with someone who truly fulfils me and I question how this thing, this one beautiful feeling, can be the very thing that will result in my eternal damnation.

I question what is right and what is wrong. What is the truth, what is real, what is life and what is death? If life is a means to get to death and be awarded what lay beyond, and only available to the righteous, then what do I get? I’m a good person, I work hard, I do my best not to hurt people and I’m making an attempt to leave this world a little better than it was when I arrived. But is any of this worth it if I’m just going to end up in hell anyway.

Why does my life and every positive action count for nought on judgment day because I chose to give my heart and body to a woman rather than a man?