I grew up in Baptist churches before the Left Behind franchise existed. We had other movies like "A Thief In The Night," typically shown in church sanctuaries rather than cinemas.

That movie did a number on me when I was about 10. It wasn't just the bad special effects of maggots eating people in hell as they burned and screamed, it was images of the rapture.

For about a year, I was so terrified that I often could not sleep at night, and looking at the sky sent me into panic attacks. I lived close enough to school that I walked home everyday so long as the weather was nice. One day, I looked up and saw a cloud formation that convinced me the Rapture was imminent and Jesus was coming any second.

I don't remember why I thought that, and I guess it doesn't really matter since I was only 10 years old. I do remember I sank down at the base of a tree and shook in terror until my mother came and found me.

She was beside herself with worry when she saw the shape I was in. She wanted to know what was wrong, but I had no way to tell her I was terrified of Jesus, the rapture, and being left behind. She would have asked why I doubted I was saved, and I had no answers. I just knew I wasn't, for some reason I could not explain even to myself.