Question for the Clerics.

I understand that heaven is more a state of existence than a place. In my Orthodox upbringing, we're taught that heaven is how, after death, a soul that loves God and His ways is in union with God, and in ecstatic joy, wrapped in the fullness of God's intimate love. Embraced by His love, the soul is now home and one with its creator. Hell, on the other hand, happens to a soul that has not grown to love God's ways or God's love, and now that it has passed over to the other side, lives in the eternal torment of not being able to accept, perceive, or take joy in the boundless love all around it. I would also add that it lives in contact, eternal yearning for a love and peace that it can never have, even though it exists more closely than ever.

So then, the idea is that our time on earth is time for us to condition ourselves to be open to God, to allow Him in to shape our souls, in preparation for living with him after the end, so that we become something that can receive his love, totally. In this way we will be enraptured by Him, and not alien and unfit for the love He has for us.

Question is, is it enough to WANT to love God, to yearn to be with him, to know the relief his love spells, even though you cannot stop sinning, even if you try? Is repentance enough? What if I can never truly repent? If I confess and weep and long for change, and I go and do the same thing again, have I really repented? I know this is the exact issue Christians lament and rejoice in at the very same time. It's this state of totally predictable and inescapable sin from which we are delivered. It's very, very hard to accept, sometimes, that we live in a redeemed state, no matter what we do. While the joy of Christianity lies in the idea that if we repent, believe that we are saved and forgiven, and are loved in God's eyes, it's so hard to let go of self-loathing when you steer yourself wrong. I guess, ultimately, it's more humbling to accept that you're loved despite your mistakes and your hurtful crimes, that you've marred a beloved soul, that all you have to do is keep loving yourself the way God loves you, that you have to continue to love in order to grow love. I can't explain it well enough, but it's almost humiliating to be shown love after you've messed up, royally. You wind up feeling like a dirty-faced, crying child.

Is it enough to want God? Or do you have to be living some kind of better life than what I keep getting seduced by? Or is everything I'm experiencing and choosing part of the plan to break me down, so I will finally allow His light to shine in? I've seen it before, I've been filled and warmed by it, I've been saved by it. I yearn for it now, and desperately hope I'm not unreachably far from it.