Laurie Ditto had been saved for eight years. She prayed with a group 24 hours a week, fasted twice a week, and led outreach after outreach. Then, on 28 August 2008, a hand reached out of the gates of hell and pulled her in. She says she lived there for 70 years, and came back a second after she left. In this episode of God’s Truth Podcast, Laurie shares what put her there: one sin she refused to let go of.
A Christian with all the boxes checked
Laurie has been married to her husband, Mike, for more than 40 years. She gave her life to Jesus in 2000, and by 2008 she was, in her words, “on fire.” She tithed, worshipped, served her family, and had been to heaven many times in the Spirit.
But God kept speaking to her about one thing: forgiveness. And she had her reasons not to. “I read it,” she says. “I just didn’t obey.”
Pulled through the gates of hell
On 28 August 2008, at work, Laurie saw the front of the room open up. A hand came out of the gates of hell, grabbed hold of her and dragged her through. She was screaming going in and screaming coming out, and that single scream was all the time that passed on earth.
In hell, she says, God placed her in 1938, and she lived there for 70 years. She was put in a teardrop-shaped cell, and heard the Father speak over her: “You are in hell eternally for unforgiveness.”
What hell took from her
Laurie is careful telling it, because to her it is real memory. Her skin dripped away. Her eyes and eardrums broke. Every bone dislocated. The screaming of the multitudes was a terror she can’t describe. Then every good memory she had was taken, leaving only the things she had done wrong. She says that as she lost the image of God, she began to take on the look of a demon.
“There is no fun in hell,” she says. “It’s not a game. It’s a real place.”
When Matthew 18 became real
Then something she didn’t expect happened. The sins God had already forgiven came back to her. In hell, she says, the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 became crystal clear.
A king forgives a servant a debt he could never repay. That servant then throws a fellow servant into prison over a few days’ wages. So the king puts the whole debt back on him. Jesus ends the parable: “So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother.”
“When the king forgave the whole debt,” Laurie says, “that servant should have received not just a cancelled debt. He should have received the heart of the king.” Forgiving someone, she stresses, doesn’t mean saying what they did was okay, or letting them back into your life. It means trusting God with it.
“You’re not kind. You’re not gentle. You’re not patient.”
Her sins came back in stacks, each one opening like a small video that showed the whole story from every side. First came every wrong done to her that she had refused to forgive. She saw the pressures behind them, and realised how easy most would have been to forgive.
Then came her own sins, in categories she believes lined up with the fruit of the Spirit: unkindness, harshness, impatience. God even counted moments she thought were good parenting, like how roughly she had held down her crying little daughters at bath time and in their car seats. “They were crying out for mercy,” she says. “And I just ignored them.”
Coming back
As she came out, Laurie saw an angel and a demon. The demon threatened to take her back if she told anyone. The angel told her to preach the gospel for a billion souls. Only when a colleague shook her did she realise she was no longer in hell.
For six days she didn’t know her own name, her husband, her children or her home. She clung to anyone near her, terrified God would notice she was out and send her back. When she ended up in hospital, doctors said she showed every sign of severe trauma and asked what had happened. “I went to hell,” she told them.
Learning to forgive
Once her memory returned, Laurie filled a ring binder with every sin she could remember from hell, and worked through it line by line, forgiving and making things right. She found that forgiving was only the first part. The second was letting God heal the wound, with the help of people who could say, “That should never have happened to you.”
Today she takes sin seriously. She rarely watches TV, is careful about music and company, and keeps accountability partners who can point out her blind spots.
The four parts of true repentance
Laurie believes many people turn from one sin straight into the next because no one has taught them what repentance is. She describes four parts:
- Agree with God that sin is sin, instead of exalting your own opinion.
- Feel godly sorrow, instead of pride.
- Confess your sin to a pastor or leader over you, so you can be healed (James 5:16).
- Put something in place so you don’t do that sin again.
Her warning to the church
Laurie is outspoken about a conviction that challenges what many believers have been taught. She says the lie that took the most people she saw to hell was “once saved, always saved,” the belief that salvation covers future sins whether or not we repent. “It’s free to you,” she says, “but you have to keep it.” She points to Judas, Peter and the servant in Matthew 18.
Her message is urgent and simple: the road to life is narrow, and few are on it. Forgive from the heart, repent quickly, and live every day for Jesus, the only way to the Father.
Connect with Laurie
- Website: myfathersreputation.com, where she shares her full account
- Email: laurie@myfathersreputation.com
Scriptures in this episode
- Matthew 7:13–14, the broad road and the narrow way
- Matthew 18:21–35, the parable of the unforgiving servant
- Matthew 6:14–15, if ye forgive not, neither will your Father forgive
- 2 Corinthians 7:10, godly sorrow worketh repentance
- James 5:16, confess your faults one to another
- Galatians 5:22–23, the fruit of the Spirit
- Matthew 5:23–24, first be reconciled to thy brother
- Matthew 5:48, be ye therefore perfect
- John 14:6, no man cometh unto the Father but by me
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