As a teenager in the '80s, at a time when The Late Great Planet Earth was the best selling non-fiction (?) book of the decade, was anyone else impacted by the doomsday, imminent rapture theology?

The rapture, among evangelicals, hit a fever pitch in the '80s and this book was the go-to guide.

My church (and mother), declared everything happening in the world, from tensions in Israel, to a night when the planets all aligned, to late snowfalls in April, as being certain signs of the impending end of time.

I graduated salutatorian of my class in '86 but didn't go to college because the rapture would definitely occur no later than 1988, the 40 year (one generation) anniversary of the re-establishment of Israel, so why bother?

I felt like a kid with a terminal illness, expecting to have my life end at just any moment. I was often shocked, when I awoke, that we had made it through the night.

While I'm still a Christian (who hasn't attended church in 14 years), I no longer believe in a secret rapture ever occurring. So much of my life, though, was impacted for the worse by that popular '80s doctrine.