I like your post. It is a spiritually poignant one. But, I also have questions about it when it comes to eternal salvation and it being seen as a free gift. Can it really be considered a free gift when it comes to a person who doesn't believe? Is this free gift still offered to those who wish to believe but can't (say, based on life circumstances). Disbelief doesn't come in the form of a mere choice or final decision, but a despairing burden brought about by life conditions; let's just stick with the classic "problem with evil" concern for now.

And what I mean by asking if this free gift still offered is this: does God grant them this gift after they have passed on? It relates to a question that has consumed me quite a lot from time to time: Does God understand why people don’t believe in him? It’d strike me as strange if he didn’t.

My question can be summarized by a line from the Igmar Bergman film “The Seventh Seal” in which the young knight (having witnessed death dealt by both the hands of man and nature) asks while he is in confession:

Is it so cruelly inconceivable to grasp God with the senses? Why should he hide himself in a mist of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles? What is going to happen to those of us who want to believe but aren’t able to?