I have heard now so many different approaches to rapture timing that I am no longer able to decide which one is right, but oddly enough, I don't care as much as I used to.  I am getting old and I may die any time, and I will go to the Lord, and that's what counts.  Of course I pray for ALL people on earth to go to the Lord, as many as possible anyway.  

That said, I think there are some things in pre-trib rapture theory that stand out, among all the different scenarios I've heard since my husband and I started studying the tapes of Chuck Missler.  One is that we will be gone before the AC stands in the new temple (or at least altar) in Jerusalem.
How soon could that be?  Very soon, of course.  With nightmares in the ME heating up, the various AC candidates could easily get there within months.
But I don't know who the AC is.  I've heard several plausible ideas.  But I don't know.   

The other thing which stands out to me is that we are not destined for "wrath".  That means we MUST be gone before mid-trib wrath of God.  Does it mean we have to endure the first 3 l/2 years of the Trib?  Maybe.  But maybe not.  Looks to me like the whole trib is said by Jesus to be the worst time in history, and I think He may not want His people to go through the worst.  Why?  Because what they have already gone through is very very bad, and if worse is coming, He may say to His own, "Come away first."

Now people say that the suffering of Christians has always been terrible, how could be worse?  Well, they are right that terrible suffering has come to God's people throughout history.  But He said it: "worst".  Maybe that means the scope of the suffering, spreading from a few hundred thousand to millions to many millions.  Or maybe it means the horror of the mind-bending which will occur, in which Christians will not be able to stand for the faith unless God intervenes.  Well, that may not make a lot of sense but it means something to me.  Lots of Christians think that with God's grace they could withstand the mind-bending, and they are right; with God's grace ALL things are possible.  But still, he said it, "the worst".  Worse than the present horror of Christians in North Korea, Worse than the Inquisition.  Worse than the martyrs who were killed by Blood Mary or Edward I in England.
Worse than the exploitation of people by cruel tyrants all over the world, as in "Les Miserables", or "Tess", or many other stories of subjugation.
Worse than the Holocaust of WWII.  How much worse could we endure?  Jesus said it.  You won't have to.

Mariel Rowina