Privileged Visit

“Let not your heart be troubled:  ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In My Father’s house are many mansions:  if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there may be also.”  -John 14:1-3 (KJV).

Several books have been written recently on near-death-experiences in which a person dies for a little while, is transported to heaven, and returns to earth to tell the story.  A friend has suggested that instead of “n. d. e..—near-death-experience,” this journey could be called “privileged visit.”  Here are some of the books that tell of the “privileged visit,” and the return of persons to earth to tell about their journey to the extra-dimensional spiritual realm we call heaven—the place Jesus spoke of so positively and with such anticipation of having all believers gathered into that place of heavenly bliss.

Heaven Is For Real is about little Colton Burpo, not quite four, who went to heaven and returned to earth to tell in his extraordinary way about whom he saw there, persons he had never known in his life, like his grandfather who died before Colton was born, and his little sister who did not even make it to birth because of his mother’s miscarriage.  Colton’s parents began to take notice of his astounding story and his father wrote a book about what Colton told them of heaven.

To Heaven and Back by Dr. Mary C. Neal is an orthopedic surgeon’s story about dying in a kayak accident while cascading down a waterfall in Chile.   She encountered the peace, beauty and angels in heaven but was sent back because her work on earth was not finished. She became much more aware not only of God’s providence but of her purpose in life.

Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon, is by a doctor who did not believe in God or life after death.  He said that those with near-death experiences only had fantasies produced by the brain under severe stress.  Then he himself had a terrible brain illness and was in a deep coma for seven days.  About the time the doctors decided to declare him dead, he awoke.  His life was never the same after the experience.  While he was in the after life, he was accompanied by an angelic being who guided him to super-physical realms of existence.  He met the Divine.  In addition to his book, he now speaks widely and declares that “true health can be achieved only when we believe that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of life but a transition.”

Don Piper’s story is 90 Minutes in Heaven:  A True Story of Death & Life.  His life, too, has been one of positive impact as he tells the story of going to heaven and returning with a message and mission.

Two books from the Grahams are not of near-death experiences but of looking forward in faith to Heaven.  Billy Graham’s Nearing Home and Ann Graham Lotz’s Heaven, My Father’s House  are permeated with joy in anticipating heaven and finishing well the earthly journey so the Lord can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy reward” (Matthew 25:21).