Touched by heaven...

How about we talk about something positive today?  Anyone game for that?  I can hardly stand to turn on the news – yes, I want and need to know what is going on in this world, but it begins to permeate your thinking that “All is lost, where are we headed,” etc.  I bought this book about a month ago written by a cardiologist called “Touched by Heaven” and he tells stories about after-death things he has seen and heard and how those experiences by real people have called him to a faith beyond anything he could have fathomed.
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His first experience with it was when he was a resident, and he had assisted when a man had flatlined on the operating table.  They ran to get the shocker machine, and they put it on him and it didn’t do anything.  They made sure it was turned on, worked on it some, tried again – nothing.  They got an extension cord and plugged it into an opposite wall.  Nothing.  As you might imagine, total chaos had ensued in this time lapse while the patient lies dead on the table.  No time to waste!  He has someone run down the hall to radiology to get their machine, and while they are gone, something got caught on the cord and fell over, and he’s down under the operating table where the patient lies trying to untangle the cord, and it’s just a mess everywhere. 

They run back with the new machine, put it on him and after a few tries, he comes back.  A few days later, he is walking down the hall when the patient, this big biker dude with tattoos and huge muscular arms comes running out of his room and grabs him by the collar of his shirt.  He says, “Why did you bring me back?  Why did you bring me back?”  The doctor was totally taken back, thinking, “What in the world?  You should be thanking me!”  The guy says, “I was at total peace where I was.  I watched all you guys running around, you under the table fooling with those cords, bringing in the new machine, making me come back.  I was up in the corner watching, and I was just fine where I was!  I wanted to stay there – it was good!” 

This young resident said he believed in God – you know, in the kind of distant “Yeah, there’s a God way” but he hadn’t really experienced a personal relationship.  He began to see more and more evidence of the after-life, the people who didn’t go to a nice place, who were terrified to die and even more terrified if they’d had a flatline situation where they went somewhere and it wasn’t good.  I’ll tell more stories from his book later – it is a phenomenal testimony of personal experiences he went through not only as a cardiac surgeon, but a father of a child with leukemia who ends up dying, even though his father had reached a faith that enabled him to literally raise folks from the dead.  But not his own son.  Imagine that – you have power to raise a stranger from the dead, but your flesh and blood is suffering horribly and you can do nothing…..

When my grandmother died, she began to see things in heaven, and she was right at death’s door, stable in her mind, but seeing people up in heaven and able to describe them.  She said to Mom one day, “Who is that up there with Pop?”  Pop was her dad who always wore these old men hats, very distinctive.  Mom says, “Mother, it’s me, Patty.”  Grandmother says, “Well, I know it’s you!  I’m talking about that person there with Pop,” pointing to the end of her bed up in the air.  She was very present in this life, but also beginning to be present in the next life.  It sends chills down my spine just thinking about it, a spirit hovering between two worlds.  When she took her last breath, it was a beautiful and peaceful ushering into heaven that occurred.

When we were going to Israel as a family, Tom kept being all nervous about it, saying it’s the most dangerous place in the world, blah, blah, blah.  I said, “If I’m going to go out of this place, to think that I would meet my Savior from Jerusalem makes me excited.”  He felt bad then, I think (plus I reminded him that his six-year-old had to shame him into riding The Beast at Kings Island…).  Now all he talks about is how he’d love to go back to Israel.  That place changes you, because it brings you to a place that is so real, so powerful, so life-changing.
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I would encourage you today that no matter how crazy this life gets, no matter how violent the world becomes, no matter how many haters there are out there, bombers, stabbers, shooters, we are promised a world beyond this one where there is no pain, there is no sorrow, and it’s been illustrated by real people over and over and over – and the Bible gives us details guaranteed to give us peace and a hope.  When I get discouraged, I stop and take time to praise, to be thankful, to pray for peace in the midst of the storm…….

Colossians 3:15 15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.