Every Action Is Recorded!

In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room. There were no distinguishing features save for the one wall covered with small index-card files. They were like the ones in libraries that list titles by author or subject in alphabetical order. But these files, which stretched from floor to ceiling and seemingly endlessly in either direction, had very different headings. As I drew near the wall of files, the first to catch my attention was one that read "Girls I Have Liked." I opened it and began flipping through the cards. I quickly shut it, shocked to realize that I recognized the names written on each one. And then without being told, I knew exactly where I was. This lifeless room with its small files was a crude catalog system for my life. Here were written the actions of my every moment, big and small, in a detail my memory couldn't match. A sense of wonder and curiosity, coupled with horror, stirred within me as I began randomly opening files and exploring their content. Some brought joy and sweet memories; others a sense of shame and regret so intense that I would look over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching. A file named "Friends" was next to one marked "Friends I Have Betrayed." The titles ranged from the mundane to the outright weird. "Books I Have Read," "Lies I Have Told," "Comfort I Have Given," "Jokes I Have Laughed At." Some were almost hilarious in their exactness: "Things I've Yelled at My Brothers." Others I couldn't laugh at: "Things I Have Done in My Anger," "Things I Have Muttered Under My Breath at My Parents." I never ceased to be surprised by the contents. Often there were many more cards than I expected. Sometimes fewer than I hoped. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the life I had lived. Could it be possible that I had the time in my 20 years to write each of these thousands or even millions of cards? But each card confirmed this truth. Each was written in my own handwriting. Each signed with my signature. When I pulled out the file marked "Songs I Have Listened To," I realized the files grew to contain their contents. The cards were packed tightly, and yet after two or three yards, I hadn't found the end of the file. I shut it, shamed, not so much by the quality of music, but more by the vast amount of time I knew that file represented. When I came to a file marked "Lustful Thoughts," I felt a chill run through my body. I pulled the file out only an inch, not willing to test its size, and drew out a card. I shuddered at its detailed content. I felt sick to think that such a moment had been recorded. An almost animal rage broke on me. One thought dominated my mind: "No one must ever see these cards! No one must ever see this room! I have to destroy them!" In an insane frenzy I yanked the file out. Its size didn't matter now. I had to empty it and burn the cards. But as I took it at one end and began pounding it on the floor, I could not dislodge a single card. I became desperate and pulled out a card, only to find it as strong as steel when I tried to tear it Defeated and utterly helpless, I returned the file to its slot. Leaning my forehead against the wall, I let out a long, self-pitying sigh. And then I saw it. The title bore "People I Have Shared the Gospel With." The handle was brighter than those around it, newer, almost unused. I pulled on its handle and a small box not more than three inches long fell into my hands. I could count the cards it contained on one hand. And then the tears came. I began to weep. Sobs so deep that they hurt started in my stomach and shook through me. I fell on my knees and cried. I cried out of shame, from the overwhelming shame of it all. The rows of file shelves swirled in my tear-filled eyes. No one must ever, ever know of this room. I must lock it up and hide the key. But then as I pushed away the tears, I saw Him. No, please not Him. Not here. Oh, anyone but Jesus. I watched helplessly as He began to open the files and read the cards. I couldn't bear to watch His response. And in the moments I could bring myself to look at His face, I saw a sorrow deeper than my own. He seemed to intuitively go to the worst boxes. Why did He have to read every one? Finally He turned and looked at me from across the room. He looked at me with pity in His eyes. But this was a pity that didn't anger me. I dropped my head, covered my face with my hands and began to cry again. He walked over and put His arm around me. He could have said so many things. But He didn't say a word. He just cried with me. Then He got up and walked back to the wall of files. Starting at one end of the room, He took out a file and, one by one, began to sign His name over mine on each card. "No!" I shouted rushing to Him. All I could find to say was "No, no," as I pulled the card from Him. His name shouldn't be on these cards. But there it was, written in red so rich, so dark, so alive. The name of Jesus covered mine. It was written with His blood. He gently took the card back. He smiled a sad smile and began to sign the cards. I don't think I'll ever understand how He did it so quickly, but the next instant it seemed I heard Him close the last file and walk back to my side. He placed His hand on my shoulder and said, "It is finished." I stood up, and He led me out of the room. There was no lock on its door. There were still cards to be written. http://www.2jesus.org/inspstories/room2.html

Randy Gehling's Near-Death Experience

Ten-year-old Randy Gehling of Arlington Heights, Illinois, had been begging for a new bicycle for his birthday all summer long. On September 8, 1988, the tenth anniversary of his arrival on planet Earth, he got his bicycle - but he also came very close to changing his mailing address to heaven. Steve and Kathy Gehling, Randy's parents, found the accident bitterly ironic. Randy's near-death experience appears in Brad Steiger's book, One with the Light. "For months he begs for a new bike for his birthday," Steven said. "The minute he spotted it on the porch, he tore off the ribbons, ignored the eight little friends gathered for his birthday celebration, and took off for a "quick spin" around the block. He just didn't seem to see the teenager from across the street using the alley as a shortcut home." Kathy remembered the anguish of the long hours that they spent in the waiting room, not knowing for certain whether their son would live or die. "He had been unconscious ever since the neighbor boy hit him with his car. His new bicycle was all mangled. Some of the neighbors said that Randy was sent flying fifteen or twenty feet by the impact. All we could do was pray." After a three-hour surgery, the doctor visited them in the waiting room and told them that the prognosis looked good. Randy was in a recovery room, and as soon as it was advisable, he would be wheeled to a hospital room where they could wait by his bedside. The doctor could not promise whether Randy would be conscious enough to respond to them yet that night. The next morning at about seven-twenty, about seventeen hours after his accident, Randy opened his eyes, saw his parents at his bedside, and smiled. He accepted their gentle hugs and kisses in silence, then told them: "Wow, Mom and Dad, what a trip!" Steve and Kathy chuckled at their son's first words. Then at a loss for the proper response to such a comment, Steve said: "Yeah, I guess you really went flying over the handlebars, eh?" Randy nodded, then winced at the pain of the movement. His head was completely swatched in bandages, leaving him with only a peephole around the eyes and a small open space for his mouth. "Yeah, I flew up to the stars and went to heaven. I saw the angels, and I even think I might have seen Jesus. Oh, and I saw Grandpa Hansen, too." Steve and Kathy glanced at one another in meaningful silence. "He's still under the effects of the anesthetic," Kathy whispered. "It's like he's dreaming." Randy protested what he overheard of his mother's whispered analysis. "It was no dream. I was there!" Steve and Kathy decided to agree with their son so they would not aggravate his condition so soon after surgery. But over the next days and weeks, they came to have a different opinion of their ten-year-old son's visit to heaven. They had to admit that Randy may well have experienced much more than a dream. According to the notes taken by Kathy Gehling, here, somewhat abbreviated, is Randy's account of his near-death experience: "I didn't really know what had hit me. I just seemed to go flying through the air. "And then a really funny thing happened. A part of me - I guess my soul - just kept flying, and I saw my body smash into the ground. I knew it had to hurt to land that hard, so I was happy that I was where I was - wherever that was. "When I got a little higher, I saw that it had been Kurt's car that had hit me. I always told him that he drove too fast in the neighborhood. He would usually just make a face at me or flip me the bird. He should have listened to me. I figured that he must have killed me and now he would go to jail." Randy felt a moment of panic when he realized that he might be dying. "But then this beautiful angel appeared beside me. She was really pretty. She looked like a movie star with wings. Her voice sounded kind of like Mom's when she is comforting me when I have a stomach ache or something. "She told me not to worry. She said that she was with me and that she would stay right by my side. She took my hand, and I felt a lot better." Randy said that they soon approached a dark tunnel. When he held back and said that he was afraid to go into the darkness, the angel smiled and told them that this was the only way that they could get to their destination. I could see a bright light at the far end of the tunnel, so I said: "All right, as long as you don't let go of my hand!" She laughed and said: "I told you that I would never leave your side. I have been with you ever since you were born. In fact, I was there at your mother's side when you were born. I am your guardian angel." Randy asked her what her name was. "We don't have names in the manner that you mean," she said, "but if it makes you feel better to call me something, you may call me, Areo (ah-ree-o)." The tunnel did not prove to be such a terrible ordeal after all. Randy and Areo seemed to whoosh through it quickly. "And then we stood before this totally awesome light," Randy said. "It was so bright and powerful that you really couldn't look right at it. "I looked at Areo, wondering what we were to do next. She said that we would enter the light and become one with it. Before I could ask what that meant, she just gave my hand a little tug, and then we were inside the light. "That was really cool! I kind of felt as though my body exploded - in a nice way - and became a million different atoms - and each single atom could think its own thoughts and have its own feelings. All at once I seemed to feel like I was a boy, a girl, a dog, a cat, a fish. Then I felt like I was an old man, an old woman - and then a little tiny baby." And then Randy and Areo were standing in what appeared to be a lovely part, bedecked with "millions and millions" of colorful flowers. Randy could hear beautiful music playing somewhere off in the distance. "Just a little ways off I could see a bridge with someone standing on it. Beyond the bridge, I saw a golden city with towers like European castles. The whole city seemed to be shining with light that shot up into the sky like a giant searchlight. "I could see that some of the domes of the city were red, others were gold, and a few were blue. The gates and walls of the city seemed to be made of bright blue, red, and violet lights." Randy asked Areo if they were going to visit the city. The angel nodded. "That's to be your new home, Randy." They began walking toward the bridge to the city, and Randy saw that the man standing awaiting them was his Grandpa Hansen. Randy ran to his grandfather and felt his strong arms close around him. Grandpa Hansen had been a farmer all of his life in Minnesota. He had died, still a powerful man, when Randy was six. Randy asked his beloved grandfather if he would now be living with him in heaven. "One day," Grandpa Hansen told him. "But not just yet." When Randy questioned his grandfather, he told him that he still had things to learn on Earth. "You nearly bought the farm this time, Randy-boy," Grandpa Hansen said with a chuckle. "But you aren't ready to cash in your chips yet." Aero seemed puzzled. "But it seemed to me that I was doing the right thing. The word that I received indicated that now was Randy's time to return home." Grandpa Hansen shrugged. "I was told to meet you at the bridge and tell you to take him back home. He's got some lessons that he hasn't learned yet - and lots of work that he hasn't even started to fulfill." Before Areo took him by the hand for the return flight home, Randy said that another figure materialized beside Grandpa Hansen on the bridge. "I knew right away that it was Jesus," Randy said, convinced of the majestic visitor. "I knew by his eyes." Randy couldn't quite remember all of the things that Jesus said, but he is certain of some of the words. "Jesus said that I would never quite be the same as I was before I visited heaven. He said that some of the power of the light would remain within me. And he told me to let the love that I would feel in my heart express itself to all people. "He said that I should never worry if people doubted my story or could not understand what I was telling them. 'One day,' Jesus said, 'everyone will come to see for themselves what you have seen.'"

Nasir Siddiki-Simply Awesom!

By age 34, Nasir Siddiki, a successful businessman, had made his first million, but money meant nothing to him on his deathbed. Diagnosed with the worst case of shingles ever admitted to Toronto General Hospital , his immune system shut down and doctors left him to die. The next morning I woke in a sterile room on the eighth floor of the hospital, my skin burning as though someone had doused me in gasoline and lit a match. I felt on fire from the inside out. My doctor arrived and looked at me in wonder. “The blisters are multiplying so fast I can literally watch them grow,” he said. ‘”Your body isn’t fighting back.” The next morning, in addition to shingles, I had chicken pox from head to toe. I was put in strict isolation. That evening my temperature soared to 107.6 degrees — hot enough to leave my brain permanently scrambled. For days I continued to deteriorate. My nerve endings became so inflamed that a hair drifting across my skin sent shock waves of fire rippling through my body. By week’s end, I was listed in critical condition. My Last Hope In life, I’d been bold, self confident, a risk taker. But facing death, I was terrified. I had no idea what might await me on the other side. I’d been raised as a Moslem in London , England , and I understood Allah was not a god who heals. My only hope was in medicine. I eventually slipped so close to death that the doctors didn’t know I could hear them when they examined me. “His immune system has simply shut down,” one of them said. “He’s dying,” the other confirmed. “His immune system must be compromised by AIDS.” I don’t have AIDS! I wanted to shout, but I couldn’t form the words. Then it hit me. He said I’m dying! The doctors spoke quietly to my co-worker, Anita. “In a few hours he’ll be dead,” they said. “If by some miracle he lives, he’ll probably be blind in his right eye, deaf in his right ear, paralyzed on his right side and he may be severely brain damaged from the high fever.” Then they left. They left me here to die! I felt like a drowning man going down for the third time. Gathering my strength I whispered a prayer. “God, if you’re real, don’t let me die!” In His Presence During the darkest hour of the night, I woke and saw a man at the foot of my bed. Rays of light emanated from him, allowing me to see his outline. I couldn’t see his face, it was too bright. No one had to tell me, I knew it was Jesus. The Koran mentions Jesus; Moslems believe He existed, not as the son of God, but as a good man and a prophet. I knew this wasn’t Mohammed. I knew it wasn’t Allah. Jesus was in my room. There was no fear, only peace. “Why would You come to a Moslem when everyone else has left me to die?” I wondered. Without words, he spoke to me. “I Am the God of the Christians. I Am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” That’s all He said. He didn’t mention my illness. He didn’t mention my impending death. As suddenly as He appeared, He was gone. The next morning, the same two doctors arrived to examine me. “The blisters have stopped growing!” “We don’t know what happened, but the shingles virus has gone into remission!” The following day, still in pain and covered with blisters, I was discharged from the hospital with a suitcase full of drugs. “Don’t leave home,” the doctor cautioned. “It will be months before the blisters go away, and when they do you’ll be left with white patches of skin and scars. The pain could last for years.” Stepping outside into the morning sun, I looked like a cross between a leper and the Elephant Man. When people saw me, they crossed to the other side of the street. However, my mind was not on my looks; my thoughts were on Jesus. There was no doubt in my mind that Jesus’ presence in my room had stopped the shingles virus. Whatever else Jesus may be, I realized that in His presence miracles happened. That fact left me with one consuming question: Is Jesus the Son of God as the Christians claim, or is He just a prophet as I was taught? At home that evening, in spite of the drugs, the pain and itching was so severe I almost had to tie my hands. Even so, I fell into a restless sleep wondering about Jesus. Learning to Live The next morning, I woke early and turned on the television. Flipping through the channels, I froze when I saw the following words across the screen: Is Jesus the Son of God? I listened intently as two men spent the entire program discussing this topic — answering all of my questions. Before the show went off the air, one of the men led the television audience in a prayer. My body was aflame with pain but I knelt on my living room floor anyway. Tears streaming down my face, I repeated the prayer and invited Jesus into my heart. Immediately a voracious spiritual hunger sprang up within me. I had to know more about Jesus. In spite of my doctor’s orders to stay inside, the next day I went out and bought a Bible. First I read the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Still ravenous, I started in Genesis and read through the Bible during my sleepless nights. Meanwhile, Anita brought me books and teaching tapes explaining the Gospel. I devoured them while continuing to study the Word of God. As my understanding of faith began to grow, I dug out a picture of how I looked before shingles. I prayed and asked God to make me look that way again. Nasir and Anita Siddiki - Jesus, My Healer One week after my discharge from the hospital, I woke and found my pillow covered in blisters. I must have clawed them in my sleep, I thought. I crawled out of bed and stepped into the shower. What had started on my pillow was finished in the shower: Every blister fell off my body! Instead of being covered with patches of white and scar tissue, my skin was simply red and raw. It slowly healed, returning to its pre-shingles condition. When it did, I not only looked human, I looked like I did before I got sick, except for the scars that I still carry on my chest. None of the doctor’s dire predictions came true. My eyesight was 20/20. My hearing was normal. My speech was unimpaired. I suffered no brain damage. My healing was miraculous, swift and complete. I never suffered from lingering pain or any other complication. Not only did I have the worst case of shingles ever admitted to Toronto General Hospital , I also had the most miraculous recovery. Jesus, the God of the Christians, showed up in the hospital room of a dying Moslem and healed me. But that wasn’t the greatest miracle He performed. The transformation that occurred in my heart was even more dramatic than the one that occurred in my body.

Seeing Hell Before Death

My Grandfather on my Father's side passed away when I was very young. My Step-Grandfather since then had passed away this Summer.. At family gatherings, we always talk about him. He was a very interesting and unique man. He was close friends with many popular people. Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack, for example.. He gambled at the BIG tables in Las Vegas. He was treated with great respect wherever he went. He never worked a day in his life, soughta speak... Well, after Thanksgiving dinner, my Grandmother and I had our usual talks.. But today, things were a little different. She's having an easier time talking about his last moments... She spoke about how he was in great pain and needed a machine which fed air into his lungs to remain alive... As things began to get worse and worse, he tried removing the air-piece from his face but my Grandmother, at his side, would keep putting it back on. It was only later that she realized he was trying to say he's had enough... This went on back and forth for awhile.. Unfortunately, he was falling in and out of concienceness as his heart had begun to slow down and stop occasionally.. Keep in mind, now - that this was a very, very tough man. He was never afraid of anyone or anything. He was a bodyguard of a very, very popular person. He'd taken gunshots before... I've heard so many instances of how people who died momenterally would come back to life to say they'd "seen a light - a tunnel of light" and how "an angel said it wasn't yet my time". This was very different... The last time he came to for a moment, he had a petrified look in his eyes. He pulled my Grandmother close and said, "They're trying to get me. They're not human. I have to get out of here!" After saying this, in his horrible condition, he tried to get out of bed... And that was the end... My Grandmother told me he saw the Gates of Hell.. Until now, I've never had such a positive feeling that what we do in this life can certainly affect the afterlife.. I always try to do what's best and what I think is right.. I hope all of you do your best, as well, to live good, honest lives...

Angie Fenimore's Near-Death Experience

I was passing over into a different sphere. My soul was disconnecting from my body with a hum that kept growing louder, rising to a whine as the vibration of death pulled me deeper. I noticed that there was a large screen before me. I was being drawn into a three-dimensional slide show of my life that played out before my eyes chronologically, while I experienced every part of it from all points of view and all points of understanding. I knew exactly how each person felt who had ever interacted with me. In particular, however, I was being shown in vivid detail exactly what my childhood was really like. The pictures flew past me, but I easily absorbed every moment, each one triggering an entire memory or a chunk of my life. So this was what people meant when they said, "My life flashed before my eyes." The closer I came to the end of my life, the faster the pictures flew past me. It was incredible! In an instant I had experienced the entirety of the twenty-seven years from my birth until the moment that I found myself dying on the couch and passing into the warm tunnel. Then the fast motion of my life rushing past and through me stopped abruptly. Now what? Where was I? I was immersed in darkness. My eyes seemed to adjust, and I could see clearly even though there was no light. The darkness continued in all directions and seemed to have no end, but it wasn't just blackness, it was an endless void, an absence of light. It was completely enveloping. I swung my head around to explore the thick blackness and saw, to my right, standing shoulder to shoulder, a handful of others. They were all teenagers. "Oh, we must be the suicides." With a laugh, I opened my mouth, but before I could form the words, they came tumbling out. I wasn't sure whether I had thought the words or had attempted to say them, but they were audible without my having to move my lips. Then I wasn't sure if these other people had heard me, until the guy next to me responded. He didn't say a word to me. He slowly looked down at me and turned forward again. There was absolutely no expression on his face, no warmth or intelligence in his eyes. Suspended in darkness, he and all the others stood fixed in a thoughtless stupor. Second over from the other end of the line was a girl who looked to be in her late teens. I was coming to see that feeling - what some call intuition or the sixth sense - was the preferred method of transferring information here, where unvoiced ideas grew audible. As I exercised my new power of sensing/feeling, I had an inkling that I was remembering a long-forgotten, natural, familiar skill that had been supplanted or subverted by words, and I quickly grew proficient at this new way of gaining knowledge. But she did not connect with me. Her empty gaze, fixed on nothing, continued uninterrupted by my thoughts about her. She was just like the rest of them, staring blankly forward, with no concern or curiosity about where we were. They were dead, and so was I. Suddenly, as if we had been waiting for a kind of sorting process to take place, I was sucked further into the darkness by an unseen and undefined power, leaving the teenagers behind. I landed on the edge of a shadowy realm, suspended in the darkness, extending to the limits of my sight. I knew that I was in a state of hell, but this was not the typical fire and brimstone hell that I had learned about as a young child. The word purgatory rose, whispered, into my mind. Men and women of all ages, but no children, were standing or squatting or wandering about on the realm. Some were mumbling to themselves. The darkness emanated from deep within and radiated from them in an aura I could feel. They were completely self-absorbed, every one of them too caught up in his or her own misery to engage in any mental or emotional exchange. They had the ability to connect with one another, but they were incapacitated by the darkness. I gradually became aware of the sounds of a kaleidoscopic flurry of voices, and I realized that in this realm, thoughts were the mode of communication. Around me I could hear the buzz of thoughts, as if I were in a crowded movie theater with lights down low, picking up the sounds of hushed exchanges. Sitting next to me was a man who appeared to be about sixty years old. This man's eyes were totally without comprehension. Pathetically squatting on the ground, draped in filthy white robes, he wasn't radiating anything, not even self-pity. I felt that he had absorbed everything there was to know here and had chosen to stop thinking. He was completely drained, just waiting. I knew that his soul had been rotting here forever. In this dark prison a day might as well be a thousand days or a thousand years. I was sure that this man, like the middle-aged woman, had killed himself. His clothing suggested that he might have walked the earth during Jesus Christ's earthly ministry. I wondered if he was Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed the Savior and then hung himself. I felt that I should be embarrassed that I was thinking these things in his presence, where he could hear me. As my mind reached for more information, I felt tremendous disappointment. I could feel and completely know about everything around me just by posing a question in my mind or by looking in any direction. The possibilities for learning were endless, but I had no books, no television, no love, no privacy, no sleep, no friends, no light, no growth, no happiness, and no relief - no knowledge to gain and no way to use it. But worse was my growing sense of complete aloneness. Even hearing the brunt of someone's anger, however unpleasant, is a form of tangible connection. But in this empty world, where no connections could be made, the solitude was terrifying. Then I heard a voice of awesome power, not loud but crashing over me like a booming wave of sound; a voice that encompassed such ferocious anger that with one word it could destroy the universe, and that also encompassed such potent and unwavering love that, like the sun, it could coax life from the earth. I cowered at its force and at its excruciating words: "Is this what you really want?" The great voice emanated from a pinpoint of light that swelled with each thunderous word until it hung like a radiant sun just beyond the black wall of mist that formed my prison. Though far more brilliant that the sun, the light soothed my eyes with its deep and pure white luminescence. I sensed that the light could not (or perhaps would not - I wasn't sure) cross the barrier into the darkness. And I knew with complete certainty that I was in the presence of God. He was a Being of Light, not just radiating light or illuminated from within, but he almost seemed to be made of the light. It was a light that had substance and dimension, the most beautiful, glorious substance that I have ever beheld. All beauty, all love, all goodness were contained in the light that poured forth from this being. But there is nothing that we are even capable of imagining that comes close to the magnitude of perfect love that this being poured into me. While I was not remembering details of a life before my mortal birth, I was reacquainting myself with the life that I shared with the Father, a spirit life that seemed to extend to the beginning of the universe. I could see that none of the others in the realm were aware of God's presence. The man cowering next to me could see that I was focused on something, but it was apparent that he couldn't see anything beyond the barrier. Others continued to babble unaware. Then God spoke to me. His words were excruciating: "Is this what you really want? Don't you know that this is the worst thing you could have done?" I could feel his anger and frustration, both because I'd thrown in the towel and because I had cut myself off from him and from his guidance. And I'd felt trapped. I had been able to see no other choice but to die before I could do any more damage in life. So I answered: "But my life is so hard." My thoughts were communicated so fast that they weren't even completed before I absorbed his response: "You think that was hard? It is nothing compared to what awaits you if you take your life." When the Father spoke, each of his words exploded into a complex of meanings, like fireworks, tiny balls of light that erupted into a billion bits of information, filling me with streams of vivid truth and pure understanding. "Life's supposed to be hard. You can't skip over parts. We have all done it. You must earn what you receive." Suddenly I felt another presence with us, the same presence that had been with me when I first crossed over into death and who had reviewed my life with me. I recognized that he had been with us the whole time, but that I was only now becoming able to perceive him. Then I'd sensed his powerful, yet gentle personality, but now I could feel him so strongly that I could even ascertain his shape. What I could see were bits of light coming through the darkness, like tiny laser beams pinpricking a black sheet or like stars peeping through the blackness of a cloudless night. This light was unmistakably of the same brilliance as the glorious light that emanated from the Father, but my spiritual eyes were incapable of fully beholding it. My ability to see with my eyes was somehow linked to my willingness to believe. The rays of light penetrated me with incredible force, with the power of an all-consuming love. This love was as pure and potent as the Father's, but it had an entirely new dimension of pure compassion, of complete and perfect empathy. I felt that he not only understood my life and my pains exactly, as if he had actually lived my life, but that he knew everything about how to guide me through it; how my different choices could produce either more bitterness or new growth. Having thought all my life that no one could possibly understand what I had been through, I was now aware that there was one other person who truly did. Through this empathy ran a deep vein of sorrow. He ached, he truly grieved for the pain I had endured, but even more for my failure to seek his comfort. His greatest desire was to help me. He mourned my blindness as a mother would mourn a dead child. Suddenly I knew that I was in the presence of the redeemer of the world. He spoke to me through the veil of darkness: "Don't you understand? I have done this for you." As I was flooded with his love and with the actual pain that he bore for me, my spiritual eyes were opened. In that moment I began to see just exactly what it was that the Savior had done, how he had sacrificed for me. He showed me; He had taken me into himself, subsumed my life in his, embracing my experiences, my sufferings, as his own. And so for a second I was within his body, able to see things from his point of view and to experience his self-awareness. He let me in so I could see for myself how he had taken on my burdens and how much love he bore me. And I knew where I had gone wrong. I had doubted his existence. I had questioned the authenticity of the scriptures because what they claimed seemed too good to be true. I had hoped that there was truth to the idea of a Savior who had given his life for me, but I had been afraid to really believe. To believe without seeing requires a great deal of trust. My trust had been violated so many times in my life that I had very little to spare. And so I had clung to my pain so tightly that I was willing to end my life rather than unburden myself and act on the chance that a Savior existed. He wanted to comfort me and to hold me, but we were separated by my responses to the lessons of life. He had been there for me all through my life, but I had not trusted him. As I watched from the Savior's perspective, his unique comprehension of my predicament was transferred to the Father. From my new perspective I saw God in profile as he was looking at my form. The Father and his Son's communication was so rapid, so perfect, that they seemed to think each other's thoughts in unison. Jesus was pleading my case. There was no conflict or argument here; Jesus' understanding was accepted without dispute because he had all the facts. He was the perfect judge. He knew precisely where I stood in relation to my need for mercy and the universe's need for justice. Now I could see that all the suffering in my mortal life would be temporary, and that it was actually for my good. Our sufferings on earth need not be futile. Out of the most tragic of circumstances springs human growth. As God the Father and Jesus were teaching me, their words picked up speed and power and then merged, so that they were saying the exact same things in the very same moment. They shared one voice, one mind, and the purpose, and I was deluged with pure knowledge. I learned that just as there are laws of nature, of physics and probability, there are laws of spirit. One of these spiritual laws is that a price of suffering must be paid for every act of harm. I was painfully aware of the suffering I had caused my family and other people because of my own weaknesses. But now I saw that by ending my life, I was destroying the web of connections of people on earth, possibly drastically altering the lives of millions, for all of us are inseparably linked, and the negative impact of one decision has the capacity to be felt throughout the world. My children, certainly, would be gravely harmed by my suicide. I was given a glimpse of their future, not the events of their lives but rather energy, and the character that their lives would have. By abandoning my earthly responsibilities, I would influence my children, my oldest son in particular, to make choices that would lead him away from his divine purpose. Before Alex was born, I was told, he had agreed to perform specific tasks during his life on earth. His duty was not revealed to me, but I felt the energy that his life would have up until his young adult years. I was told that my children were great and powerful spirits and that up to this point in my life, I had not deserved them. I caught a glimpse of how deeply God loves my boys, and how, with my callous disregard for their welfare, I was tampering with the sacred will of God. Then I was shown how I would harm other people close to me, such as my husband and my sister, Tony, by taking my life; and by extension, countless others. There were people on the earth whom I would never meet who would be affected by my suicide. Because of the anger and pain I would cause them, my loved ones would be unable to store up the goodness that they were meant to pass on to others. I would be held responsible for the damages - or the lack of good - they would do while immersed in the pain of my selfish death. And I would pay dearly for it, since spiritual laws dictate that all of the harm, including lack of good, stemming from my death be punished by a measure of suffering. Even though I couldn't foresee the ripple effect my death would cause, I would be held accountable. God himself is bound by spiritual law, and so there could be no escape for me. And I was shown that for me, the realm of darkness was quite literally spiritual time-out, a place where I was supposed to grasp the gravity of my offenses and to pay the price. But I had to ask, why me? Why was it that I could see God while the vacant husk of a man next to me could not? Why was I absorbing light and being taught, while he was hunkering down in misery and darkness? I was told that the reason is willingness. When I first looked at that man and wondered if he had been alive during the earthly ministry of Jesus, the question showed that I was willing to believe in God, willing to believe that Christ had once walked the earth. And once I was willing to believe, I was able to see. Willingness and ability are the same thing. All around me on the dark realm were people of varying degrees of willingness, of understanding, of ability to see that Jesus Christ was there with us the whole time. I don't know if the others were talking to God as I was or if they were talking to other messengers of light that I was not yet capable of seeing, but I'm sure that not all of them were just mumbling to themselves. And I could see that my spiritual time-out could have lasted a moment, or it could have taken me thousands of years to progress out of that dark prison, depending on when I reached the point of willingness to see the light. And what about the spiritual law that required me to suffer for the damage I had already done in life, up until and including my suicide? I was told that the debt had already been paid, that the sacrifice had already been made. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus Christ had experienced all the suffering that has or ever will take place in the life of any human born on this earth. He experienced my life, he bore my sins, he accepted my grief. But in order for the agony that Jesus endured on my behalf to count, in order for him to take my place in fulfilling that spiritual law, I had to accept his gift. My heart broke as I realized that I had been not only hurting my family, who are beloved children of God, but also causing my Savior, who had such all-encompassing love and compassion for me, to suffer - all because I had allowed myself to be molded by other people's weaknesses. Now my perception was shifting, and the darkness seemed to lift slightly. When I first entered the dark prison, my vision took in only the things and the people in the realm of darkness. But once I had taken enough light in from God and Jesus, my spiritual eyes were opened to another dimension in the darkness. Now I could see that Beings of Light were all around me. Hell, while also a specific dimension, is primarily a state of mind. When we die, we are bound by what we think. In mortality the more solid our thoughts become, as we act upon them - allowing darkness to develop in others and in ourselves - the more damning they are. I had been in hell long before I died, and I hadn't realized it because I had escaped many of the consequences up until the point that I took my life. But when we die, our state of mind grows far more obvious because we are gathered together with those who think as we do. This ordering is completely natural and is consistent with how we choose to live while we are in this world. Our time is but a heartbeat in the eternal scheme of creation, and yet it is the crucial moment of truth, the turning point. It determines how our spirits will exist forever, into both the future and the past. I was becoming less and less a part of the place of darkness with each particle of light that I accepted. I hadn't felt myself lift off the surface, but now I was hovering above the field of darkness, into the realm of the scurrying spirits of light. I could feel the urgency in the spirits who were scurrying about to do the work of God. I was then told that we are in the final moments before the Savior will return to the earth. I was told that the war between darkness and light upon the earth has grown so intense that if we are not continually seeking light, the darkness will consume us and we will be lost. I was not told when it would happen, but I understood that the earth is being prepared for the second coming of Christ. I looked down at the pathetic souls and realized that I no longer felt as they did. I wanted to live. Then the powerful energy source that had transported me to the dark prison returned to liberate me. For a split second a rushing sensation engulfed me. The darkness sped past, and suddenly I was back in my body, lying on the couch. "When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul laughs for what it has found." - Sufi aphorism

NDE Laura Geraghty

For Laura Geraghty, April 1, 2009, started out just as any other day. It was sunny but cool, she remembers. The mother of two, also a grandmother, was at her job, driving a school bus for the Newton Public School District in suburban Boston, Massachusetts. Her passengers, special-needs children, were wheelchair-bound. Seemingly in good health and in good spirits, Geraghty was finishing up her late-morning run, transporting a student and teacher back to Newton South High School, when she realized she was in trouble. As she was pulling into the school parking lot, she began having sharp stomach pains. She was able to park her bus, but she kept feeling worse. The pain "went right up my arm and into my chest, and I said, 'Uh-oh, I'm having a heart attack,' " she said. The teacher ran from the bus to get help. Newton South's nurse, Gail Kramer, and CPR instructor Michelle Coppola arrived moments later with the school's new automated external defibrillator. Geraghty, barely conscious, was fading fast. She was weak and having trouble breathing. And then she went into full cardiac arrest. "Her eyes were wide, and all of a sudden she stopped talking to us," Coppola said. "I grabbed the two pads, stuck them on her, started it up, and I'd say within 20 seconds, she had her first shock." Coppola and Kramer performed CPR while they waited for paramedics. Video See an expert give a quick lesson in CPR » At that point, Geraghty says, her body died. She remembers watching the scene unfold -- as if from above. "I floated right out of my body. My body was here, and I just floated away. I looked back at it once, and it was there." Geraghty says she saw deceased loved ones, her mother and her ex-husband. "It was very peaceful and light and beautiful. And I remember like, when you see someone you haven't seen in a while, you want to hug them, and I remember trying to reach out to my ex-husband, and he would not take my hand. And then they floated away." Next, she says, she was overwhelmed by "massive energy, powerful, very powerful energy." "When that was happening, there were pictures of my son and my daughter and my granddaughter, and every second, their pictures flashed in my mind, and then I came back." What Geraghty had was a near-death experience, fairly common in people who go into sudden cardiac arrest. Geraghty was down for 57 minutes. No blood pressure, no pulse, no oxygen, no blood flow. She was shocked 21 times before she finally came back with tales of the afterlife. According to the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, nearly 800 near-death experiences happen every day in the United States. Dr. Kevin Nelson, a neurologist in Lexington, Kentucky, studies near-death experiences and says they're not imagined. The explanation, he says, lies in the brain itself. "These are real experiences. And they're experiences that happen at a time of medical crisis and danger," Nelson said. Humans have a lot of reflexes that help keep us alive, part of the "fight or flight" response that arises when we're confronted with danger. Nelson thinks that near-death experiences are part of the dream mechanism and that the person having the experience is in a REM, or "rapid eye movement," state. "Part of our 'fight or flight' reflexes to keep us alive includes the switch into the REM state of consciousness," he said. During REM sleep, there is increased brain activity and visual stimulation. Intense dreaming occurs as a result. And the bright light so many people claim to see? "The activation of the visual system caused by REM is causing the bright lights," Nelson said. And the tunnel people speak of, he says, is lack of blood flow to the eye. "The eye, the retina of the eye, is one of the most exquisitely sensitive tissues to a loss of blood flow. So when blood flow does not reach the eye, vision fails, and darkness ensues from the periphery to the center. And that is very likely causing the tunnel effect." Nelson is doing studies now to prove that the same effect results from fainting. "The most common cause of near-death experience in my research group is fainting. Upwards of 100 million Americans have fainted. That means probably tens of millions of Americans have had these unusual experiences." But Geraghty says this was no dream. "I know I went someplace else. I know I went someplace else other than here." Dr. Bill O'Callahan, the emergency room doctor who shocked her back to life, agrees. "Cynics out there would say and agnostics would say that's phenomenon that comes from a dying brain. I think that's hogwash. I firmly believe that people experience these events." Cheating Death: Back from the dead

Near Death Experience of B. W. Melvin

July 1980, Tucson Arizona: I contracted Cholera by drinking contaminated water someone had left in a thermos while I was working at a local construction site. The progression on this disease left me in a severe dehydrated state which became terminal. I was at home and lying in bed when it happened. My breathing was becoming a series of protracted wheezing gasps. Looking around the room, I was amazed that I could see so pristine clear without my glasses. The alarm clock ticked. It was ten minutes till noon. Everything became surreal. With a sudden swoosh, I floated above my body. Hovering there, I fully realized I had died. At that time, I was not a Christian and fell into a naturalistic agnostic atheistic belief system. Despite growing up in a loving Southern Baptist family, I did not believe in the Christian concept of God. I knew very little about Jesus, the afterlife, and God. All this was about to radically change. I floated above my body and felt no more pain from the effects of cholera. While gazing at the room, I turned and faced the ceiling. Suddenly, I felt myself drift through the ceiling’s textured drywall and was engulfed in an extremely peaceful blackness. In this pleasant darkness I heard the most astounding humming/singing sounds. I was floating in this pitch blackness listing to the resonances while slowly moving toward a speck of light that was slowly growing bigger and bigger as I neared. Soon this dazzling brilliant light began dispelling this pleasant darkness in hues of colors never before seen. The light was being emitted by an individual standing upon what appeared to me to be a huge rock suspended in space. This person wore beautiful whitish robe like garments and seemed to be sitting on a chair carved out from the rock. I landed below this person. He stood up and walked down several steps to where I had landed. I wept and fell like a heavy sack of wheat. Someone touched my shoulder. I stood up. This marvelous person showed me my life course, which revealed I was without excuse. It was then I knew I was being judged and deserved my fate. You could do nothing but stand directly before him, whose robe’s drooping hood concealed his face, and receive your sentence. As I looked at him, I noticed that he bore terrible trauma to his hands and feet. Around the wrist were gnashes deeply cut therein. The bones clearly showing that the very joints had been ripped apart by bearing a great weight. He just stood there. I felt ashamed. He began to speak to me by the agency of thought and told me I was to see another land for an appointed time. After arriving there, I was to speak his name and title and see what I would see. He went on and revealed that it was prearranged once for a person to die but returning is an option decided by his Father’s will. Children were raised; others were raised, for God’s glory and purposes when it was not their hour. He stated that I would return the way I had come, and then he pointed towards an entrance of a tunnel off to his left. Seeing it, I was lifted by some gentle force and floated toward it, feet first. When this occurred, I noticed I was wearing robe like garments. I entered the tunnel and was engulfed within a violently spinning vortex heading toward a yellowish dint of light. Reaching it, I found myself falling from its sky and landed with a thud upon the ground. I stood up and looked around. I saw a house on a hill, smelled horrible odors, and heard strange sounds. People came from the house and neared me with joyous shouts of welcome. Where was I? Heaven? Hell? At first, I thought I was in a paradise but the sounds and smells were all wrong. Something was not right about these people either. For some reason they began appearing translucent. With this, I began to see them for what they really were – strange foul creatures emitting the illusions of people. Upon seeing this, two words erupted from my mouth like the staccato of a machine gun: Jesus Christ. I said these two words non-stop till I left this place. I was in a state of stark terror as the reality of where I was hit home. One creature began to speak to me in a heavy unknown accent and told me to follow it. What choice did I have? It walked to the horizon’s skyline, which appeared painted on a wall, reached out, and parted the yellowish sky. It walked through the torn hole it had made, bidding me to follow. (The Following five paragraphs are a direct quote from my book: A Land Unknown: Hell’s Dominion, Chapter Seven, used with my permission) “I followed the rank creature and immediately emerged on the other side of the horizon. A wide, dirty, flat, barren expanse of land gently sloped downward, betraying an endless circular spiral of misery. On the left side of the coiled grade were rows and rows of cubes with more cubes columned high, forming a wall of ten-by-ten foot partitions mirroring the events displayed inside. Each cube was stacked six high, marring each ascending and descending spiraling level’s wall like a dirty mirror. The wide expanse was a road. Strange entities were traveling on it. This wide dusty road ended at a circular void, highlighting the center of this hellish domain. The cubes appeared encompassed by thin smoke-tinted, gelatin-like walls. Each cube appeared to be about ten feet by ten feet square. You could see into these but not out of them. Within every chamber resided an individual person, trapped, unable to escape as I had. Looking through the torn wall of the cube I had just stepped out of, the house and tree within were hauntingly calling my name to return. Perplexed, I stepped back for another glance at this cubicle. I was surprised that it was so small. Inside it had seemed so large! Turning, I saw the lizard-like entity a few feet from me, reaching its ugly, greenish-yellow arms as if to drag me away to a desperate fate. Boxer style, I blocked the attempt. This fiend stepped back, grinning ear to ear.” End Quote. What I saw is best described in the Holy Bible within the pages of Ezekiel 32:17-32. This chapter describes hell as a circular burial pit where the dead are buried within the walls of a pit in accordance to his or her deeds. Each individual is placed in a chamber described symbolically as a bed chamber (Ezekiel 32:24-25) where the resident restlessly rest experiencing recompense for his or her deeds (Note context of Ezekiel 32:30) performed on earth. Inside each cube, I spied individual people in various stages of boredom, anguishes, and hideous various torments. Ghoulish entities were inside these cubes giving the illusions of people, places, and things to each trapped soul enacting the scenes from each person’s life. I also traveled between these cubes to more cubes that lay behind as the journey continued. The creature before me began speaking to me again with such foul language and curses that I cannot record what it really said for you. I began understanding its speech and could sort out the general theme it was speaking from its cursing. It then began showing me around this domain. Out from the cubicle wall’s was a large dusty plain or road. Both ugly and beautiful beings roamed in lose packs on this plain. During the duration of my stay, many of these entities attempted to engage me in conversation. I was too terrified to respond but only spoke out the words, “Jesus Christ” non-stop. I was taken on a hellish tour of this place by the ghastly creature in front of me. We descended to the lower levels of the spiral road as well as observed what was happening inside the cubes to each lost soul we passed. This hellish journey seemed to last forever. I wanted to wake up so bad, but could not (For more details please see my book: A Land Unknown: Hell’s Dominion, published by Xulonpress). Each trapped soul reaped in full measure whatever they had sown during their lives. Many entered this pit and into the cubes by means of spinning vortexes. I also noticed another entrance. All those people trapped resided totally alone and were not aware of each other. The only thing each was aware of, were the creatures residing with them and the scenes enacted within their own personal square nightmarish abode. I would say that each person trapped there felt a peculiar separation from God in the form of feeling banished forever from the loving nature of God and true life. Each knew fully that they deserved his or her fate because each chose to walk away from God and now resided in place without God as they desired during his or hers life lived on earth. God, in his great justice, fairness, and unfathomable love gave them what they desired: a place without God and where each was receiving the fruits of his or her own doings. When many of these individuals entered their private abodes, they were first deceived into thinking they had arrived in a paradise. As eternity passes – the real nature of this place was fully revealed to them. Others entered into instant anguish. It is truly a place of doom, despair, and unending nightmares. I felt greatest fear when the beastly guide tried to entrap me inside a unique cubicle. It is here, I was rescued while screaming out the words, Jesus Christ. I felt someone coming for me and arrive behind me and then lift me up. (Quote from Book) “One arm was under my shoulders and the other under the bend of my knees. Oh! A sensation of love, mercy, authority, power, justice, and righteousness overwhelmed me. I no longer had any need to speak the two words that I previously spoke without ceasing. I turned my head into the cleft of the being’s shoulder and wept profusely against the white garb. The Person who held me fast said not a word. I glanced at the hand gripping my shoulder. There was an ugly gash near the wrist close to the hand as though a great pulling weight had made this mark and separated the bones above the wrist. A hole went straight through, then the tear. You could easily have placed a finger through the gash, with your fingertip protruding to the other side, but to do so would have been very disrespectful and inappropriate at a time like this.” (End Quote) I wept as the redeemer carried me back to the cube I arrived in and then through the vortex back to the rock. He set my feet upon that Huge Rock where I was granted a glimpse of Heaven and was told that none can enter Heaven unless they come through the gate which was the robe clad personage standing before me. Many things were revealed to me there, on that rock, to numerous to record. I was told it was time to leave and return. I floated back the way I had come. I was soon in my room above my body looking at the scene below. I glided back into my body and awoke with a start. I could not regain my breath until someone began hitting me on my back. I was rushed to a Hospital for further treatment and recovery. The duration of my NDE, was about four hours. I remember seeing a clock when I first left my body stating the time was 11:50 AM and when I returned, it was close to 4 PM. I still suffer several health effects from this. My heart makes a nice clicking sound. My short term memory suffered as well. Afterwards, my speech was slurred a bit but has returned to normal with the passage of time. My experience has left me a deep appreciation for the work of Jesus Christ and His salvation. I became a born again Christian because of it. I have renewed understanding of God’s profound love, justice, righteousness, grace, and mercy. Jesus came to save that which is lost. You see, heaven is real and hell is real. Eternity is without end. Do you really want to spend eternity without God? Or with God? That choice is yours alone – the decision is yours? What will it be? What will it be?