Dear Lit Loves,
I had seen this book entitled Heaven Is For Real everywhere recently. I would look at the cover with the little blonde, blue-eyed boy and think, "Well, Duh! Of course it is!" Now you have to understand that I've had my own experiences with unusual medical conditions, family deaths, and my dad surviving lymphoma twice along with a stem cell transplant and heart bypass surgery. Not to mention my mom has survived breast cancer. And recently, I had a friend and former teaching colleague who was undergoing more treatment for a relapse of small cell neuroendocrine cancer with a terminal diagnosis. I've encountered people who have confronted death as well as folks who have had near death experiences so I have to say by nature, I'm suspicious of supernatural experiences. I think they do and can happen particularly when people who are near death suddenly describe visits from relatives that have passed before them. This particular book had my warning antennae up from the get-go because a four year old child had an experience visiting heaven. I don't know about you, but I've been around four year olds and they like to embellish and they really like to keep an adult's attention so I started reading with a skeptical frame of mind.
In this book the four year old boy is the son of a small town Wesleyan minister in Nebraska. He has a sister than is about two years older than him. His mother teaches part-time and his dad supplements his pastoral salary by being an assistant coach, a volunteer firefighter, and the parents have a garage door business. The family is visiting another church with a bigger membership when the four year old, who had been diagnosed with the stomach flu days before, starts having abdominal pain and throwing up every half hour. The first think I found strange in this book is why the parents insisted on going back to Imperial, Nebraska for their son's treatment. It was obvious to me that the folks with whom they were staying thought the boy's condition was serious enough to warrant going to a nearby emergency room. The family has a health history of appendix problems. Why journey three hours back home when the kid is in obvious pain and needs medical attention? Then, they decided to take the boy back to the same doctor who had diagnosed him with the stomach flu! The doctor was still clueless about the boy's appendix being ruptured even after xrays. The parents even allowed the doctor to admit the boy to a hospital and start fluid and antibiotic therapy when it was apparent to me they had serious doubts that this was a simple case of the stomach flu. Unfortunately, not until the little guy was near death did they decide to take him to another hospital and get a second opinion.
The next doctor certainly figured out the problem was a ruptured appendix and immediately went to surgery letting the parents know this was gonna be a close call. At this point the child probably had sepsis and was severely dehydrated. The surgery was sucessful and there was later a second surgery to clean all the debris from the child's abdominal area. Eventually, Colton is released and all returns to some semblance of normal with the exception of the mounting medical bills the family faces and Colton beginning to tell his dad and mom that he has visited heaven and seen both God and Jesus. We later learn the gates of heaven are like the colors of a rainbow, God has a throne, Jesus sits to the right of God, there are animals in heaven, the angel Gabriel sits to the left of God, and everyone the boy encounters in heaven is in their prime with no ailments. Additionally, Colton begins critiquing various artist portraits of Jesus as being either authentic or not even in the ballpark. Supposedly, there is another four year old girl of Lithuianian-American descent, living in Idaho, who also visited heaven and Colton approved her drawings of Jesus. The father goes on to recount that Colton was able to observe his surgery and observe what his mother and father were doing while he was in the midst of surgery. Interesting, right?
It gets even more detailed. Colton is able to recount a visit with his great-grandfather, encountering a sister who was miscarried by his mom, and that there is going to be a great war when Jesus returns; a war in which he sees his father fight Satan and his cronies. Colton also ventures forth that God shoots down power in the form of the Holy Spirit when his dad is preaching to assist him with his message to a congregation.
I have to say that I did not sit down and read this book in one extended time period. I started thinking that the dad who is telling the story was quite frankly embellishing his son's actual experience in order to bring more people to Christ. It wouldn't be the first time someone's done this. And then there was the financial difficulties the family was having. If you wrote a book and claimed something like a four year old visiting heaven, you're going to raise some eyebrows, get some attention, and make money. And I'm an educator, I've been around kids in the elementary, middle, and high school levels. I have never witnessed a four year old be this verbally expressive or have this kind of memory capacity. And it sounded to me like we're all going back to the days before women's liberation because in terms of what Colton says, in heaven there will come a fight with Satan and the men are going to fight and the women and children are going to stand back and watch. Say WHAT?!
Is God going to endorse only the maxims of the extreme Christian right in heaven? Is God gonna get political in heaven? I mean, I remember from my sunday school lessons about everybody being equal in heaven. So, some of this book definitely does not add up in my opinion. Can people have near death experiences? Yes, I've talked to several of these folks and they've never given the details this young boy has and two of them were declared clinically dead before coming back to life!
Don't get me wrong, I think people can and do have near death experiences. This kid was never declared clinically dead during his surgery; there are no reports that he stopped breathing during surgery or that his heart stopped. That's what bothers me. The technical aspect that the boy never actually "died". Now, maybe this story is all true just like his dad reports it, but I just helped a close friend walk through the shadows of death. When she called me and said she was visited by her deceased father, grandmother, and a former cat, I didn't doubt it. I didn't doubt it when my father-in-law had these same visits before his death. I assured my terminal friend who was scared as hell of dying that no, as far as I know, dying does not hurt and going to Hospice actually makes the dying process a lot easier. My friend died last month after suffering from a deadly, rare form of cancer that had spread throughout her entire body. Do I think she's in heaven enjoying her dad's company and hopefully watching over me as a guardian angel: You Bet Your Life I Do.
Next up on the review docket: Shouting Won't Help: Why I and 50 Million Other Americans Can't Hear you by Katherine Bouton published by Picador Books in 2014.
Till next time,
Grace
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