Heaven Is Beyond Your Wildest Expectations (6 page)

About Jubilee Mitchell

Jubilee began receiving prophetic dreams/visions at a young age. She retired early from civil service, working with the U.S. Air Force, and became founder and CEO of IIRRAD—Individuals in River Research and Development. She now spreads the gospel of Jesus as an evangelist and serves as volunteer staff at Life Church in Fenton, Missouri, where she also “signs” the services for the deaf. She is the author of
Journey of Comfort
and is working on two other books.

C
HAPTER
3

LIVING TESTIMONY TO THE
RESURRECTION

by Ian McCormack

Despite the fact that Ian, a New Zealander, was an experienced night diver, surfing and fishing with the local Creole divers in the earthly paradise island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, this night he felt uneasy about going out. Nevertheless, he let himself be persuaded and went anyway.

As I dived that night, the beam of my torch light picked out a jellyfish right in front of me. I was fascinated because of its shape. Not until I squeezed it through my leather-gloved hand did I realize that this was a box jellyfish, or sea wasp—the second deadliest creature known to humankind. Its toxin had killed more than seventy Australians; and up in the northern parts of Australia, it had killed more people than had been killed by sharks. The sting from this fish stopped the heart of a 38-year-old man in ten minutes.

Suddenly, I experienced what felt like a huge electric shock in my forearm, like thousands of volts of electricity. Not being able to see what had happened, I did the worst thing possible. I rubbed my arm, and so rubbed in the poison from the tentacles of the jellyfish. Before I could get out onto the reef, another box jellyfish stung me. My forearm was swollen like a balloon. Where the tentacles had stung were burn-like blisters across my arm, and I felt on fire as the poison began moving round in my body. It hit my lymph glands as if I had been punched, and my breathing quickly became constricted. I knew I needed hospitalization and quickly! I began to shake violently. Then a deadly cold crept over my entire body right to my bone marrow. I could feel a darkness creeping over the inner part of my bones. Death was creeping over me.

I knew my body was dying right before my eyes. Somehow I got to shore. I was incredibly cold. Lying on my back and feeling the poison taking its effect, I heard a quiet voice saying, “Son, if you close your eyes you will never wake again.” I had no idea that it was the Lord who had said it until much later; but being a qualified lifeguard and instructor in scuba, I knew that unless I was given an antitoxin quickly, I would die.

Someone called for an ambulance. During the journey to the hospital, my life flashed before me and I thought,
I’m going to die.
This is what happens before you die, your life is displayed before you. Despite being an atheist, I did wonder whether there was any life after death. Then my mother’s face came before me and said, “Ian, no matter how far from God you are, if you will cry out to God from your heart, God will hear you, and God will forgive you.” Having traveled throughout Southeast Asia and seen a million gods, I thought to myself,
Pray to God? Which one?
But, my mother’s face was still there, and she had only ever prayed to the Christian God.

I thank God for my praying
mother who had not given up on a
stubborn, rebellious son.

It had been ten years since I had spoken to my mother about God, ten years of total denial that God existed, yet my mother was still praying for me. Later, when I returned to New Zealand, I compared notes with her. God had shown her my face and said to her that night, “Your son is nearly dead. Start now, and pray for him.” I thank God for my praying mother who had not given up on a stubborn, rebellious son.

I remembered that my mother had taught me the Lord’s Prayer, though I could just barely recall it. My mind went almost completely blank, but I could hear my mother saying, “From your heart, son, pray from your heart.” A prayer then came from my heart, “God, if You’re real and this prayer is real, help me remember the prayer my mother taught me. If there is anything soft or good left in my heart, please help me to remember the Lord’s Prayer.” Before my eyes the words appeared, “Forgive us our sins.” I knew this meant I had to ask God to forgive all the sins I had ever committed; but I told God that I felt like a hypocrite, praying on my deathbed. But if He could possibly forgive me, then I was sincere in crying out to Him to forgive my sins. It seemed as though God had heard, for another part of the prayer came up, “Forgive those who have sinned against you.”

One verse after another of the Lord’s Prayer came to my mind as I responded to each one from my heart to the Lord. When I got to “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” I thought,
Your will? God’s will?
I had been doing my own thing for twenty-four years! I promised God, however, that if I came through this experience alive, I would find out what was His will for me, and follow Him all the days of my life. As I prayed that prayer, I knew I had made peace with God. Almost immediately the ambulance doors opened. I was lifted into a wheelchair and raced into the hospital where the doctors administered the antitoxin.

I was conscious of the fact that if I drifted out of my body it would mean death. I knew this was no weird trip or hallucination; this was real. I was also aware that I could not feel my arms at all, and I could no longer keep my eyes open. I remember closing my eyes and breathing a sigh of relief. At that point, from what I ascertained from the hospital, I died and was pronounced clinically dead.

The scariest thing was the moment my eyes closed, I was suddenly wide awake again, standing by what I thought was my bed in pitch black darkness. It was so dark I could not even see my hand in front of my face. I lifted my right hand up to touch my face, it seemed either to miss it, or go straight through. I put both hands up to touch my face and they seemed to pass straight through it. That was the strangest feeling. What followed was even worse, because I realized I could not touch any part of my physical form. Yet I had the sensation of being a complete human being with all my faculties—yet I did not have a flesh and bone form.

My next thought was,
Where on earth am I?
because I could feel the most intense evil pervading the darkness surrounding me. It was as if the darkness took on a spiritual dimension. There was a totally evil spiritual presence that started to move toward me. Although I still could not see, I sensed something looking at me out of the darkness. Then to my right came a voice that yelled, “Shut up!” as if it could hear my thoughts. As I backed off from the voice, another one from the left shouted, “You deserve to be here!” My arms came up to protect myself and I asked, “Where am I?” A third voice replied, “You’re in hell, now shut up.” Some people think hell is just a big party, but I tell you it’s going to be pretty hard to grab your beer down there when you can’t even find your face!

I stood there in that blackness long enough to put the fear of God into me for eternity. But at the moment of deepest blackness, a brilliant light shone upon me and drew me straight out. It was not like walking, but being translated up in a supernatural way. As I was drawn up into the light, it seemed to touch my face and encase my entire being, as if it had pierced into the deepest darkness and pulled me out. God told me later that if I had not prayed that death-bed prayer in the ambulance, I would have stayed in hell. Thank God for His grace and mercy that hears a sinner’s prayer even in the last seconds of his life—though I do not recommend taking the risk of waiting that long.

Looking back, I was able to see the darkness fading on either side, and could feel the power and presence of this light drawing me up into a circular opening far above me, like a speck of dust caught up in a brilliant beam of sunlight.

T
UNNEL OF
L
IGHT

Almost immediately, I entered the opening and, looking down the tunnel, I could see the source of the light. The radiance, the power and purity that was flowing from it was awesome. As I looked, a wave of thicker, intense light broke away from the source, and came down the tunnel at incredible speed as if to greet me. A wave of warmth and comfort actually went through my entire being, and I felt the most incredible, soothing feeling I have ever experienced.

About half way down the tunnel, another wave of light broke off and came toward me. When it touched me, I felt the most wonderful peace go right through me, in exactly the same way as before. This was total peace. In my past, I had sought peace in education, sports, travel, in almost every avenue possible, yet it had eluded me. This, however, was a living peace that seemed to remain as this light left its deposit within me.

Previously, in the darkness, I could see nothing. But now, in the light, to my amazement, I saw my hand was like a spirit form, full of white radiant light, the same light that was coming from the end of the tunnel. I wanted to go; and as I began to move, another wave of light came, pure joy and excitement enveloped me.

It looked like a white fire, or
a mountain of cut diamonds
sparkling with the most
indescribable brilliance.

What I saw next blew my mind. It looked like a white fire, or a mountain of cut diamonds sparkling with the most indescribable brilliance. And yet, as I stopped at the end of this tunnel of light, to the left, right, and above me, everywhere seemed totally filled with this iridescent light, reaching to the extremity of my vision, out into infinity. I wondered for a moment if there was a person in the center of this brilliance, or whether it was just a force of good or power in the universe.

A voice came out of the light and said, “Ian, do you wish to return?” I could not work it out for the moment.
Return where?
I thought. But as I looked back over my shoulder and saw the tunnel going back into darkness and thought of the hospital bed, I realized I did not know where I was and the words came from me, “I wish to return.” The voice responded, “Ian, if you wish to return, you must see in a new light.” The moment I heard those words, “See in a new light,” words appeared before me:
“God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”
(1 John 1:5). They were words on a Christmas card given to me in South Africa, but I had not known that they were taken from the New Testament.