My Journey to Heaven: What I Saw and How It Changed My Life (12 page)

As for me, the doctor had played a large part in helping me understand why God had sent me back. It was to give people like that dear man a message of hope, to brighten the darkness in their hearts, to help them not fear death so much and instead truly look forward to their future in heaven.

It was like the reset button was pressed on my life on earth, which became more meaningful with each person I told.

After that first doctor’s appointment, it was like the dominoes began to fall, and I started telling folks more and more often. Our dearest friends Jack and Ruth heard the story when we got to Arizona that winter. (I got to go after all. See, I told you I was stubborn!) I told them they’d have to get their hankies out, and so of course they thought I was going to die of some incurable disease. As I told them my news, they were relieved, then shocked, and finally dampening those hankies, just like I predicted they would.

I told one brother, and then the other one. It took me three sessions, but I finally got the whole story choked out to my patient pastor in Michigan. At first, it was so hard to talk about, especially the part about seeing Steve in heaven. I still can’t talk about that part without having a lump in my throat.

But now I understand Peter’s words. Offering folks some peace, security, and comfort, and reminding them that their inner sense of the eternal—“eternity in their hearts”—is true, that this world is not all there is, that’s why God sent me back to earth.

I don’t know how long I have, I really don’t. None of us do. But while I am still here, I want to tell as many people as possible about heaven, and about God and his Son, whom I saw seated on the brilliant white throne, gleaming in the distance.

I
didn’t see the throne right away when Peter went to talk to God about whether I could stay or go.

I saw so many marvelous things through that crystal clear gateway, but yet they were just a hint of “the things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9).

As my eyes eagerly swept over that panoramic view of heaven, soaking in the sight of endless wonders, eventually I beheld the throne, where our God and his Son are seated and will reign forever.

The throne was about three quarters of a mile away, and dazzlingly bright, lit with brilliant, white lights. It’s hard to imagine as I sit here in this dark earth, remembering, but in heaven my eyes could see much clearer and much farther away than they ever could down here.

I saw huge white pillars surrounding the throne, and an enormous crowd of people, men and women, boys and girls, dancing and singing along in a mass choir of praise to the two Beings seated on it. Yes, I did say the men were dancing, and their arms were raised, too, in worship!

Some of my Dutch, Christian Reformed friends are going to have a hard time imagining themselves dancing in worship, or even raising their hands. All they have ever known in a worship setting is stand up, sit down, turn to page 54 in the hymnal (I mean, the “blue book,” which is really a hymnal but for some reason that’s not what it’s called anymore). No matter how devoutly we love our God, raising one’s hands in praise is unthinkable, even for me. One of these days I am going to give everyone at church fits and just raise my hands high—let ’em think what they want to think.

Probably, what they would think is this: “Good old Marv went to heaven—he can’t help himself.”

Well, nobody is going to be able to help themselves at the foot of God’s throne, worshiping the two Beings I saw from a distance, exalting the Holy Ones with a purity and joy we have never known.

Yes, I saw two Beings, indescribable images really, but they appeared to be two people sitting there. I’ve always assumed those two people were God and his Son, Jesus.

How I would have loved to be closer! To see my heavenly Father and his Son who died for me, face to face—even I can hardly believe what’s ahead for us in heaven.

We’ll experience life as we were always meant to live it, before the Fall, without stress, pressure, negativity, fear, anxiety, sickness, and death. We’ll never worry again about what people think of us, which means we’ll do things there we never thought ourselves capable of here. Sorry, guys, you’re going to have to dance. And the strange thing is, you won’t mind one bit.

Heaven is like that—in God’s sinless home you are finally free to truly live and happily serve your Lord in whatever work he has prepared for you.

Before I had my round-trip, I never would have thought myself capable, either, of being a firsthand witness to the mysteries and majesty of heaven. And by no means could I have imagined the mission he had for me, to become his messenger of hope and comfort to others.

Did I Really Die?

After I started telling people about my heaven experience, the question was often brought up if I thought I had actually died or “just” been given a preview. Soon after I told Ruth about everything, we wrote the University of Michigan Medical Center and tried to find out what had really happened that night in 2006. Many people I spoke with about my experience wanted some kind of proof or verification. Ruth and I also wanted some kind of substantiation, she even more than me on account of her being a nurse. (“That’s just the way we nurses are,” she told me.) So, we sent away for lab reports, X-ray reports, surgical reports—everything that was printed, they sent to us. We weren’t too terribly surprised when all of these documents revealed nothing.

The one thing we didn’t get from the hospital that we would have liked to have was the nurses’ handwritten notes. That might have told us more about what happened, and especially why those two nurses had come rushing into my room as if I was on fire. Yet the next day when Ruth asked about how my first night post-op had been, no one told her anything had been out of the ordinary.

But what happened to me was way out of the ordinary—it was extra, extra-ordinary, and it doesn’t bother me that we don’t have some kind of piece of paper with the hospital’s stamp on it to prove it.

While I don’t know exactly what happened to me that night, for reasons known to God alone, I was given a preview of the life ahead. Somewhere between life and death, here and there, I received a peek of what is to come.

I know that God wants me to tell you what I saw and trust him with the details. I won’t know until next time I go to heaven whose lives were touched by my experience, but God has let me pick some of that fruit here on earth.

After the dam broke and I started telling my story to anyone who would listen, I began speaking in front of small groups of people at churches, in homes, in hospice centers. Folks often stay behind afterward to tell me things, often stories they’ve never told anyone before. I’ve heard confessions of people’s own brushes with angels and heaven, and of babies loved and lost, long ago or recently. Sometimes, I even hear about how my story has comforted someone or led them on a different path.

I once spoke in a home setting to about twenty people, all related to one another via the hostess. She invited a bunch of family members, but she only had one person in mind: her nephew, who had drifted away from the church and his faith.

After my talk, the nephew came up to me and told me something remarkable. “I’m going to make sure I see you at the gate someday,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I know now I need to get back to a church that tells the truth about Christ.”

Once, in a large church, a twelve-year-old girl came up to me after my talk and grabbed my hand and would not let go. She was crying her eyes out. “I need to tell you, I’ve made a decision to be baptized and join the church,” she said. “I want to make sure you are watching for me and waiting for me at the gate.”

Children usually have fantastic questions. They are very direct with what they ask, which I appreciate.

“How did the ground in heaven feel under your feet?”

“Did the angels have wings?”

“Who was taking care of the babies?”

So many people want to know about the babies, and so many have stories of babies they are longing to see someday. A woman came up to Ruth and me after one of my talks and told us about her son who had died of SIDS. A parent never forgets, no matter how old they get. Our friend found deep relief in hearing about the healthy and contented babies I saw in heaven. “It’s such a comfort to know he’s in a happy place,” she said.

At the Departure Gate

I do feel an urgency to tell people about my experience, because who knows how long I’ve got until I go back? That’s why I wrote this book, even though I’d rather be golfing. Ruth has to handle the requests to have me come and give my talk; otherwise I’d say yes to everything. She says God has impressed upon her that she shouldn’t let me overdo it, so we are listening to him and praying for wisdom at every turn of this unexpected adventure.

Since going to heaven, I can’t say I’ve become Holy Marv, with a halo around my bald head, floating above the ground. If I tried to walk on the water of the man-made lake outside my condo door, I would surely get my legs wet and muddy, and I’d look like an idiot to boot. I’m still the same old seventy-something sinner, believe me!

But God does feel so much nearer to both of us, probably because we seek him out for everything, the smallest thing, now. Things that we may have considered too insignificant to pray about in the past, we now pray about. One thing I do talk to God about is giving me the chance to tell my story to whomever he might send my way.

A perfect example: Just yesterday Ruth went golfing all day and left me home to do my thing. Our thermostat started to go haywire, and the air-conditioning started failing. I called the heating and cooling company, and they sent over a young man to fix it. After he had made his repairs, the young man spied a book on my table, written by my coauthor. We chatted about that book, and I said she was also writing a book with me about my trip to heaven. He was totally taken aback, as so many people are. I don’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t that! We talked about ten or fifteen minutes and he told me he had been raised Catholic but hadn’t been to church in years. He and his wife had just had a baby, and they were both talking about returning to church for the baby’s sake. The young man seemed to take my story as confirmation that he should turn around and get going down the right path again. He ended up leaving our condo with a smile on his face and a DVD of me telling my story tucked under his arm.

One of the most meaningful parts of my mission—and also the hardest part—is becoming a tour guide of sorts for those who will soon be leaving this earth. “Some glad morning, when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away,” the old song goes. These dear ones I am guiding are at the departure gate, waiting for their own smooth and peaceful flight in the bluest of skies.

My good buddy Irv just died, which broke my heart in pieces. I wish you could have known Irv. Once he was stuck to you, you couldn’t get rid of him; good thing you didn’t want to. He had a way of attracting people to him and was the most loyal friend a man could have. So many people visited him in his last days it became a joke at the hospice where he eventually died of cancer: “Too bad Irv doesn’t have more friends.” Everyone loved Irv, including me.

It makes me feel really good to know where he is right now, and that I was able to prepare him somewhat for the journey ahead of him. Before he died, I spent hours at his bedside, telling him every detail I could remember about heaven. Irv even got to read some of this book before he died.

We have a contract: the first one to go to heaven will meet the other one at the gate. Irv and I talked about this pact many times.

When Ruth and I walked in the door of Irv’s church for his funeral, we spotted his wife, who is also our dear friend. When we greeted her, the first words out of her mouth were these: “He’s waiting for you.”

A Choir of Angels and Saints

Every day since I got back from heaven, I have heard some of that divinely beautiful music I heard in God’s home. Mostly, I hear from one minute to six minutes of this music in the middle of the night, but sometimes I have heard pieces of it in broad daylight, while I’m golfing, driving, or reading.

From the second I touched down on the holy ground by the gate, I was surrounded by the most gorgeous music I had ever heard. A million stellar voices (there are no cuts in this choir!), a thousand organs, a thousand pianos—it enveloped me like pure grace.

In John’s revelation of heaven, he heard the same glory-filled sounds: “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders” (Rev. 5:11).

Most of us don’t sing too well on this side of life, but in heaven, there are no off-key or tone-deaf singers. If you’ve always wanted to sing like an angel, but you can’t carry a tune in a pail, just wait and see how fantastic your vocals will be over there!

Every note of this music praised and glorified God; I heard so many “alleluias” from the singers.

The songs I heard were mostly familiar to me, songs that had inhabited my praises on earth for so long.

“Jesus, Jesus, there’s something about that name . . .”

“The King is coming, oh, the King is coming . . .”

“Praise the Name of Jesus.”

“Holy, Holy, Holy.”

“What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

A pastor once asked me a great question in regard to the music. “What about someone from a primitive tribe in, say, Africa, who has never heard choir music?” he said. “Would he hear something different, something more familiar and beautiful to him?”

That’s a great question, isn’t it? I always hate to speculate, though people always want me to, but in this case, I will offer a guess. I happen to think it’s very possible that you will hear the music you enjoy. If heaven is going to be pure bliss, why not assume the God who created music in all its forms will offer something for everyone?

It’s also possible the music could have changed the second I left heaven, just as Peter could have spoken another language to the next person he met in line at the gate.

Whatever our musical styles, I have no doubt we will all love the music in heaven.

When I hear heaven’s music down here, it’s always my very favorite songs from what I heard there; there’s never anything “played” that I don’t absolutely adore. This is music I could listen to forever and ever—and someday, I can!

I’ll Wait for You

Listen, Jesus tells us, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Everyone who believes that is welcome in heaven.

I want you to know about the reality of Christ and the realness of heaven. I want you to know that total peace and joy await you. Are you getting excited?

If you have felt unloved in your life, and we all have from time to time, please know that you will feel so utterly, wholly loved in heaven. Why, there was nothing unloving there! There was love everyplace. I felt the love from the people in line with me, and I loved them too. I sensed the love from God and his Son.

Heaven is just love, plain and pure, something for us to enjoy forever and ever and ever.

Do you remember what I asked you to consider at the outset of this book? Do you have an answer? Will I see you at the gate?

I’ll wait for you there. I can hardly wait to go back.

So, until we meet again, I leave you with the words of Christ, ending my own humble revelation with the parting words of his:

“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. . . .

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”