If you had a near-death experience (NDE), what kind of lessons do you think you’d learn from your heavenly visit? Lessons you’d eagerly tell others about once you’d returned to the land of Earth-dwellers.
Would it be the incomparable beauty of Heaven? The exquisite reuniting with friends and loved ones who’d gone ahead of you to their heavenly reward? Would you want to be able to see and describe what Jesus, and God look like?
A personal experience—
Dr. Mary C. Neal, an orthopedic/spine surgeon—who says she experienced a NDE—wanted to share the lessons she learned from her experience and does so with thoughtfulness, cogency, and grace in her recent book 7 Lessons From Heaven: How Dying Taught Me to Live a Joy-Filled Life.*
I first read about her account in Guideposts’s Mysterious Ways magazine a couple of years ago and found her experience intriguing. As a fellow health professional, I appreciated her honesty about being a pragmatic skeptic, which initially kept her from telling her story. Then I heard her on Eric Metaxas’s Show (radio program) a couple of months ago and was drawn to her gentle grace and humility. So I jumped at the opportunity to hear her speak in person at Tucson’s Good Friday Breakfast program on March 30.
She was just as humble in person. She didn’t pretend to be a theologian; she only told what her personal experiences were. And she understood where the skeptics were coming from, having been one herself before her NDE event. I snatched up several copies of her book.
Book overview—
In the beginning of the book, she gives a brief recounting of the Chilean kayaking accident that took her life and sent her on a journey to heaven. Her original book, To Heaven and Back: A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, covers this event in detail. After an overview, she intertwines her story with the lessons she learned.
One big lesson is that she still had work to do here on Earth—one of them being to tell her story, which she initially dragged her feet on doing—even though she didn’t want to leave Heaven.
Another insight the Lord gives her is that her precious son will die early, which did happen. (I’m not spoiling anything here; she gets to that event early in the book.)
I don’t know if I could handle being given that kind of information. I’ve heard people the premonitions they’ve had about losing one of their children or loved ones, but it takes a pretty incredible person to deal with it the way she did. Yet, it almost seems as though God gave her that information to prepare her heart for the event, which itself was a merciful blessing.
Some lessons learned—
Some of the priceless, life-altering lessons Dr. Neal learns are:
- Life Goes Further Than Science—which was a big surprise to her, and will be to many to others
- Miracles Are Always in the Making—even though too many of us dismiss that fact
- Angels Walk Among Us—even though we might not know it
- God Has a Plan—even if we can’t see it
- Beauty Blossoms From All Things—just as Scripture says it does
- There is Hope in the Midst of Loss—here, she speaks eloquently and emotionally, with the authority of experience
Then she explains how we can all live with absolute trust in God and our heavenly future. And it’s that living in absolute trust that she told us at the Good Friday Breakfast changed her life and way of living more than anything else. Trust. I plan to print that out in HUGE bold lettering and tack it on the wall of my study, so I am confronted—and comforted—by it everyday. It’s something I always need to be reminded of.
Are we physical beings with spirits, or primarily spiritual beings temporarily clothed in physical bodies?
This question would be a great discussion all by itself, but I won’t tell you in this post what Dr. Neal’s assessment is. I’ll save that for you to mull over and then read about in her book. You won’t be disappointed.
The answer could profoundly change the way you view, and live your life!
Another plus in this book—
Dr. Neal has a “Reading Group Guide” with some great chapter questions, so you might want to consider it for a Bible study or book club read. I know it will challenge some of your perceptions about theology, life, death, the afterlife, miracles and Heaven.
But isn’t it great to be challenged! It’s something the Lord does to us all of the time.
Until next week,
Happy Reading!
Andrea
May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).
Photo courtesy of Google Images
*You can learn more about Dr. Neal at: drmaryneal.com