90 Minutes in Heaven_ A True Story of Death & Life - Don Piper [65]
“Just a few days ago,” I said to the congregation, “I believe God was sitting behind those gates, and he told the angels, ‘What we need around here is a good redheaded soprano.’
“‘That would be Joyce Pentecost!’ the angels said.
“God sent for Joyce, and she answered the call. She is singing now with the angelic hosts. Joyce Pentecost is absent from the body but present with the Lord.”
My final words at the service were a question: “Can you lose someone if you know where she is?”
I was thirty-eight years old when I was killed in that car wreck.
Joyce was the same age when she was diagnosed with cancer. I survived the ordeal; Joyce did not. But I know this: Because I was able to experience heaven, I was able to prepare her and her loved ones for it. And now I am preparing you.
Many times since my accident I have wished someone who had already gone through the ordeal of wearing a fixator for months had visited me in the hospital. I know it would have relieved a lot of my anxiety.
Whenever I hear about people having a fixator, I try to contact them. When I talk to those facing long-term illness, I try to be totally honest. There is no easy way through that recovery process, and they need to know that. Because I have been there, I can tell them (and they listen) that although it will take a long time, eventually they will get better. I also talk to them about some of the short-term problems they’ll face.
My visits with Chad and Brad and others also remind me that God still has a purpose for me on earth. During that long recovery period, I sometimes longed for heaven. Looking back, however, I can see how the personal experiences I have shared with others provided a gentle pull earthward when I was in heaven. “When God is ready to take me,” I was finally able to say, “he’ll release me.” In the meantime, I try to offer as much comfort as possible to others.
Like me, when other victims first see the fixator attached to their leg, and especially when they begin to experience the pain and their inability to move, depression flows through them. They have no idea what’s going to happen next. Even though doctors try to reassure them of recovery, they hurt too much to receive comfort from the doctors’ words.
Sometimes, however, the patients may be inadvertently misled into saying to me, “I’ll get over this soon.”
“You may get over it, but it won’t be soon,” I say. “This is a long-term commitment, and there’s no way to speed up the process. When you face injuries of this magnitude, there is no easy way out. You have to live with it for now.”
I could share other stories, but these are the experiences that kept me going through some of my own dark periods. I found purpose again in being alive. I still long to return to heaven, but for now, this is where I belong. I am serving my purpose here on earth.
17
LONGING
FOR HOME
You do this because you are looking forward to the joys of heaven—as you have been ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
COLOSSIANS 1:5
One of my favorite stories is about a little girl who left her house and her mother didn’t know where she had gone. Once the mother missed her, she worried that something might have happened to her child. She stood on the front porch and yelled her daughter’s name several times.
Almost immediately the little girl ran from the house next door. The mother hugged her, said she was worried, and finally asked, “Where have you been?”
“I went next door to be with Mr. Smith.”
“Why were you over there?”
“His wife died and he is very sad.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that,” the mother said. “What did you do?”
“I just helped him cry.”
In a way, that’s what I do. Sharing my experiences is my way of crying with others in pain.
I’ve discovered one reason