90 Minutes in Heaven_ A True Story of Death & Life - Don Piper [66]
Without the slightest doubt, I know heaven is real. It’s more real than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I sometimes say, “Think of the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, the best thing that’s ever happened to you, and everything in between; heaven is more real than any of those things.”
Since my return to earth, I’ve been acutely aware that all of us are on a pilgrimage. At the end of this life, wherever we go—heaven or hell—life will be more real than this one we’re now living.
I never thought of that before my accident, of course. Heaven was a concept, something I believed in, but I didn’t think about it often.
In the years since my accident, I’ve repeatedly thought of the last night Jesus was with his disciples before his betrayal and crucifixion. Only hours before he began that journey to heaven, he sat with his disciples in the upper room. He begged them not to be troubled and to trust in him. Then he told them he was going away and added, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:2–3 niv).
I had never really noticed it before, but twice Jesus used the word place—a location. Perhaps that may not stir most people, but I think about it often. It is a literal place, and I can testify that I know that place. I’ve been there. I know heaven is real.
Since my accident, I’ve felt more intensely and deeply than ever before. A year in a hospital bed can do that for anyone, but it was more than just that. Those ninety minutes in heaven left such an impression on me that I can never be the same person I was. I can never again be totally content here, because I live in anticipation.
I experienced more pain than I thought a human could endure and still live to tell about it. In spite of all that happened to me during those months of unrelenting pain, I still feel the reality of heaven far, far more than the suffering I endured.
Because I am such a driven person and hardly ever slow down, I have often felt I needed to explain why I can’t do certain things. When I’m fully dressed, most folks would never realize I have such debilitating injuries. However, when I face an activity that this reconstructed body just can’t do (and people are sometimes surprised how simple some of those acts are), I often get strange responses.
“You look healthy,” more than one person has said. “What’s the matter with you?”
Occasionally, when I follow someone down a flight of stairs—a difficult experience for me—they hear my knees grinding and turn around. “Is that awful noise coming from you?” they ask.
“Yes.” I smile and add, “Isn’t it ridiculous!”
My relative mobility is quite deceptive. I get around better than anyone imagined I would. But I know—even if it doesn’t show—that I’m quite limited in what I can do. I work hard to walk properly, because I don’t want to attract attention to myself. I had enough stares and gawks when I wore my fixator.
Trying to act and look normal and to keep pushing myself is my way of dealing with my infirmities. I’ve learned that if I stay busy, especially by helping others, I don’t think about my pain. In an odd way, my pain is its own therapy. I intend to go on until I can’t go anymore.
We’re such victims of our human invention of time that we have to think in temporal concepts—it’s the way we’re wired. That’s an important point for me to make. My human inclination is to wonder what my welcoming committee is doing during these years while I’m back on earth.
As I ponder this, I don’t believe my greeting committee said, “Oh no, he doesn’t get to stay.” They’re still there at the gate. They’re waiting. For them, time is not passing. Everything is in the eternal now—even if I