90 Minutes in Heaven_ A True Story of Death & Life - Don Piper [69]
Even today, I can say honestly that I wish I could have stayed in heaven, but my ultimate time had not yet come. After leaving heaven, if I had known that I would face two weeks in ICU, a year in a hospital bed, and thirty-four operations, I surely would have been even more disheartened from the outset. However, this was not my choice, and I returned to the sounds of one voice praying, boots crunching glass underfoot, and the Jaws of Life ripping through my shattered auto.
One question keeps troubling me: Why? It takes many forms.
Why did I die in that car wreck?
Why did I have the unique privilege of going to heaven?
Why did I glimpse heaven, only to be sent back?
Why did I nearly die in the hospital?
Why has God let me live in constant pain since January 18, 1989?
The short answer: I don’t know. And yet that single word, why, remains the consummate human query. By nature, we’re curious. We want to know.
All these years later, it’s still not easy for me to relate what happened. Several times I tried to write this myself but couldn’t. That’s why I asked my friend Cec Murphey to help me with this book—if it were up to me, this book would never have been written. The emotional trauma of reliving all the events is too difficult. Only with someone else actually writing it has it finally been possible to go through this ordeal.
I still don’t know why such things happen.
I do know God is with me in the darkest moments of life.
Besides asking why, there are other questions. I think they’re even more important for me to ponder.
Did God want me to know how real pain could feel so that I could understand the pain of others?
Did God want me to know how real heaven is?
What did God want me to learn from all my experiences, my death, and the long period of recovery?
How can my experiences be of the most benefit to others?
After all these years, I don’t have the answers to most of those questions either. I have learned a few things and realize that God still has reasons for keeping me alive on earth. I may never know his reasons, and God has no obligation to explain them to me.
Even though I don’t have full answers to many of my questions, I do have peace. I know I am where God wants me to be. I know I’m doing the work God has given me.
I find comfort in a story recorded in John’s Gospel. A man born blind meets Jesus and is healed. After that, he runs around praising God, but his healing is an embarrassment to the religious leaders who have been trying to turn the people against Jesus. They interrogate the formerly blind man, trying to force him to admit that Jesus is a sinner (that is, a fraud).
The man wisely says, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” (John 9:25 niv). In the same way, some may not believe my account; they may think it was some kind of wish fulfillment during a point of severe trauma. I don’t have to defend my experience.
I know what happened to me. For those of us whose faith is in the reality of heaven, no amount of evidence is necessary. I know what I experienced.
I believe God gave me a hint of what eternity in heaven will be like.
I also believe that part of the reason I am still alive, as I’ve already pointed out, is that people prayed. Dick Onerecker prayed me back to life—to live without brain damage. David Gentiles and others prayed so that God wouldn’t take me back to heaven just yet.
I am here, I am alive, and it’s because God’s purposes have not yet been fulfilled in my life. When God is finished with me, I’ll return to the place I yearn to be. I have made my final reservations for heaven and I’m going back someday—permanently.
Prayerfully, I’ll see you there too.
NOTES
Chapter 4
1. Commonly called “Jaws of Life,” this is a brand of tools trademarked by the