What you are about to read is a miracle and true to every detail as best as I can describe, although no words can portray the feeling of intense emotion that I felt. I feel that I must describe it in the present tense to transport readers into my experience to help them visualize step by step what I experienced as it unfolded.  Read it slowly and place yourself in my place as I lead you into my story. This is what I experienced one evening in the year 1984.

My son, nearly two years old, is soundly asleep in his bed and my husband also retired early. The house is still and quiet and I feel all alone. I decide to take a shower before going to bed to try and revive myself from exhaustible worry and tension. I let the warmth of the water hit my face and on top of my head for long moments, trying to wash away my sorrow. I close my eyes and take long deep breaths to exhale my sadness. I feel barely alive, as I want to cry except there are no more tears from the well. I just can’t seem to shake off my hopeless despair of sadness that never found release and lingered for years. I had squeezed out every last drop of pain until I felt totally deplete of energy and emotion. Tonight I have hit rock bottom. I felt absolutely numb of emotion for nearly an entire year and I saw no way out. There was no joy in my life. There were only constant problems. “I can’t take any more!”  My soul screamed but silent within myself.

After drying off with effort and slipping on my nightclothes, I directly check on my son who is still soundly asleep and then go to bed myself. I still feel alone in my pain as I sullenly slip beneath the blanket and begin my prayer to God with slow deliberate words. Each word seemed to take each breath away even though I prayed in silence. I plead with God for His help and I tell Him exactly my dilemma. I have no enthusiasm, no will, nor strength to do anything. I feel like a robot, so empty inside.  I don’t want to talk with anyone. I just want to hide and sleep. I am always tired and I do not want to get out of bed in the morning.  I want simply to die.

After I examine how I feel and explain to God that I didn’t know how to get out of this slump of sadness, I handed my life over to Him. I know that I can’t help myself and only God can help me because there was no one else.  Then as I give up my last weary hope to God, I conclude with the Lord’s Prayer, praying myself to sleep. My heart feels tired and empty. I was heavy burdened and holding on by a thin thread about to snap. I gave my all to God and my heart felt purely to the bottom of the essence of need. 

The next thing that I remember is waking up and finding myself on my knees and my head is facing down. “Where am I? I’m not in my bed,” I wonder to myself. As I try to recognize my whereabouts, my head lifts up to see an oaken, wooden door that projects a presence of authority and respect.  As I examine the door, trying to make sense of where I am, I notice there are no knobs. It had two doors that push open.  When my head is facing straight forward, I am now instantly standing but I don’t remember using my legs to stand up. I look through the right-hand door with a window opening one foot high by two feet wide. As I look through the window, a torrential flow of excitement, joy and love bursts through me as I behold Our Father!  I know instantly who He is! As my enthusiasm escalates, the doors, nearly six inches in thickness, invite me inward.

Instantly as the doors crack open, I hear music that nothing on earth can compare.  All of the earth’s symphonies pale in comparison. It sounds loud and piercing as a trumpet, yet the notes glide smoothly as a violin, and also sweet pitched as a flute.  It is all these rich sounds blended perfectly as one. As I concentrate on the music, it gracefully slows down to a soothing lullaby. It can lull any colicky baby off to sleep.  The effect is the most beautiful and emotionally soothing song I have ever heard!

As I focus on the mesmerizing beauty of the music, it flows through my body and I believe I hear it from within my whole self, not just my ears. I don’t know how to describe this sense of hearing. It is different than normal hearing. It feels like wind flowing through me and seems to feel my emotion. I notice that the music began bursting forth with loudness and excitement, as I had felt upon first seeing Our Father, then the music became calm and tranquil as I listen and focus on the melody. Somehow this music became a dance between my thrilling excited emotion and a calming effect to bring me tranquility. It was so beautiful!

Next, I focus on how extremely bright my surrounding is, as though I am inside the sun surrounded by whiteness. Imagine being inside a light bulb, and yet the brightness doesn’t hurt your eyes or cause them to squint. This is even brighter. I can see every detail so clearly and sharp. The focus is precise and perfect. I had never seen anything with this much precision and clarity!

Then I notice how healthy I feel. I am truly happy! There is no pain.  My body feels light and free somehow. I sense a presence of others to the left and behind me. I feel their love and satisfaction of me radiating from their hearts. I can actually feel their happiness and admiration emanating toward me without looking at them.  Somehow I also sense their smiles but I can’t take my eyes off of Our Father to look at them. I assume that I will have a chance to look at the others later.  I only want to see God right now! Nothing else matters to me. He sits before me on a glorious throne. He is beautiful...magnificent.... glorious! I’ve never seen anything so breathtakingly wonderful! How can I possibly describe His Glory and this joy! There just are not any words to convey His majesty! I am in speechless awe and wonderment!

My heart is so full of excitement and love that “my cup runs over!” I cannot hold back the flow of my emotion, as I look upon Him with His face aglow with rosy cheeks, shining skin with the glow of perfect health. He isn’t what I expected to see.  I thought that He would be as perhaps Moses with a long shaggy white beard. He is very modern and up-to-date with His majesty. His hair is pure snow white and perfectly neat, as though He had just left the barbershop. He is perfect in every way! So beautiful!  He is dressed in white as bright as light. I look at Him and understand that He is Our Father without a doubt and his name is an all-embracing concept that I knew.  He is our creator from whom ALL is originated.

As I stand in awe of His presence, God nods to me and without restraint, I enthusiastically lunge straight forward unencumbered, through the air as though I can fly. I do not sense my legs, although I am not concerned with myself as I glide straight ahead. I never look left or right. I instantly leap into His arms to embrace Him in pure love! The joy is beyond anything I had ever imagined or felt before!

The music shot up loud and vibrant as before with enthusiasm and I see myself with three views darting from one view to another, then another, around and around like a spinning top! All three views dart from one to the other again and again so quickly that I am feeling dizzy. I see myself embracing Him upon His chest all the while looking into His face only inches away, and I also view from a distance away behind myself watching our embrace in full view. What is this experience? The views just keep spinning faster than I can handle. This is unlike anything I had ever encountered. As I thought this, suddenly the merry-go-round of views stops. I feel as though I have just gotten off of an exciting roller coaster only this thrill was much more intense.

I feel energy like electricity contained inside Him as we embrace. He embraces me in return with His arms. There is no way I can feel any happier than this very moment!  I am swimming in divine love! We embrace for what seems to be thirty seconds or so and I never want to leave Him. Then I realize that all the hardship in my life was worth this moment. I cannot describe how intense my emotion feels. This is ecstasy!

I am astonished that He permitted me, a speck of a person to hug Him.  Wow! Who am I that He would allow me to touch Him? How can this be? Now I know how much God loves each and every one of us no matter how minute or prominent we may be in our life on earth. This is beyond my comprehension that He would do such an extraordinary wonder for me.

But then, I begin to question without speaking, “I must have died (because I am truly in Heaven). But how did I die? Oh, no! It must have been instantly, like a bomb! Oh, no! The people! The earth! A bomb must have killed us all. Is everyone gone?”  My heart sinks down with empathy for what I thought had passed away. I begin to feel tribulation about the people. God knew how I felt and He gently stretched out His arm while still holding me with the other (like a loving Father), and spoke to me the only words I heard Him speak, “Everything is all right.” His voice is perfect and calming and I know immediately that people are safe with God as He reassures me that it is okay. I stop worrying, but I still think that the world that I knew is now gone.

I sense that it is time for me to go with a man who sat to the side of God whom I hadn’t noticed before. I am not alarmed that he is suddenly there. It is not revealed to me why he is there but his visual looks are of someone that I knew on earth. I think it odd that he only looks like the person but not feel like the person. This man who suddenly appears seems as though he had been watching us throughout my entire visit, but with no expression on his face. I cannot sense any feelings from him yet I recall feeling love radiating from the others around us that I still did not get to view. This man stood up and held out his right hand to me. I know that I am supposed to go with him and I assume that he will take me to where I belong in Heaven.

Slipping away from God, I slowly arise and begin to take hold of this man’s hand.  Instantly, even before I touch his hand, I feel myself return back into my body on earth. My body is lying down on my bed face up. I instantaneously slip through my chest and I feel my soul disperse throughout my entire body. I flow like liquid into my fleshly arms, all the way down to my fingertips, and into my legs, all the way to my toes.  For about thirty seconds I lie in bed and can feel my skin surround me as though I am being enclosed in a body glove or a molded cage. My body is my container, a coating surrounding my spirit. I can feel both of them separately as I tingled with warmth. Then my body and soul blends together as one. It is like a sponge absorbing water. My body becomes one with my soul.

I lay there wide awake, alert, and full of excitement! My heart is still pounding with ecstasy. If I had known that I would return to this body on earth by touching that man’s hand, then I would not have reached for his hand. Why didn’t God warn me that I was leaving Him? I suppose I was meant to return to earth because if I had known beforehand, then I would have refused to go. But why was I sent back?

There must be a reason that I had to return. I look to the left and see my husband asleep. I wonder what time it is as I try to acknowledge my homecoming or “earth-coming”. I get up from my bed to look at the clock on my dresser and it is now that I realize that my eyesight has returned back to how it was so that I need eyeglasses. The lighted digits on the clock show 4:00 a.m. I lay back down in bed in awe and amazement to relish what had just happened to me.

I was so anxious that I couldn’t contain myself. “God let me be with Him! I can’t hold it in! I must tell everyone in the world how wonderful our God is!” I felt like screaming from the tops of mountains. It is written in the scriptures; “They were to seek God, and, it might be, touch and find Him.” (Acts 17:27).  It is possible! Now I know what the scriptures meant to see things beyond our seeing, to hear things beyond our hearing, and things beyond our imaging. These scriptures are coming alive to me. I understand what they were talking about! The scriptures contain the truth and yet people do not comprehend their depth.

I reached over to awaken my husband and told him all that you have just read. I told him that I had seen, heard and felt not as people do on earth. I had a different sensory perception that was more in-depth and richer with a heightened reality. It was a true essence of feeling free. I knew with an overwhelming conviction that my presence in Heaven was truer, past all comparison than my life on earth. I now know that I was in the spirit and that my body entraps me to the earth. It is my vessel and I am bound in captivity to the world. This is what it means; “to set the captives free!”

This was in no way a dream. How can a dream sense what our body on earth can never do? How can a dream touch me so profoundly that it overtakes and changes my life? God had cured me of my depression. He lifted it away and replaced it with love and a renewed life. I felt a love so rich that I had not known it before in our earth realm. Indeed, everything is all right and I can live my life with renewed energy.