Posted on 03/11/2011 10:08:14 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
Just two months shy of his fourth birthday, Colton Burpo, the son of an evangelical pastor in Imperial, Neb., was rushed into emergency surgery with a burst appendix.
He woke up with an astonishing story: He had died and gone to heaven, where he met his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and Jesus, who had eyes that “were just sort of a sea-blue and they seemed to sparkle,” Colton, now 11 years old, recalled.
Colton's father, Todd, has turned the boy’s experience into a 163-page book, “Heaven Is for Real,” which has become a sleeper paperback hit of the winter, dominating best-seller lists and selling hundreds of thousands of copies.
Thomas Nelson, the book’s publisher, said it had broken company sales records.
The publisher, based in Nashville, began with an initial print run of 40,000 copies.
Since the book came out in November, it has gone back to press 22 times, with more than 1.5 million copies in print.
On the New York Times best-seller list for paperback nonfiction last Sunday, “Heaven Is for Real” was NO. 1.
The book remains in the top spot this coming Sunday.
Colton told his parents that he had met his younger sister in heaven, describing her as a dark-haired girl who resembled his older sister, Cassie.
When the Burpos questioned him, he asked his mother, “You had a baby die in your tummy, didn’t you?”
While his wife had suffered a miscarriage years before, Mr. Burpo said, they had not told Colton about it.
“There’s just no way he could have known,” Mr. Burpo said.
The Burpos said that Colton painstakingly described images that he said he saw in heaven — like the bloody wounds on Jesus’ palms — that he had not been shown before.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
Thanks for your kind reply.
It really touched me deeply and I’ve read all such narratives I could more or less lay my hands on for most of 50 years.
It’s plausible he had a ‘glimpse’ of the after-life. If so it is a spiritual realm beyond the physical senses
I think you are exactly right. I had a friend who was a “play therapist” working with terminally ill children. She overheard one child tell another not to be worried about dying because God was a very kind man who looked just like Santa Clause.
There are so many mysteries about Heaven that our puny little mortal minds trying to make sense of it all could never come close to understanding it.
I thoroughly agree.
The kid was at the age when there was total innocence and total lack of artifice, affectation or anything false.
He just narrated his experience as HE EXPERIENCED IT. period.
He didn’t really give a flip what others thought—he knew the truth.
I thought it was touching that he too, like Apostle Paul, learned things God told him not to tell—even to his Dad. And he hasn’t.
I thought the wings somewhat disagreed with the narratives of others. However, My God is big enough to give each individual a very tailored and unique experience of Heaven without violating reality. He is God, after all.
And, it’s not like no one else has seen such wings on people, many have. It’s just that Colton seemed to see them on many more than most other people have.
Were the wings a depiction for the little boy, of the capacity to fly through the air at will? I don’t know.
First, let me say that I'm not attacking you. I'm merely offering an alternative to what you're saying.
You say, that the parents did not, over the years, ask him leading questions. How do you know that? Were you present for each and every conversation they had?
Or, are the parents saying they never asked leading questions?
Can you see the difference? One is an eyewitness account and the other is hearsay based upon what you read in the parents' book.
You’re very welcome...
It also comforts me to know that
millions of people aborted are in Heaven.
(over 50 million in the U.S. alone)
I have not a microgram’s doubt that these are THE BIBLICAL END TIMES.
Facts are such that folks who are willfully blind, willfully ignorant of the realities involved with the BIBLICAL PROPHECIES, DYNAMICS, STRUCTURES, GLOBAL GOVERNMENT, MARK OF THE BEAST, HOLY SPIRIT’S LEADING, OPERATIONS ETC. ETC. ETC.
WILL BE
AT A GRAVE DISADVANTAGE—TO THE EXTENT THAT IN MANY SITUATIONS, THEIR IGNORANCE AND BLINDNESS WILL RESULT IN UNNECESSARY AND UNTIMELY DEATHS OF THEMSELVES AND/OR THOSE THEY LOVE.
Will some dying earlier than necessary die without Salvation through Christ? Probably so. I pray not. Logically, many will. That is horrifying and disgusting, to me.
“Colton Burpo, the son of an evangelical pastor
just a coincidence?”
No coincidence. Faith.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh
perhaps it depends on what one means by “beyond physical senses.”
Every convincing Heavenly visit narrative I’ve read has spoken of HEIGHTENED SENSES . . .
deligious fruit with the juice running down arms,
etc. etc. etc.
Etherial intangibility is not part of the Heaven experienced and described.
I’ll take this with a major grain of salt. It reminds me of a book which came out a few years back called “23 Minutes in Hell” written by a guy who claimed he was wisked away in the opposite direction of this boy, ie. to hell. It was very much a hard sell. I’m sure it’s a interesting read though.
I spent most of my adult life as a psychologist/counselor with a PhD in Clinical Psychology.
It was my professional task and skill to distinguish between delusion, deception and truth.
I have not a shred of a doubt about the assertions in the book.
Not a shred.
Evidently, you have not read the book.
Not to change subjects - by I use that same logic to defend the argument that our Pets will be with us in Heaven if that makes us happy. After all he created them in the first place, and it it not beyond his power to do it again.
Regardless, It will be Glorious beyond all human imagination.
I heard it said once that, - “as a Christian, the day I die will be the best day I’ve ever lived. But it won’t be the best I will ever live.”
INDEED.
AMEN! AMEN!
THX THX.
“He had died and gone to heaven, where he met his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and Jesus, who had eyes that “were just sort of a sea-blue and they seemed to sparkle,” Colton, now 11 years old, recalled.”
Pretty cool that he met Samson. I know there are people more important, IMO he is the most interesting being that he is the only superhuman warrior-hero of the Bible.
iirc
Don Piper was dead and mostly bled out for over an hour??—at least for 20min or more.
He was soooooooooooo VERY DEAD the EMT’s would not even bother with his body.
And the pastor who felt led to get in the car and pray for him felt very foolish and stupid.
Science and naysayers have absolutely no explanation that remotely fits for Piper’s case.
Ping
INDEED.
It’s interesting to me . . . a couple of different narratives recently have mentioned one of Heaven’s valleys having dinasaurs.
You’r explanation is the most irrational, illogical and unfitting to the facts.
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