Oh, wait...no. He's gone.
Posted on 10/27/2013 4:21:28 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
An Oklahoma woman says she's a firm believer in God after meeting him during the nine minutes she died in 2009.
Crystal McVea is a 36-year-old married school teacher and mother of four who didn't quite believe in God for most of her life.
At the age of three, McVea started to be sexually abused by her drug and alcohol-addicted step father and that abuse continued by him and others until the age of 12.
Those experiences made her second guess from a young age whether or not God existed, and if he did, whether he loved her.
'I saw a lot of things that children shouldn't see,' she told WFAA. 'I always believed that God had abandoned me, that he didn't save me, that he didn't love me and I questioned if he was real.'
Then, when she was a teenager, she had an abortion. A choice she believed cemented her position as a sinner.
'After that abortion I thought, "I've done it now - if he was real, he could never love me now,"' she told The Blaze.
In December 2009, McVea was taken to the hospital to be treated for pancreatitis when she was accidentally overdosed on pain medication.
The last thing McVea remembers is being given the drugs and falling asleep. For the next nine minutes, doctors struggled to revive her as her heart stopped beating.
McVea says she was in a more peaceful place. After closing her eyes in the hospital, the next thing she remembers is waking up in heaven.
'I was standing in the most gorgeous light and instantly I recognized where I was. I knew who I was, I knew where I was...' she recalls.
In heaven, time seemed to stand still....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
My grandmother told a similar story in 1973 and she had never heard of “life after death stories.” She wasn’t making it up, for sure. She wasn’t taking strong medication either.
A sense of peace surrounded her the last few months before she died.
Oh, wait...no. He's gone.
Those are worldly plans, and they do not figure into God's plan and priorities. We must make His will paramount. His ways are not our ways. When we attempt to subjugate our will towards His, we are in conflict with Him.
Don't get me wrong: planning on playing with your grandchildren is a good thing. And God will give us the fullness of our lives in the time we have, but we must never ask that He delay His plan for ours.
I remember hearing a sermon about a pastor talking to some women, telling them that Jesus could return at anytime. Some of them said they looked forward to His return, but "not before I travel, and other things I want to do."
It was 1989, I was on a cruise that stopped in Saint Thomas, and I took the side trip to St Johns.. There weren’t many people on the beach and the snorkeling was great.. When I came up from the water, I saw a small girl flaying away on the horizon, and quickly made my way to her aid..
When I arrived she grabbed me and began to claw at me, climbing atop me.. I had all I could do to stay afloat, but managed to calm her down, but I was completely spent.. I took off my vest and got it on her, and sent her toward to beach, as I tried to recover by treading the water..
In doing so I laid back and floated on my back, but drifted further out to sea.. When I realized that I had floated far away from the beach, I almost paniced.. I have never been a strong swimmer, but being already exhausted I tried to swim back to the nearest shore, but it was near impossible to make any headway, and now the only shore was total rocks..
I realized I didn’t have the strength to make the effort and just laid back not even stroking anymore.. I began to sink, and allowed myself to just drift under the water.. The panic was totally gone and as I went deeper I accepted what apparently what was my fate..
An incredible peace overcame me as I watched the surface light grow blur as I went deeper.. I opened my mouth and breathed in the water, and choked and shortly passed out, but without any fear, just peacefully..
Suddenly, a bright light began to appear, and blurred figures became clearer, that lead me closer to the brightness.. It was amazing, I was happier than I had ever been, the tranquility was overwhelming.. My Mother was there, in her beautiful, and much younger self, and she smiled at me and lead me closer to the presence of light..
I heard my Mom ask me if I wanted to stay, and I said yes, yes, but she asked if I was through with my work back home..
My older children were beginning their lives but my boys were still young and I thought they still needed me..
Then a voice that I could never describe in any words, told me there would always be a place for me if I decided to finish my work back home.. Suddenly all of my family that had passed were all around me smiling and I turned and started to walk back, but sorry to leave..
I then coughed and I was back in the water and paddling back to the surface.. I had recovered my strength and made it back to the rocks, but couldn’t climb up the steep slimy rock faces, but a man in a white silk suit, stretched an umbrella to me and together he and I pulled myself up to the sandy shore..
When I looked up to thank him, he was gone, and nowhere in sight.. No one was even close and I was a half mile from the beach.. I laid there for what seemed like an hour, then made my way back to the beach and on to the tender back to the ship.. I was seriously burned, and spent the rest of the cruise in my cabin, covered in a cream that the doctors gave me..
I can’t describe my experience any better that this, but my entire life changed after that, I am different with a lot more peace and happier than I had ever been before.. I was never much of a religious man, and still am not but I am a believer, and nothing will ever change that.. EVER!
Your grandmother was probably stating the truth at what she experienced, not doubting her story but note what you stated: You said, (and I quote)
“A sense of peace surrounded her the last few months before she died”.
OK. She had a sense of peace in the last FEW MONTHS before she died. I do not think we are talking about a sense of impending death and calmness as if to say, maybe, she was ready to go, so she was calm and accepting.
In the stated case we are talking about the actual moment of the transition from life to death and all that has been associated with it. The actual death of the soul I think. I am not sure that this is comparable to what your late Grandma felt as you described the calmness leading up to her passing G-d rest her soul.
So you see the difference in the two stories? One, months before her passing. The other, the actual moment of passing?
The medical act of resuscitation is permitted by God.
Resurrection is a divine process that only God can do, but we can be resuscitated after we are clinically (and actually) dead. It happens thousands of times every day in hospitals all over the world.
Watch this video at about the 20 minute mark, or at least the first few minutes of this from a medical doctor (Dr. Rawlins) who also became a Christian. He explains the distinction between resurrection and resuscitation (at 21:00).
Read “To Hell and Back”(I think that was the name of the book an emergency room doctor wrote)........not everybody tells the same story they just forget the bad experience.
There is another explanation by the doctor at about 30 mins in that video.
Perhaps because it is true. there are 4 links to similar stories on the Daily Mail site. These are testimonies of people’s experiences. We should examine them, but NOT base our personal belief in God on them.
Long before “Near Death Stories” were commonly known, researchers found remarkable similarity in the stories from people from many nations and cultures. Dr. Raymond Moody was among the very first to research this phenomena.
Could be, could be. Need to read more about it.
I also would say on purely theological grounds, she was not in Heaven. ‘Heaven’ as we shall experience it comes only after the Second Coming and the closing of the age, when the dead are resurrected.
Right now, the dead are in some kind of beyond, but its not a beyond of real senses, likely just the illusion of senses to make the experience more pleasant.
I have a few things that need doing here before I leave.
“Those are worldly plans,”
That’s not necessarily the case. There is perhaps work we would like to do in service to the Lord, before departing.
Beautiful !
I have read hundreds of these accounts. I also read a book about shared death experiences where the patient dies and those with them actually see supernatural things. We are spirit, body and soul. When our body dies we leave for a different dimension.
Please pray for this girl, Cassandra. She is very special.
What is important is the number of non-believers who have this experience.
As for: “Neuroscientist Dean Mobb explained in Scientific American that these experiences have a biological answer in the side effects of medicinal and recreational drugs.”
He “explains” NOTHING!!
He makes an unsubstantiated assertion.
These experiences are well documented in thousands of cases where NO DRUGS are involved.
In “Proof of Heaven” A young girl met her brother while she was dead. She didn’t have a brother. Her parents never talked about her brother who died b4 she was born. Lie? I don’t think so.
Hat tip!
The love of my God thru Jesus is the only thing that trumps my love for Pythonic humor. Its early here and Ive only finished one cup o’ joe.
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