Waking Up in Heaven

Someday soon, one of my precious three-year-old twins is going to ask me the question: Mommy, what happened to you when you died?

Someday they will overhear me telling my story to someone and want to know more about it. They will look at me with their big, innocent eyes and try to make sense of what they're hearing. It isn't always easy explaining what happened even to adults, so how am I going to explain it to my kids?

There is so much I want to share with them, so much I want them to know. You see, my story is one of hope and forgiveness and salvation, and of the glorious healing power of God's presence. It's the story of what I saw and what I learned when, during a hospital stay, I left my body for nine minutes and went to heaven and stood before God. And it's the story of how, when I came back to Earth, my life was profoundly and permanently changed; changed down to the very core of my being.

But it is also a story that, for the longest time, I didn't want to tell.