VISIONS

Have you ever had a “vision”? In evoking the word, I don’t mean a future goal or motivational hope but rather an actual supernatural experience. We live in a world that’s skeptical about spiritual gifts, yet I can’t deny my own experiences. I would be lying if I did.

My first vision came to me when I was in my midtwenties. At the time, I owned a struggling animation company called ClayMagic Productions. We’d procured our first large client, Dentsu Inc., an advertising and PR agency out of Tokyo, who had asked us to create a commercial for one of the largest food companies in Japan. We had spent weeks building a set for the commercial, but I didn’t know how to create the animation the client had requested—a group of angel pies (a popular Japanese treat resembling a MoonPie) holding hands and dancing, then jumping into the air. I had no idea how to make this happen in stop-frame animation without visible supports.

One afternoon, as our deadline for shooting the scene loomed, my production manager walked into my office. “We need to start shooting the dancing scene tomorrow morning,” he said. “Did you figure out how to do the animation?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“We don’t have much time left,” he said anxiously, then left.

Not knowing what to do, I began to pray. That’s when I had a vision. I saw, very clearly, an oddly shaped frame to hold the figures while we animated them. I quickly sketched what I saw in my vision, then walked out and gave the plans to my production manager. “Try this.”

He looked over my drawing and said, “Where did you get this?”

“It just came to me,” I said. “Let’s try it.”

Following the plans I’d sketched, my production manager built the device. After he set up the camera to shoot the scene, he came back to my office. “That thing you designed is genius,” he said. “Every time one of the supports is about to come into view, one of the characters moves in front of it to conceal it. You’re brilliant.”

It wasn’t me. I didn’t even know if it would work.

My second vision was even more remarkable. The first book I wrote was called The Christmas Box, which remarkably went on to become a number one international bestseller. At the heart of the story is a woman grieving her deceased child at the base of an angel statue.

The angel statue I wrote about actually exists in the downtown Salt Lake City Cemetery. People come from all over the world to see it, leaving notes, flowers, and toys at the statue’s base. On one occasion I was visiting the statue when I found on the monument’s granite base a homemade Easter card that read:

My sweet little girl,

I hope there are Easter dresses where you are.

Love, Mommy

I was moved by the card and took it home with me to show Keri. About six months later I gave a talk about grief and hope to more than five hundred people in a nearby city. After my talk, a woman approached me. “Your talk brought us comfort,” she said. “My daughter lost her little girl earlier this year and we’re both grateful for the hope you shared with us. She wanted to thank you but she’s having a hard time.”

I looked over to see a young woman looking toward us, her eyes swollen from crying. “I’ll talk to her,” I said.

I walked over to the young woman and for several moments held her while she cried. Then she said to me, “Mr. Evans, I’ve been to your angel statue in Salt Lake City.”

At that moment I had a vision. I saw the Easter card I had taken home.

Without thinking, I said, “You left a card for your daughter that said you hoped there are Easter dresses where she is.”

Both women stared at me in amazement. Then the young woman said, “How did you know that?”

“I just saw it,” I said. “I had a vision.”

The women left with a new sense of hope in the miracle we’d experienced together. This was a powerful reminder to me, not only of that experience but also of my belief that there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in my philosophies. For me, there is something deeply reassuring about that.