What happened in that church changed everything.
But, like I said, just because you’ve been to heaven doesn’t mean you stop being human. Even after seeing how my talk affected those women, I was still wary about telling my story to too many people. Maybe that was just me being selfish, but I still worried about how people would react.
So, for a few weeks after my talk, I was pretty selective about who I opened up to. I didn’t just grab people off the street and say, ‘Hey, guess what? I died!’ I was afraid people we were friendly with would stop hanging out with us, so I was careful not to open the floodgates too early in any friendship.
During this time, Virgil and I invited a couple we’d grown to really like to our home for dinner. Amber was a schoolteacher, like me, and her husband, Brandon, was a talented woodworker and all-around great guy. They were deeply passionate about the love and mercy of God and were completely down-to-earth. We felt like we’d known them forever.
Amber and Brandon had already heard a condensed version of my story in church, and when they came over Brandon asked to hear more about it. I hesitated, petrified that telling them my whole story – especially the demonic stuff – would just scare them away. But I also knew it would be hard not to share such an important part of myself with people I considered good friends.
So I took a deep breath and told my whole story. Okay, so I stopped every few minutes to say, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m sure you think we’re weird, and we’ll never hear from you again.’ I also said, ‘I know this is going to sound crazy …’ probably twenty times. But Amber and Brandon just told me to keep going. So I did.
And when I was done, I asked, ‘You’re not going to stop hanging out with us, are you?’
Amber said, ‘Oh, gaw, gimme a break. None of this surprises me. Now, you got any ice cream?’
They weren’t the least bit put off by my story or the least bit skeptical. They just accepted it as true, because they already knew that with God anything is possible. From that night forward our friendship only grew stronger.
I couldn’t count on everyone being as receptive as Amber and Brandon, though, so I still tried to keep a low profile. A couple of months after my talk, Virgil and I changed churches, because we needed a place that had a youth program. We picked a local nondenominational church housed in an old movie theater. The lobby still had a glass counter and a popcorn machine, which made it pretty popular with the younger worshippers. But what Virgil and I loved most was that the church was so full of life. We’d both grown up in denominational churches, which gave us a great foundation. But I’d never been to a church where people worshipped God so openly during a service. It was how they worshipped that really moved me – their excitement reminded me of how I felt when I was in the presence of God. They were not embarrassed to raise their hands and praise God and even cry. I remember thinking, Gee, these people didn’t even die and see God, and they still love Him this much. Virgil and I knew we’d found our new home.
The church had a weekly Life Group, which is pretty much what its name says it is – a group of people sitting around sharing their lives, their joys and prayers, their struggles and funny jokes. I loved the idea, and Virgil and I signed up for Wednesday nights. On our way to our first one, I told Virgil, ‘Don’t tell anyone about what happened to me.’ He understood I didn’t want to draw attention to myself in that first meeting, and he promised he wouldn’t mention it.
About a half hour into the meeting, the topic turned to what it would be like to be in the presence of God. One of the members, a lovely woman named Diane, got teary-eyed and said, ‘I can only imagine what it must be like to stand with God.’ I bit my lip and looked over at Virgil, as if to say, ‘Remember, mum’s the word.’ But Diane kept talking and wondering what God was like, and her passion and yearning to know was just amazing. It was all I could do not to jump to my feet and launch into my story. Just then, I heard a man’s voice.
‘You know, my wife Crystal died and went to heaven,’ Virgil said quite sheepishly.
Way to keep that poker face, hubby.
It turned out my fears were unfounded. Diane and her husband, Rudy, immediately leaned forward, and Diane rubbed her hands together and said, ‘Ooh, tell us about it.’ Everyone in the group was excited to hear me talk. I gave a shortened version of my story, but that wasn’t enough for Diane. She made me hand over my phone number, and the next day we got together and I gave her the full account. I was sure if I told her the whole story her excitement would die down. But it didn’t. She began reading me scriptures about spiritual warfare, and she became one of my great friends and a spiritual mentor.
Diane also brought me over to meet our pastor’s wife, Opal. Opal has fiery red hair and a smile that melts your heart. She’s colorful and outspoken, and, honestly, I was a little intimidated by her. I’d grown to love our new church, and as usual I worried that my story would make her think I was strange and maybe even ask us to leave. I was so nervous I started to shake and cry.
Opal gave me one of her no-nonsense looks.
‘Why are you so afraid?’
I didn’t know how to answer her, which was fine because she didn’t wait for an answer.
‘Fear is not of God,’ she told me. ‘The authority rests with God.’
Opal was very matter-of-fact. She quietly listened to my story, and we talked about it for a bit. She gave me some wonderful advice, and then, just like that, she got up and said, ‘Ladies, I gotta go. I have a hair appointment.’
I remember thinking, Wow, whatever it is she has, I want it. I was mesmerized by her spiritual strength. Opal was just so confident about God, so sure of His power and His grace. Nothing could faze her when it came to her belief in God, not even the demonic stuff that always seemed to rattle me. The best way I can describe it is to say that Opal poured the truth right into me, plain and simple. It didn’t matter what anyone on Earth thought about my story. I knew every word of what I was saying was true, and I had to stop worrying about people’s reactions – plain and simple! Opal’s faith and conviction were so reassuring, and I think I took a step closer to my own authority in Christ that night.
It was great when people reacted positively to my story, but there were times when that didn’t happen. There were times when I believed people were put in my path to hear my story, only to have them tell me it had no relevance for them.
‘Thank you so much for sharing. I definitely believe you, but I don’t know why you were supposed to share this with me,’ one woman told me before getting up and walking away.
Another time, I noticed someone standing near me, and I felt one of those powerful nudges – this woman needs your testimony. I still wasn’t all that comfortable in my role as the ‘heaven lady,’ but there was no denying this nudge. So I approached her and told her my story.
‘Crystal, wow, I love that story, but I’m not sure why you think you were supposed to tell it to me,’ she said when I finished.
I couldn’t believe it happened again. Wasn’t my purpose to share my story with people who needed to hear it? I apologized to the woman and said goodbye. God, I thought, you’re making me look like a real idiot.
A few months later, out of the blue, I got a phone call from the first woman, who told me she needed to talk. ‘You were right,’ she said when we got together. ‘There was a reason I needed to hear your story.’ While we talked I could see how broken she was – the same way I’d been broken. And I could also see how my story had helped her rip away her own awful curtain of shame. It had taken her a while to work it all out, but she was now in the process of being spiritually healed.
So God knew what He was doing after all, I thought. How about that?
Not much later, I got a call from the second woman. She told me pretty much the same thing: that when she heard my story she panicked and denied it had any relevance for her. But actually it did, and hearing it made her realize that God had never stopped loving her, no matter what had happened in her past.
After years and years of secrecy and shame, she, too, was free.
After that, I never questioned one of God’s nudges again.
The nudges happen at totally random times, usually when it’s not especially convenient. For instance, I’ll be out shopping with my kids, and suddenly I’ll feel the nudge: tell this person; they need to hear it. It doesn’t happen every day, but a few times a week is not uncommon. I’ve done it so often that Virgil and the children are no longer surprised to see me stop in my tracks and start yammering away about heaven – though sometimes the kids get a little weirded out by it. One time, Sabyre and I were in the checkout line at a supermarket when I got a nudge to tell the woman standing behind us. Mind you, there was a whole bunch of people in line, and this woman was just minding her own business, sifting through coupons. Hardly an ideal time for a heart-to-heart about how I died. But I’d learned not to ignore the nudges. So I turned around and started a conversation.
Sabyre saw right away what was happening and said, ‘Mom, I’m just gonna wait over there.’ She knew from experience this was going to take a while, and she figured she’d better find a comfy place to sit.
Another time we were in one of our favorite hamburger joints, a place called Meers in Comanche County. Awesome longhorn burgers and frickles (that’s fried pickles, in case you’ve never tried them). Our food had just arrived when I noticed three elderly women sitting at the table behind us. I got a nudge about one of them, and I thought, Really? Now? My burger just got here! But, again, I knew better than to argue with God. I waited for an opening and swooped in.
‘Hey there,’ I said. ‘Where are you all from?’
It turned out we knew the woman’s husband. That was all I needed to hear.
‘I know this is gonna sound crazy,’ I said, ‘but in 2009 I died and went to heaven.’
The woman looked at me with a totally blank expression. I knew this was the moment when it could go either way. After a few seconds, she said, ‘Would you mind coming over and telling us about it?’ I joined them at their table and told them my story, and halfway through I could see the woman’s eyes start to well up. That was my validation. God was right again.
‘You know,’ the woman said when I was done, ‘I was abused as a child.’
‘Me, too,’ I heard, and I looked at her friend. She was crying, too.
Wow, two for one. Nice work, God.
There was only one downside. When I got back to our table, I saw that Virgil had eaten my hamburger.
That’s happened to me a lot in the past few months. I like to think of it as the God diet.
Some of the nudges have led to truly amazing encounters. Just last year I attended a Christian women’s conference not far from my home town, and on my first day I found myself wandering around the cafeteria carrying my tray and looking for a place to sit. I knew a few women at the conference, but their tables were full. The only open seat I could see was at a table with several young women I’d never met. So I sat in the seat, kept my head down, and quietly picked up my fork.
I was just about to take my first bite when I got the nudge: Tell her.
I looked up and saw a pretty young woman across from me and a couple of seats away. She was in her early twenties, with lovely brown hair down to her shoulders. I thought, Oh, God, no, please. I’m at a table of strangers. How am I supposed to do this? How do I bring it up? I felt my face turning red.
Even so, I put down my fork, took a breath, and looked straight at the woman.
‘So,’ I said to her, ‘in 2009 I died and went to heaven, and God wants me to tell you about it.’
The woman looked a little startled and said, ‘Uh … okay.’
So I told her my story. She wasn’t directly across from me, so there were other women at the table overhearing me, and that only made me feel more embarrassed. But I just kept saying how much God loved her – how very, very much He loved her – and no matter what she had done or what was done to her His love would not fail her. That’s when she began to cry.
God was right again. Well, He always is.
Later, when we were alone, the young woman came clean.
‘I’ve only told this to one other person in my life and not even my mother,’ she said, ‘but when I was young my stepfather sexually abused me.’ She had never talked openly about what happened; instead, she hid it deep inside, probably believing she’d keep it a secret until she died. But then, on this day, the love of God shattered the secret, and the chains were loosened. Her healing had begun. I don’t know if she would have eventually told her story to someone, but I do know that God put me in a room with her so He could convey to her how very much He loved her.
There is also the story of Patricia, a Special Ed teacher I worked with. She is vibrant, funny and incredibly kind, and I love having her as a friend. A few years before I met her, her teenage daughter Heather was killed in a car accident. I knew about it, but it wasn’t anything we ever really talked about.
I hadn’t seen Patricia in a while when I brought Willow, who was around one, to see her at her school. Patricia was standing in the hallway while her students were up on stage behind her in the cafeteria. They were practicing for a Mother’s Day pageant, and they were singing Josh Groban’s You Raise Me Up, a beautiful song about how God lifts us when we’re down. When Patricia looked over and saw us, I could tell she was crying. It seemed like the lyrics of the song were really getting to her.
Then something strange and remarkable happened.
My daughter Willow is a sweet little girl who likes to stick her nose in everything and approaches life with a natural curiosity, but even so, she isn’t that comfortable meeting new people. When it comes to strangers, she’s a little guarded. Which is why I was so surprised when the moment Willow noticed Patricia was crying, she suddenly lunged and threw her skinny little arms around her.
Patricia was stunned. She closed her eyes and hugged Willow back, and they held on to each other like that for the longest time. While they hugged, I could hear the little children singing their beautiful song: When troubles come and my heart burdened be/ Then, I am still and wait here in the silence/ Until you come and sit awhile with me.
Only when the song was finished did Willow let go and reach back for me, like nothing extraordinary had happened. I went over and hugged Patricia myself.
‘That was the song we played at Heather’s funeral,’ she told me.
Now I knew why she was crying, but I still couldn’t understand the connection to Willow. Then Patricia continued.
‘After the funeral, we planted a tree in Heather’s memory,’ she said. ‘And it was a willow tree.’
God’s hand at work or coincidence? You’d think by then I wouldn’t ever have to ask myself that question, but occasionally I still do. I saw with my own eyes how Willow had given my friend such great comfort just when she needed it most by doing something I’d never seen Willow do before. And the song? And the tree? If that was a coincidence, it was one heck of a coincidence.
After that happened, I got a strong nudge to tell Patricia my story. I messaged her online and told her I needed to talk, and we agreed to meet at a little coffee shop in town. On my way over, I started worrying. I’d almost gotten to the point where I didn’t care if people thought I was wacko – almost. I prayed and asked God if He was sure I needed to tell her my story. And then, for some reason, I asked God if there was anything I could tell her to let her know I was telling the truth. Because if she knew I was telling the truth, she’d know her daughter was okay.
Just then, the words ‘blue rabbit’ formed in my head.
I thought, Okay, tell her ‘blue rabbit,’ but then I thought, No, don’t tell her that. That’s crazy. For one thing, there’s no such thing as a blue rabbit. It’s just a silly, nonsensical thing that popped in my brain. Forget it, don’t mention it to her. Just tell her your story and go.
But then, in the coffee shop, I felt the urge to tell Patricia about the blue rabbit. I decided to lie and say it was something that came to me in a dream. Just before I launched into my heaven story, I said, ‘You know, I had this crazy dream last night where Heather told me to tell you “ blue rabbit” as a way to let you know she’s okay. Isn’t that weird?’ I said it kind of offhandedly, so it wouldn’t seem like a big deal.
Patricia sat there stone-faced, saying nothing, showing nothing. I immediately felt stupid.
‘Dreams are so dumb,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I brought it up.’
And then I told her my story. When I was done, Patricia was silent and stone-faced again. Finally, she looked at me, and she spoke.
‘Heather’s favorite color was blue,’ she said. ‘And her favorite animals were rabbits. And on her grandfather’s farm we have these floppy-eared rabbits we’re raising in Heather’s memory. She loved rabbits so much we called her Honey Bunny.’
Patricia was crying now, and so was I.
‘Heather also had this old stuffed rabbit she loved and slept with every night,’ she said. ‘Crystal, that old stuffed rabbit was blue.’
Our God is a God of love and mercy and forgiveness and great power, and in His mercy He can do truly astonishing things. So I don’t know why I’d be the least bit surprised that God could send me the words ‘blue rabbit.’ And yet, whenever something like that happens, I’m always blown away. I guess I’ll never get used to how great God is.
I was in the flower aisle at Wal-Mart when another amazing encounter happened. I was holding Micah, and Virgil was over by the azaleas with Willow. Just then I saw an acquaintance, Shearl, pushing her son Mickey in his wheelchair. Mickey, who was in his twenties, had been severely injured in a car accident. Shearl and I made some small talk before she said, ‘You know, some time I’d really like to hear your story.’
‘How about now?’ I blurted out.
There are times when, if the situation calls for it, I’ll abridge my story a bit. I might just say that when I was younger I felt really worthless, instead of going into all the details of my abortion. But in this case, I had the urge to tell them everything. And so I did, right there in the flower aisle. I handed Micah over to Virgil, and I gave Shearl and her son the unabridged version.
Toward the end of it, when I was talking about how great God is, Mickey started to cry. Then he was crying uncontrollably. He couldn’t move his head that freely and he still had a lot of trouble talking, but he was able to understand everything. Something I said must have really affected him.
‘You gonna be okay, Mickey?’ Shearl asked him. ‘Do you want Crystal to stop?’
I heard Mickey push out the words, ‘No. Keep talking.’
So I did. And when I was done, Shearl hugged me and thanked me and said, ‘We are believers. We believe in a God of healing and miracles.’ Shearl explained that when Mickey was taken to the hospital after his accident she came very close to losing him. His heart stopped twice, and he was revived both times.
Then Mickey looked up at me with tears running down his face and struggled to speak again.
‘But I didn’t see God,’ he said in his broken voice. ‘I didn’t see God.’
My heart swelled with love for him. It swelled with God’s love for him. I knelt down and got eye-level with him and put my hands on his.
‘Mickey, I don’t have all the answers,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why you had to go through what you did. I don’t know why your accident happened or why you have to struggle, but I do know one thing. God’s plan is perfect. It was through the trash in my life that God glorified Himself the most.’
And then I added, ‘God is real. He is real.’
I said that again. And again. Over and over.
Mickey never took his eyes off me. Then I asked if I could pray over him. There in the flower aisle I laid my hands on Mickey, and Shearl put her hands on him too. And as shoppers passed and gave us funny looks we glorified God’s presence in our lives, praying for healing for Mickey and thanking God for meeting us in the aisles of our local Wal-Mart.
Shearl would later tell me my talk meant a great deal to Mickey. He is a remarkable young man who believes with all his heart that God is going to let him walk again, and no one who knows him doubts that he will. But in his darker moments his faith is tested, as it is with all of us.
‘Sometimes,’ Shearl said, ‘people need to be reminded that God is real.’
I’ve thought about Mickey a lot since our talk in the flower aisle, and I think he made me realize a very profound truth about my experience. In fact, that truth is at the very heart of God’s message to us. Yes, God gave me the miraculous gift of His presence and His wisdom, and because of my time in heaven I now overflow with excitement and passion for Him. The love I felt pass between us changed me forever. I am beyond lucky to have had this experience, and I can’t even imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t.
But here’s the thing – you don’t have to die and go to heaven to experience God.
Look at Mickey. He was in the same spot I was in – in a hospital, teetering between life and death – and yet he didn’t get to see God. But still, he loves God with every fiber of his being, and he believes God will help him walk again. His passion is every bit as great as mine, and maybe even greater, and he didn’t even get to stand in God’s presence! Mickey’s incredible faith touches my heart and stirs my soul, and he is not the only one. I have seen that burning passion in other Christians who didn’t need to go to heaven to know that God is real – to love Him mightily and be His warrior on earth.
Which brings me to my great friend, Amber.
Amber’s passion for God blows me away. She’s young and beautiful and full of life, and all the kids in her fourth grade class just love her to death. She also mentors a bunch of teenage girls, and people call her the Teen Whisperer. When you’re around her you see what a living, breathing thing her faith is. What Amber understands, and what she has helped me understand, is that everyone has a story – everyone has a testimony. Every one of us is born in sin and endures pain and suffering, and every one of us can be freed from that burden when we realize we are more – so much more – than just that pain and suffering. When we see the greatness of God in even our very darkest moments, then we can be free. ‘Even the crappiest crap we go through glorifies God,’ Amber likes to say, in her Amber way. ‘God makes beauty from ashes, and the devil hates when He does that.’
God has made beauty from the ashes of Amber’s life. She has seen His greatness in her darkest moments. Amber proves every day you don’t have to die and go to heaven to believe in God and be His warrior, and for that reason I asked Amber if she would share her testimony – her amazingly personal and powerful testimony – with you. She agreed.
Amber is a Texas girl, and from a very early age she knew she was filled with the Holy Spirit. But, like me, she had a rough childhood. She grew up in an atmosphere of chaos and dysfunction. Through it all, she had a desire to live her life for God, because deep down she knew she was created for more than what she was growing up with. And so she fought off all the hardships that were testing her faith. While all the other high school freshman girls were smoking and drinking and having sex and even trying drugs, Amber stayed away from all that. She went to a party here and there, but she was always the designated driver.
Then, toward the end of her freshman year, she gave in to the pressures of life. She allowed the bitterness and resentment she felt about her situation turn into blatant rebellion. She quit cheerleading and missed so much school she had to go to court twice. She smoked pot and became promiscuous. She popped pills and went on drinking binges. She got into physical fights with her mother and moved out when she was seventeen. She let the anger inside her – and the lies of the enemy – drag her down.
In her senior year, she got pregnant.
Amber didn’t believe in abortion. In the fourth grade, when all the students wrote letters to President Clinton, hers got published in a newspaper. Most kids told the president how much they liked him or how much they wanted to visit the White House; Amber wrote about her belief that life begins at conception. Even so, when she got pregnant, she feared that having a child this young would doom her to the kind of life her parents had – to poverty and fighting and unhappiness. She believed the lie that she could have an abortion and never look back. Against all of her instincts, she rounded up $450 in cash and went to an abortion clinic in a town three hours away, crying in the back seat the whole way up. She didn’t tell anyone about it except her mom and her boyfriend, but when her eleven-year-old sister Lacey overheard her talking about it, she prayed and prayed that the abortion wouldn’t work.
Amber sat in the clinic waiting room with its circular couches and magazine racks. She sat near the front door, away from everyone else. She felt the same instinct I felt: Get up and go home now. But her body seemed like it weighed a million pounds. She went through with the abortion and walked out into the harsh sunlight afterward feeling deeply ashamed. She didn’t go to school for a week. She lay in bed and cried and slept and cried.
But one month later, Amber noticed she wasn’t getting her period. She’d broken up with her boyfriend and stopped having sex, so she was pretty confused. She took a pregnancy test just to make sure she wasn’t still pregnant. The test result was positive.
She was pregnant.
I’ll let Amber take the story from here.
I knew this had to be some kind of mistake. It wasn’t like I was the Virgin Mary or anything. I really didn’t understand what was happening. After I took the test I lay in my bed all night and cried in fear and confusion. As I lay there, I noticed a little lump in my belly. I touched it a couple of times, and I felt several small, quick flutters. Looking back now, I realize God allowed me to feel those flutters, because He knew I hadn’t convinced myself that what was growing inside me was a child. In that moment, in my bed, it was like God was telling me, ‘You cannot deny that I am the giver of life.’
But I was still really scared and confused, and I got my mom to take me to the ER in Amarillo. I got a sonogram, which showed I was fourteen weeks pregnant – and that the baby seemed fine.
I called the abortion clinic to find out what happened, and they said they’d never seen anything like this before. They said maybe it was twins, and we only got one. But I didn’t really need any answers from them. I knew what was happening. This was God giving me a second chance.
But then, at twenty weeks, I woke up in a pool of blood. My mom rushed me back to the ER. At twenty-one weeks, I went into labor. The doctors told me my early labor was the result of a bicornuate uterus I was born with and didn’t have anything to do with the abortion. They also told me my baby wasn’t viable, that it had zero chances to survive. I didn’t want to hear it. Right in the middle of labor I got out of bed and on my knees and prayed to God to let me keep this child.
After ten hours of labor, I gave birth to a daughter. The child was alive but struggling to breathe. She was less than a foot long, and she weighed fifteen ounces.
The nurses took my baby to the nursery, cut and pieced a tiny triangular piece of cloth on her as a diaper, and wrapped her in a pink and blue striped blanket. Then they put her in an incubator. All the nurses were surprised my baby was even alive. One of the nurses asked me if I wanted to hold her. In my emotional agony, I pushed out a ‘no.’ It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hold her; it’s just that in those moments I thought to myself, This is it, God, this is what’s going to break me. This I can’t handle. There is no way I can hold her and love her and then let her be taken away. I’d had to deal with so much garbage in my life, and now this? I was filled with anger and resentment toward God. What kind of God would toy with me like this? Wasn’t this supposed to be my second chance?
In a blur, my family and friends came and went, giving me their love and support. My best friend Lauren, who knew me so well, didn’t say a word. She just curled up on the end of my bed and lay there with me. And all that time, my younger sister Lacey was nearby in the nursery, holding my tiny daughter. Lacey, who had prayed for weeks for my baby to live, was experiencing the joy and the gift of an answered prayer.
A nurse asked again if I wanted to hold my baby, and again I said no. No one thought she could survive much longer, and I didn’t want to look at her and then never see her again. My friends and family filed into the nursery, saying their goodbyes to the child. I just lay in my room in total silence. I was done, finished, at my breaking point.
I didn’t even realize it, but thirty minutes had now passed since my baby was born. Somehow she was still hanging on. That’s when a grief counselor came over to talk to me.
‘Amber, I want you to think really hard about this,’ she said. ‘Years from now, are you going to regret not holding your daughter?’
In a flash, I realized she was right.
‘Oh, my God, yes, I’ll hold her!’ I yelled out. A nurse brought my baby to me bundled in her pink and blue blanket.
I couldn’t believe how tiny and fragile she was. She wasn’t much bigger than the palm of my hand, and her body and limbs were so skinny. But I was surprised she looked like a baby – a perfect baby that happened to be too little. I could hear her taking these tiny, gasping breaths for air. A nurse told me this was because her lungs weren’t developed. I just held her and stared at her and loved her. And as I lifted up parts of the blanket to gaze over this perfect little creation, one thought flooded my mind: This is the life I tried to end.
In the pain and grief of that moment I didn’t understand that God was showing me His redemptive love.
And then I heard my daughter take one last tiny gasp for air.
I handed her back to the nurse, who carried her out of the room. Just a bit later the nurse came back to my room and held my hand.
‘Amber,’ she said, ‘she is gone to be with Jesus.’
My baby hung on for forty-two minutes – just long enough for me to hold her.
I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that God gave me a second chance to see His mighty hand create beauty from ashes. I know that those few minutes with my daughter changed my life. They added another beautiful part to my purpose and destiny. My daughter showed me a real love – the true love of my Father. And now, I would never give back any of the pain and suffering and grief I felt, because it all led to that blessed miracle – when I got to hold my daughter for those few minutes.
Through it all, God showed me He holds the key to life and death. He took away my crippling shame and sorrow and replaced it with the powerful truth of His redemption. There is so much I still don’t understand about God. There are times when I still wrestle with Him, but in the end I always come back to the truth of knowing that He is good. He showed me I am more than the pain and suffering in my life. I am His perfect creation, and He is always there. He is my redemptive love.
And now my baby is part of my testimony.
Her name is Kylie Ryan.