Free Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, Lynn Vincent, Colton Burpo Page B

and carried down through all layers in the peritoneal cavity. . . . The patient had a perforated appendix with an abscess. The appendix was delivered up in the operative field.

    A thought hit me like a brick: Colton didnt die.

    How could he have gone to heaven if he didnt die?

    A couple of days passed as I chewed on that. It had only been a week or so since Colton first told us about the angels, so I didnt want to keep pushing the heaven issue. But finally, I couldnt stand it anymore and hunted the house for Colton until I found him, down on his knees in the bedroom wed converted to a playroom, building a tower of LEGOs. I leaned in the door frame and got his attention.

    Hey, Colton, I dont understand, I began.

    He looked up at me, and I noticed for the first time that all the roundness had returned to his face, his cheeks filled out and rosy again after his illness had drained them thin and sallow. What?

    You said you went to heaven. People have to die to go to heaven.

    Coltons gaze didnt waver. Well, okay then, I died. But just for a little bit.

    My heart skipped a beat. If you havent heard your preschooler tell you he was dead, I dont recommend it. But Colton hadnt died. I knew what the medical record said. Colton had never ceased breathing. His heart had never stopped.

    I stood in the doorway and mulled over this new tidbit as Colton returned his attention to his toys. Then I remembered that the Bible talks in several places about people who had seen heaven without dying. The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth about a Christian he knew personally who was taken to heaven, Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not knowGod knows. And I know that this man . . . was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.2

    Then, of course, there was John the apostle, who described heaven in great detail in the book of Revelation. John had been exiled to the island of Patmos, where an angel visited him and commanded him to write down a series of prophecies to various churches. John wrote:

    After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian. A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne.3

    Rainbows . . . now where had I heard that recently?

    As I stood there and thought through a scriptural basis for experiencing heaven without dying, I realized that Colton, in telling me he had died for a little bit, had only been trying to match up his pastor-dads assertion with what he knew to be the facts of his own experience. Kind of like walking outside and finding that the street is wet, and concluding, well, okay, it must have rained.

    See, I had this tidy little box that said, People have to die to go to heaven, and Colton, trusting me, concluded, Well, I must have died then, because I was there.

    Suddenly, he piped up again. Daddy, remember when I yelled for you in the hospital when I waked up?

Heaven is for real
    Page: 29

    Well, the reason I was yelling was that Jesus came to get me. He said I had to go back because he was answering your prayer. Thats how come I was yelling for you.

    Suddenly, my knees felt weak underneath me. I flashed back to my prayers alone, raging at God, and my prayers in the waiting room, quiet and desperate. I remembered how scared I was, agonizing over whether Colton would hang on through the surgery, whether hed live long enough for me to see his precious face again. Those were the longest, darkest ninety minutes of my life.

    And Jesus answered my prayer? Personally? After I had yelled at God, chastising him, questioning his wisdom and his faithfulness?

    Why would God even answer a prayer like