Free The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World by Kevin Malarkey; Alex Malarkey Page B
Authors: Kevin Malarkey; Alex Malarkey
hands, His body, His love, and His compassion in the way He knew He could minister to us and sustain us. There was an orchestration of people 24-7, sitting with and praying over Alex. People came to us and said, “You don’t know me, but I woke up at three o’clock in the morning and was compelled to pray for your son.” The prime target of the enemy is the nighttime, when our minds and physical bodies are trying to rest. But the Spirit never sleeps.
Beth Malarkey, Alex’s mom
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Indeed, all things really do work together for our good when we know God.
We dared to face the reality that something as devastating as the automobile accident and Alex’s horrific injuries could actually become an amazing blessing in the hands of the Lord. This didn’t mean we were happy about what had happened to our boy or that we would want it to happen to anyone else. But we knew that, as Corrie ten Boom used to say, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” I was learning to trust more deeply in God than I ever had . . . to accept the bitter and sweet of His plan . . . to open myself to the prayers and insights of fellow believers . . . to accept that something beautiful was happening beyond my powers of control or comprehension.
What about Alex? Was he really as unresponsive as he looked? Was he aware of God’s presence? What was he learning . . . experiencing . . . ?
From Alex Heaven and Earth We know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:22God created the earth to be a perfect place for us, and we’ve messed it up.Heaven is the perfect place for His children, and it has stayed that way.Heaven is what this world was supposed to be.Lots of things in Heaven are similar to things here on earth. There are trees and fields of grass, lakes and rivers, and many other parts of the earth that we know.It’s just that in Heaven, every last detail is perfect.Maybe you will see a sunset and think that it is the most beautiful thing there could be. Or you see a mountaintop with snow on it. And you think—that’s perfect!But I think it is impossible to describe what I really want to tell you—these things you are seeing are not perfect! They are warped compared to Heaven.Sin has warped the earth, and even the colors here are less bright than in Heaven.So there are lakes and other natural things in Heaven, but they aren’t like our lakes. There are also things in Heaven that we don’t have here on earth.I think my daddy gets frustrated sometimes because I use words like perfect , glorious , or beyond over and over. I have to. Heaven is just not like earth.
Chapter 5 Miracles, Messes, and More Miracles My son couldn’t function in the physical world, but it was difficult for me to function in the spiritual world. Who had the greater disability?
The sense of God’s presence was becoming more palpable than I had ever known. Miracles were happening to Alex—though we did not yet know it. What we did know was the miracle of Christian fellowship and through it the sense that God was at work in ways that were both mysterious and real.
But I wouldn’t want you to think that Beth and I are miraculous people. After all, this book is a work of nonfiction. In the first few months following the accident, as we were being lifted up into God’s presence, we were also feeling frayed at the edges, becoming tense, frustrated, despairing, and, sadly, even nasty to each other. I don’t want to write these facts off as normal for people under the kind of stress we were under, but I do want to be honest. Often we were far from behaving in the way Christ envisions for His people—that is the truth, no matter how else I would wish it to be.
Thank God, there is another truth: God continued to be faithful to us in the midst of our messes.
It is one thing to read the Scriptures and affirm their truth. But until you are in the trenches of
Beth Malarkey, Alex’s mom
+ + +
----
Indeed, all things really do work together for our good when we know God.
We dared to face the reality that something as devastating as the automobile accident and Alex’s horrific injuries could actually become an amazing blessing in the hands of the Lord. This didn’t mean we were happy about what had happened to our boy or that we would want it to happen to anyone else. But we knew that, as Corrie ten Boom used to say, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” I was learning to trust more deeply in God than I ever had . . . to accept the bitter and sweet of His plan . . . to open myself to the prayers and insights of fellow believers . . . to accept that something beautiful was happening beyond my powers of control or comprehension.
What about Alex? Was he really as unresponsive as he looked? Was he aware of God’s presence? What was he learning . . . experiencing . . . ?
From Alex Heaven and Earth We know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:22God created the earth to be a perfect place for us, and we’ve messed it up.Heaven is the perfect place for His children, and it has stayed that way.Heaven is what this world was supposed to be.Lots of things in Heaven are similar to things here on earth. There are trees and fields of grass, lakes and rivers, and many other parts of the earth that we know.It’s just that in Heaven, every last detail is perfect.Maybe you will see a sunset and think that it is the most beautiful thing there could be. Or you see a mountaintop with snow on it. And you think—that’s perfect!But I think it is impossible to describe what I really want to tell you—these things you are seeing are not perfect! They are warped compared to Heaven.Sin has warped the earth, and even the colors here are less bright than in Heaven.So there are lakes and other natural things in Heaven, but they aren’t like our lakes. There are also things in Heaven that we don’t have here on earth.I think my daddy gets frustrated sometimes because I use words like perfect , glorious , or beyond over and over. I have to. Heaven is just not like earth.
Chapter 5 Miracles, Messes, and More Miracles My son couldn’t function in the physical world, but it was difficult for me to function in the spiritual world. Who had the greater disability?
The sense of God’s presence was becoming more palpable than I had ever known. Miracles were happening to Alex—though we did not yet know it. What we did know was the miracle of Christian fellowship and through it the sense that God was at work in ways that were both mysterious and real.
But I wouldn’t want you to think that Beth and I are miraculous people. After all, this book is a work of nonfiction. In the first few months following the accident, as we were being lifted up into God’s presence, we were also feeling frayed at the edges, becoming tense, frustrated, despairing, and, sadly, even nasty to each other. I don’t want to write these facts off as normal for people under the kind of stress we were under, but I do want to be honest. Often we were far from behaving in the way Christ envisions for His people—that is the truth, no matter how else I would wish it to be.
Thank God, there is another truth: God continued to be faithful to us in the midst of our messes.
It is one thing to read the Scriptures and affirm their truth. But until you are in the trenches of
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