Heaven is for Real

This is my first "near death experience" book.  If you have been reading this blog you might have noticed that I read mostly fiction particularly the mystery - detective, lawyer and medical type.  But I also read other books recommended by friends and sometimes just because of curiousity.  This is recommended by a friend from church.  Am sure some if not all of you who read this will have your own opinion.  Please do share your insights.

Heaven is for Real is a short and easy to read book.  It is about Colton Burpo a 4 year old who had a ruptured appendix that is not diagnosed correctly for a few days.  They finally transferred to another hospital and found out the reasons of his illness.  An emergency appendectomy was then done on Colton.  Surgical reports did not mention of death occuring any time during the surgery.   His recovery is miraculous in that one day he is near death and then the next he is skipping and chatting.  The father Todd Burpo is a Pastor who had been through a lot medically for a few months before Colton's illness.  They decided to go on a trip after their lives seems to be back to normal.  During the trip Colton said something about being in heaven and sitting on Jesus' lap. They will then get little tid bits of information about what and who Colton saw while in heaven. 

Colton saw his great grandfather whom he had never met.  He also met a sister who was miscarried at two months of pregnancy.  Most of the things that Colton saw is also in the bible.  Being a Pastor the father who is the author of the book would also include passages from the bible about the descriptions.

A chapter includes "Akiane Kramarik" a child prodigy who have visions of heaven and paints them. Colton who would always say "NO" to most pictures of Jesus finally say that the painting Akiane did of Jesus is the right one.

This book gives me hope, that someday when my time comes, I will finally get to meet up with my dad who was murdered and we never get to say goodbye to him properly in this lifetime.

Colton also said that a person should have Jesus in his heart to go to heaven.  This part of the book brought out the skeptic in me.  So what will happen to those who never knew of Jesus.  Those who believes in Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism and others.  My mother goes to Catholic church and also believes in Buddhism, the papa is a member of Knights of Columbus, so we grew up visiting temples as well as going to churches.  A lot of my Chinese-Filipino friends are religiously Christian who also believes in Buddhism.

Personally, all religion believes in one GOD - the message from God was sent in different languages from different messengers of GOD.  Interpretations improved or becomes distorted as time goes by and different people interpret the message differently.   Christianity being the largest religion is also the most divided.  One thing remains the same though - do good and good things happen to you and you will have eternal peace.