Young Man’s Vision

The following inspirational post was written from my Christian perspective. If you are offended by such content, please return next week for more satire stories.

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions,

your old men will dream dreams. Acts 2:17 (NIV)

What if the veil were lifted and we could see that which is hidden from our eyes?

The Bible, the books of other religions, the folklore stories told from one generation to the next in tribes and people groups, all speak of the spirit world. Exorcisms are performed to cast demons from possessed individuals. Even Hollywood capitalizes on ghosts and other evil spirits. Though we can’t see the spirit world, can we deny that it is there?

Could it be that if our eyes were suddenly opened to see the spirits around us, we would be terrified beyond belief? What would evil in spirit form look like? Are the evil beings kept at bay by godly angels in a continuous battle? In Ephesians 6:12, the Bible plainly states: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

As a Christian, I believe that we all have a soul or spirit. That the spirit is eternal. When we have finished our lives in the earthly flesh, the believer’s spirit is taken to the presence of the Lord in the Kingdom of Heaven. That is my hope.

I have been fascinated by stories about near death experiences. I recently read a book by John Burke titled Imagine Heaven in which he interviews and uses as an example over 120 people who have had near death experiences and were revived.

Of course, there are nay-sayers who stand by their belief in science that what these people are experiencing has to do with chemicals in the dying brain. I choose to believe, because so many of their stories were similar, that the souls of those who experienced a NDE did enter the edge of the Kingdom. Over and over, their testimonies were that their short experience in Heaven was so wonderful, they didn’t want to come back to their earthly body. They also stated that they were never again afraid of death.

Many people who have experienced a NDE do not wish to talk about it. They cannot explain what they have seen and because they are fearful of other people’s reactions, they keep quiet. After all, they are trying to explain the spirit world.

For 50 years, I have kept quiet about something that I had experienced because I question in my mind if what I saw was from the spirit world or if it was my traumatized imagination.

In 1973, up at the Mount Baker ski area in Washington, a group of 15 to 20 friends of mine were inner tubing on the snowy hills. We were all Christian kids, followers of Jesus.

After the lunch hour, we went back out to a hillside to slide. I was the first to slide down in the deep powder snow, then came another. The third young lady to come down the hill for some unknown reason slid off the path made by the previous inner tubes and she instead slid into a group of fir trees which were off to the side of the run. She hit a tree headfirst with such speed that her body was critically damaged.

As her limp body slid the rest of the way down the hill, I caught her.

The weather that day was cloudy with snow flurries. The light in the snow bowl was gray.

Shouting up the hill to the kids watching on the ridge, I yelled for someone to get the ski patrol. I then covered her body with mine to block the snowfall.

God did not allow me to see her as she was, body mutilated and bleeding heavily. He spared me by blocking my vision and my mind. But, as I lay over her with my head buried in her coat, I heard her last breath.

Then, though my face was buried in her jacket, I sensed a brilliant white light shining over me. I immediately thought that it was from the headlights of the ski patrol’s snow mobile coming to the scene, but lifting my head and looking up, there was no one else but the two of us there.

What I did see was that the clouds and the snow in the bowl were now a beautiful pink color. Looking directly above me I noticed that the color was coming from a perfect hole in the clouds and the pink, afternoon, sunlit sky was shining through.

To this day, I believe that though I saw no spirits, angels, or supernatural beings, when this girl’s heart beat its last and her physical life was no more, the incredibly white light which illuminated my mind were angelic escorts which surrounded her body and guided her soul up through the circle in the clouds to the Kingdom of Heaven. The beautiful pinkness flooding into the snow bowl was God’s way of saying, “Well done child. Welcome home.”

The Apostle Paul (Saul) on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) was blinded by a light from heaven and heard the audible voice of Jesus speaking to him. Stories in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell of Jesus taking his disciples, Peter, James, and John to a mountain top to pray. There he became as bright as lightning and two men, Moses and Elijah appeared with him. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush and led him through the desert with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire in the sky by night. Could I be right in seeing what I saw?

The mind of man cannot fully fathom the spirit world which surrounds us on the other side of the veil. We can though, have assurance that in the end, God will win the battle over evil.

When I was young, I saw visions. Now as an old man, I dream dreams.

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