It all began in 2008. I was a university professor in Australia and I was 49 years old. On weekends, I played blues music with my band. From the outside, anyone would have thought my life was in order, but inside, I was broken. I had been divorced for two or three years and was living alone in my house. Loneliness was eating away at me from the inside. It was not that I doubted God's existence. I had never questioned that.
My complaint was about something else. I kept asking him, "Why? Why did my marriage fall apart? Why had my life crumbled like this?" The more I asked, the more I felt that God was moving farther away from me, or perhaps I was moving farther away from him. It was as though an invisible wall had risen between us and I had no idea how to tear it down. It was during that period of my life that I began experiencing chest pains.
At first, I ignored them as many men do, but the pain would not go away. So I went to the doctor. They performed an electrocardiogram and the doctor told me to take things easy and avoid strenuous activities while we waited for the results. A week passed, the pain eased a little, and I did what people often do when their fear begins to subside. I convinced myself that nothing serious was wrong. I told myself I was exaggerating.
One day, I looked through the back door of my house and saw that the garden was a complete mess. I thought it was time to clean it up. I went to the garage and took out the lawn mower, one of those gasoline-powered machines that never seem to start when you need them. If you have ever owned one, you know what I mean. I kept pulling the starter cord again and again for a couple of minutes. The machine would not start and neither would I give up.
Then, all of a sudden, a brutal pressure struck my chest. It felt as though someone had placed a steel plate directly on my heart. A massive grab tore through my chest from one side to the other. I let go of the lawnmower and stood there. At that moment, I knew exactly what was happening. Given my recent visit to the doctor and the chest pain I had been experiencing for weeks, there was no way I could fool myself.
My heart was failing. I stood there struggling to breathe when I heard it. A voice. I do not know whether it was audible, as though someone were speaking directly into my ear, or whether I heard it inside my mind, but it was incredibly powerful and unmistakably clear. There was no doubt about who was speaking. God told me, "You are going to die, but I have things for you to do." My first reaction, and I know this sounds strange, was almost humorous.
I said, "Well, Lord, which one is it going to be?" After all, the two options he had given me did not seem particularly compatible. Was I going to die, or did I still have things to do? The answer came just as clearly. "Go inside the house, pack a bag, call an ambulance, and be ready." That is exactly what I did. I went inside. I was still able to function well enough to pack a bag with a few basic necessities.
Then I picked up the phone, called an ambulance, and waited. The paramedics arrived about 10 minutes later. They administered morphine and other medications to help stabilize my condition and manage my blood pressure. They loaded me into the ambulance, and we set off for the hospital. One of the paramedics was new. It was his very first day on the job. He was a young man, almost like a trainee, and he was responsible for looking after me during the journey.
He told me he was going to give me another dose of morphine along with more medication to stabilize me. After that second dose, I began to feel dizzy. I had lost consciousness before in my life, so I recognized the feeling. I knew what was coming. I managed to tell him, "I'm going. I can feel it. I'm going to lose consciousness." Those were my last words in this world, at least for a little while.
The next thing I knew, I was floating in complete darkness. There was no up or down, no walls, no floor, nothing at all. It was just me suspended in a black void. But it was not like fainting. I had lost consciousness several times before, and I knew what that felt like. This was completely different. It was like entering an incredibly vivid dream. I felt weightless, almost as though I were floating in warm water.
I was deeply relaxed and completely at peace. And the strangest thing of all was that I was entirely myself. My mind was clear. My thoughts were my own. There was no confusion. I was simply floating gently in that darkness with no idea where I was heading. It took me a while to process what was happening. At first, I simply surrendered to the pleasant sensation, but gradually I began thinking about it and trying to make sense of my experience.
Then the realization hit me like a bucket of ice cold water. This was not fainting. I think I am dead. Fear immediately followed that thought. If I was dead, why was I in darkness? Where were the bright lights everyone described? Where was the tunnel? I was a Christian. I had believed in God my entire life. So why was I floating alone in nothingness? I continued drifting, and the further I went, the more my anxiety grew.
Then I looked down, and what I felt chilled me to the bone. Beneath me was an immense, bottomless void. Its darkness was different from the darkness surrounding me. It was denser, heavier, and more terrifying. Every part of my being seemed to warn me, "You do not want to go there. You do not even want to get close to it." And the worst part was that the more frightened I became, the farther I sank toward that void, as though fear itself were a weight pulling me downward.
It was not that something was physically pushing me. It was as if my own terror were dragging me toward it. Every panicked thought brought me closer to the abyss, and I could not stop it. Just as I felt I was about to be swallowed by the darkness, something inside me reacted. It was not a carefully constructed thought. It was not a beautiful or eloquent prayer. It was a desperate spiritual instinct for survival.
I remembered my faith and cried out with everything inside me. "Jesus, help me." I shouted his name once, twice, and then a third time. I kept calling out to him as I felt myself falling, and I continued praying. I do not know how many times I repeated his name. I only know that I did not stop. I had nothing else. There was no technique or strategy. There was only his name. Then, out of nowhere, an arm appeared from above.
It was a strong arm that firmly grabbed me by the forearm. A voice spoke to me with absolute clarity. "Don't you want to go down there?" The figure began pulling me upward at a speed I cannot adequately describe. If you have ever watched Star Trek, you may remember how everything blurs and stretches around the ship when it enters warp speed. That was what it felt like. Things flashed past me in blurred streaks.
There might have been stars or galaxies, but I could not tell. Everything was moving so quickly that I could not distinguish anything. All I could see was the arm holding me and the white figure carrying me. We traveled like that for what seemed to me to be a couple of minutes, moving upward, always upward, away from the darkness that had almost swallowed me. As we ascended, something inside me began to change.
The fear started fading. The anxiety slowly dissolved. And in its place, something I had not expected began to emerge. A peace that did not come from me. A calmness that did not belong to me. Something was preparing me for what I was about to see. We stopped. After the ascent at an unimaginable speed, everything suddenly slowed down. I found myself suspended in a dimly illuminated environment, almost as though I were among clouds.
It was not a clearly defined place. There was no floor, no ceiling, and no walls. I believe I was in transit, somewhere between the place I had been rescued from and the destination to which I was being taken. Gradually, my senses adjusted and I began to distinguish figures around me. There were five or six angels standing in a semicircle in front of me. The one who had rescued me was there, too. The first thing I noticed was their size.
They were enormous, perhaps eight or 10 feet tall. They wore white robes and their faces were something I will never be able to describe adequately in words. They looked noble and finely sculpted. If you have seen the Lord of the Rings movies, think of the statues of ancient kings standing at the entrance to the river. They looked something like that. But they were neither harsh nor severe. There was something profoundly loving about their presence combined with an absolute seriousness, as though each of them carried knowledge without beginning or end.
And this is where I need to explain something that completely changed my understanding of communication. On that plane of existence, there were no spoken words, no speeches, and no languages. Communication with these beings was direct. You were connected to them, and they were connected to you. What emanated from these angels was eternal wisdom and ageless grace. They did not tell me this or explain it to me.
I simply felt it. I knew it, as though the information had entered my very being without passing through my ears. That was my first real experience of how communication worked in the spiritual world. And I can tell you that it was nothing like anything we know here. As I tried to process everything, something began growing inside me. Love. But not like any love I had ever known in my life. This love was so immense that I felt my chest might explode from the sheer force of what I was experiencing.
It was beautiful and overwhelming at the same time. The closest comparison I can offer is this. When I was a very young child, my mother would take me into her arms and cradle me against her chest. I would feel completely protected, completely loved, and completely safe. Now, multiply that feeling a hundredfold. That was what I was experiencing. Love in every direction, love toward me, love coming from me, and love flowing through me.
Everything was love. And with that love came a certainty that struck me to the very core of my being. I was home. This was where I had always belonged. Then the one who had pulled me out of the abyss approached me and said, "We came to meet you. You called and we came." He paused for a moment before continuing. "You have a decision to make. You can come with me to paradise and stay forever, or you can choose to return to your life. The choice is yours."
I stood in silence because the magnitude of that decision was overwhelming. At that time, I had an eight-year-old son, another son who was 12, another who was 15, and a 28-year-old daughter who had suffered severe brain injuries. She had been hit by a car when she was 7 years old and was confined to a wheelchair. Her mother had moved thousands of miles away, leaving me as the only parent she had left.
I could not abandon them. But I want to be completely honest. As much as I loved my children, and I loved them with everything I had, the thought of being torn away from that place and returning to my life was not something I wanted. That place was so wonderful, so complete. The peace, the love, and the sense of belonging I experienced there were far beyond anything this world could offer. If I had not had those responsibilities waiting for me, I would have stayed without giving it a second thought.
But I also felt that my work here on Earth was not finished. Prophetic words had been spoken over my life years earlier, and certain things had not yet come to pass. I knew there was still something I needed to do. I looked at the figure before me and asked, "Who are you?" He turned toward me and calmly replied, "I am the one you call Lord." To me, that could only mean one person, Jesus. There is no other Lord in my life.
When those words entered my being, I completely broke down. I was standing at the feet of Jesus, speaking with him, seeing him, and feeling his presence. It was something I had longed for ever since I could remember. At that moment, all I could do was weep with a joy that human language cannot express. Jesus looked at me and said something I had not expected to hear. "You have been wounded. The things you have experienced have left their mark on your soul, and I need to enter in and repair you."
He did not say it as a suggestion. He spoke as someone who could see an open wound and understood that if it were not treated, it would only become worse. I did not hesitate. I told him, "Do whatever you need to do." I remained there, lying at his feet, and allowed his spirit to enter mine. What I began to feel is something I cannot accurately explain. It was as though he were inside me, moving through corners of my being I had never even known existed.
I felt the grief I had carried for years beginning to diminish, as though someone were turning down the volume of a pain that had been screaming inside me all that time. Dark doors within my soul began to open. There were places where I had buried terrible things that had happened to me as a child. Some of those experiences were connected to a cult in which members of my family had been involved. They were things I had never wanted to revisit.
But Jesus was opening those doors, not to hurt me, but to cleanse those places and restore what had been broken inside me. And while he was doing this, something extraordinary happened. I could feel what he felt. We were united. His consciousness and mine were connected, and what I perceived of his level of knowledge is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. He could know anything, absolutely anything.
He could see beneath the rock anywhere in Africa. He could examine a star in the most distant galaxy as easily as someone opening a file on a computer. His knowledge extended to every point in the universe. He could access the past and the future instantaneously. Everything was within his reach. If you want an earthly comparison, imagine Google. Now multiply it by a trillion upon a trillion. Even that would not come remotely close to what I perceived of his consciousness.
The most overwhelming realization was how small I was in comparison. I felt like an ant, yet I was an ant who was completely loved. When he finished working within me, his tone changed. "There are several things I need to tell you before you return," he said. "You are going to meet certain people, and you are going to experience certain things, but you need to understand something. Nothing is guaranteed for you. You have free will, and you still have the potential to make the wrong choices when you return to your life."
Then he showed me the future. It was like watching a movie through a transparent veil. The images were somewhat blurred, and I believe that was intentional. I saw things that would happen in my life. He warned me about a particular person who would pose a danger to me. That person eventually became my second wife.
I also saw brief glimpses of chaotic times, things that appeared to be connected with the end times, but they were only glimpses, very short and indistinct. There were moments when Jesus turned to the angels and clearly said, "He must not see this." Entire sections seemed to be skipped, as though someone were fast-forwarding through the movie. Certain things were deliberately being hidden from me. Why?
I can only assume there was a reason. If I had seen everything that was going to happen, it would have influenced my decisions, and the purpose of life is for us to make our own choices. My free will had to remain intact. Even though God knows every choice I will make, I am still the one who has to make it.
While all of this was happening, the thought of my children suddenly overwhelmed me, and panic took hold of me. I thought, I am dead. My children are alone. They are going to be devastated. They are going to suffer. I have to go back right now. I began to feel a level of distress I could not control.
The angels reacted immediately. They all rushed toward me and spoke with a firmness that left no room for argument. "You cannot do that here. Fear does not exist in this place." They were not angry with me, but they were certainly not pleased. It was as though fear was something that did not belong there, a contaminant that had to be removed immediately.
They began calming me down. I do not know how they did it. It felt as though they took my entire soul and wrapped it in something that dissolved all my anxiety. Gradually, I began to feel that peace again, that calmness that does not belong to this world. And I understood something I had never fully understood before. Where God is present, fear simply cannot exist.
Jesus then turned to one of the angels and said, "Go and check the vessel." That was how he referred to my body, the vessel. The angel flew downward, and I could see him leaving. It was as though my eyes had been given the ability to see across enormous distances, almost like a telescope. Far below, I could see my body lying on the stretcher inside the ambulance. I could also see the angel descending toward it. That image remained engraved in my memory. There was my body down below, so small and fragile, while I was up there, more alive than I had ever felt.
The angel returned and said, "The vessel is fine." Jesus looked at me and calmly said, "It is time for you to return." I knew I had to leave, but the sadness of departing that place was real. It felt as though I were being torn away from the one thing I had always longed for without ever knowing it existed.
I began floating downward. Once again, I passed through the darkness. In the distance, I could see a light. I moved toward it, and suddenly, with a sharp impact, I was back inside my body. It was not a gentle return. It felt as though I had fallen onto concrete. Everything was heavy and awkward. My body felt like a prison after the freedom I had experienced.
But what affected me most was the atmosphere around me. I could sense the evil and darkness of this world. Compared with the place I had just left, the difference was something I could almost feel on my skin. It was like living in a dirty room your entire life without ever noticing the filth because you have never known anything else. But once you have been somewhere different and then return, you can feel it. This world is heavy, very heavy.
I opened my eyes. The inexperienced paramedic was staring at me with his eyes wide open. He was holding the two paddles of the defibrillator and was about to deliver an electric shock. He looked at me and asked, "You're back with us?"
I asked him how long I had been unconscious. From my perspective, it had easily been 20 or 30 minutes. Everything I had experienced—the conversations, the angels, the healing, and the visions of the future—could not possibly have happened in a single instant. He looked at me in confusion and replied, "What are you talking about? It was one minute, just one minute." That was all the time that had passed in this world while I was experiencing everything I had just described.
When I arrived at the hospital and was lying in my bed, the voices had not stopped. I could still hear the angels. One of them spoke clearly to me. "We have healed three arteries, but there is one we are not going to heal."
When the cardiologist came to examine me, he told me it was a miracle that I was alive. He explained that the artery that had become blocked was known as the widowmaker because a blockage in this artery can be rapidly fatal. But he also told me something else that left him puzzled. It appeared that I had suffered a previous heart attack because several arteries had developed new pathways that allowed blood to flow around the blockages. He could not understand how that had happened. I knew exactly what I believed had happened.
A few weeks later, I met a woman. She lived about 800 meters from the hospital, exactly where the angel had told me I would meet her. We eventually got married. But over time, she began moving away from Christianity. Gradually, she embraced a form of universalism in which all religions were considered equal. She told me that Buddha was the same as Jesus, that it did not matter whom you followed, and that all spiritual paths were essentially the same.
I could not accept that. I told her, "Jesus is my Lord. The others are a deception, and I will not follow them." That disagreement became the breaking point in our marriage. It was then that I finally understood the warning Jesus had given me. The danger was not simply that she might leave me. The real danger was that she might pull me away from him, that I might compromise my faith to save my marriage and in the process lose my Lord.
I chose to remain with Christ, and that decision cost me my second marriage. But what about the fourth artery? Why had it not been healed? It took me time to understand, but today I believe I see the answer clearly. If that artery had also been healed, there would have been no remaining medical evidence that I had suffered a heart attack. I would never have written a book. I would not be sitting here telling this story. I would simply be another man claiming that he had died and returned with nothing to support his account.
That unhealed artery was, in my understanding, the evidence God deliberately left behind so that the story could be told and someone else could hear it.
