Heaven Sent Me Back

I’ve been writing a book manuscript with Roxanne Wermuth, who has Chronic Progressive Multiple Sclerosis and had a heaven experience. We’re calling it Heaven Sent Me Back.

Here’s the first chapter.
I’d love to see your comments.

 

Chapter 1
Return to Sender

 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
Psalm 63:2

 

Against my will, my eyes started to open. Please, God, don’t send me back.

I shut my eyes again, hoping and praying I would still be in the other dimension when I opened them. With absolute resolve, I stopped breathing and willed my heart to stop beating. I would not come back here. I’d had enough of earth.

I waited. Heart, stop beating. Lungs, stop breathing. . . . Go back up.

But my lungs gasped for air despite myself, and my heart stubbornly kept its rhythm. As my eyelids slowly parted, bright lights assaulted and stabbed my eyes. Where am I?

Someone entered the room. My eyes were blurry and couldn’t see in the glare of the lights. Who—or what—was this? Fear seized me; I thought a witch approached my bed. This thing looked as if it had wild hair and a disfigured face.

“You’re awake. Do you know where you are?” the figure asked. A woman’s voice.

I don’t know. Machines beside me. Tubes in my body. “A hospital?”

“Yes.

She must be a nurse.

“Do you know what day it is?”

“No.”

“Do you know what year it is?”

“No.”

“You’ve been here about twenty-four hours. How are you feeling?”

Twenty-four hours? Where is David? My family had left me in intensive care. More fear set in as I realized I was all alone.

She checked several monitors then my blood pressure. Her nonchalant notations implied they were all fine. “Welcome back.”

Back to what? Back to my life on earth, where every day was a struggle? Back to being too weak to get out of bed? I don’t want to be welcomed back! 

Once again I felt the pain gnawing me just as it had every day for the past twelve years. God, take me again. Don’t send me back here. Please. Please take me again.

Everything was perfect in God’s presence. I was no longer sick. No aches or spasms. I was full of energy. Deliriously happy. Romping for hours through the flowers under the brilliant light. Dad and Uncle Paul . . .

Now this again. God, wasn’t I good enough to stay with you? Why would you send me back? What purpose could you possibly have to keep me here on earth? But my dad’s voice echoed through my thoughts. “Remember your promise.”

I had to come back.

The nurse shuffled her paperwork. “Did you try to commit suicide?”

“Huh?” My vision was now clear, my mind catching up. “Absolutely not. I would never do that.” Never? That wasn’t true, but it was this time.

“Do you remember how you got here?”

“Yes. My husband brought me here.” Twenty-four hours? “Was I in a coma?”

“Yes, you were.”

A coma . . . But I remembered. I watched and listened to everything until I rose through the ceiling and entered the tunnel.

She calmly wrote on her clipboard.

“I saw you and heard what you said about me.”

Her body froze and she looked at me over her clipboard. “What do you mean?”

“There were three of you in the room with me. You were all talking, making statements like, ‘I guess she tried to commit suicide, but didn’t take enough pills.’ And, ‘Maybe one more would have done it.’ You all giggled and made fun of me.”

Her eyes widened with shock. She lowered her face, etched with embarrassment and remorse. We were both still for a moment.

“I want to call my husband.”

She got a phone and punched the numbers as I spoke them.

“David, I’m back.”

 

— End Chapter 1 —