On his way home from a conference, Don Piper'scar gets crushed by a semi that crosses into his lane. While his body lies lifeless inside the ruins of his car, Piper experiences the glories of heaven, awed by its beauty and music. Now begin his ?heavenly? experiences. In heaven he meets his great grandmother Hattie Mann, who had suffered from osteoporosis when she was alive on the earth, and who had her head and shoulders bent forward, giving her a humped appearance. But in heaven she is not slumped over. She stands strong and upright with the wrinkles erased from her face. He thinks, ?As I stared at her beaming face, I sensed that age has no meaning in heaven.? He feels more loved than ever before in life. As he looks around, he is overwhelmed at everything which is brilliantly intense. He feels that the brilliance is brighter than the light that ?surrounded us, utterly luminous?. He has difficulty in describing the scene around him because ?human words can'texpress the feelings of awe and wonder at what I beheld.?
Ninety minutes after the wreck, while a minister prays for him, Piper miraculously returns to life on earth with only the memory of inexpressible heavenly bliss. His faith in God is severely tested as he faces an uncertainty and gruelling recovery. When fully in his senses, he finds a searing pain run through his legs as he finds himself lying in the hospital bed. He then realises that miracles do occur.
The book tells us that certain things happen to us from which we never recover and they disrupt the normalcy of our life. That'show life is. Human nature has a tendency to try to reconstruct old ways and pick up wherever we leave. If we are wise, we would not continue to go back to things that have happened in the past because we cannot gain anything. Don had wasted time in thinking of how healthy he used to be with no physical limitations and in reconstructing ?how life ought to be?, when in reality, it cannot be done because the physical limits of human life have to be accepted ?as part of the new normal?. This is a book that may help to revive faith in God.
(Jaico Publishing House, 121 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Mumbai-400001.)
