"Heaven is For Real"

by Todd Burpo, with Lynn Vincent

This book is about the story of a little boy, Colton, who died when having surgery and went to heaven and came back to tell people about it. It was different to what I was expecting - I thought it would be a 'direct' story of what happened, chronologically. In other words, that he died, experienced "x" while going to heaven, met "y" and "z" and did "a", "b" and "c" etc: a time line/frame of his experience. However, it's not so much the story of his experience in heaven, but the story of how his parents discovered the story - little snippets here and there over a number of years after he'd died during the surgery and then came back.

It was an interesting read, but I admittedly read it with a skeptical/cynical mind. I just don't know if I believe that someone can go to heaven, meet Jesus, God the Father and the Spirit and then come back to earth. My other thought running through my mind while reading the book, was how much the parents might have influenced Colton's story, but I don't think they did, judging by how his dad (who wrote Colton's story) wrote the book. And if that's the case, then could a not-even-quite-4-year-old boy have even made something like that (with that much detail) up? Am I just in being skeptical, or should I haven more faith? What do you think?

One of the most convincing things to make me consider that perhaps it is possible for someone to go to heaven and return, is that Colton had a very clear image of what Jesus looked like. Everytime his parents saw a painting/drawing of Jesus, they would ask Colton if this is what Jesus looked like to him, but he could never see the resemblance. One day, they came across a painting that a lady had done, based on her experience of going to heaven and coming back. Without indicating this to Colton, or giving him a leading question, they showed him the picture and he said that "that's what Jesus looks like". So, did Colton really see Jesus face-to-face or was it a vivid dream, or did his parents stretch the truth in the book or... see, my skepticism is making an appearance again!