02 Heaven Is Real by Don Piper

Author:Don Piper [Piper, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Christian
ISBN: 9780425215555
Google: I7Tt0HhZQCwC
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2007-08-06T05:00:00+00:00

Here’s something else that has helped me to apply the new normal: the response of others. I can hardly begin to relate how others have blessed me. God has taken my broken body and given me enough strength to reach out, and people have responded beyond anything I would have imagined. They share their hurts, their confidences, and give me their trust. That’s humbling. That’s also God at work.

FOURTEEN

Why Me?

Helena,3 a reader I’d never met, e-mailed me in late 2006 and marveled at my story about heaven.

“At the store, 90 Minutes in Heaven caught my eye. I snatched it up, took it home to read, and I couldn’t put it down until I had finished it. I was so touched by the words I read. I read your vivid descriptions of heaven. I can picture in some small way what it will be like. You will never know how much you helped me. I was at the end of myself and so depressed I just wanted to die. Eleven months ago, my husband of four weeks had a sudden heart attack and died in my arms. Since the age of ten he knew he wanted to be a minister of the gospel and planned his life that way. He graduated from seminary eight days before we married and had been called as a pastor to a rural church in Arkansas. He died one week before he was to preach his first sermon as pastor.

“‘Why, God, why?’ I screamed that night and hundreds of other times. ‘If you had to take him, why did you do it now? Why not after a year or five years? Why did you take him before he had a chance to serve you as a pastor?’ For almost a year I cried out, ‘God? Why are you picking on me?’

“After I finished reading your book, I realized you’ve gone through far worse things than I have and you’ve come through victoriously. I still don’t know why such terrible things happen and why Ronald (my husband) died, but I have the assurance that he’s inside heaven’s gate right now and filled with joy and rejoicing. I wish I could put into words how your life and ministry have eased the pain in my heart.

“Since I became a believer at age nine, I’ve known that I would go to heaven but I never thought much about it. For me, heaven was where eighty-year-old people went. Ronald went fifty years early; he was only thirty.

“I read your description of heaven five times before the tears began to fall. I don’t know how long I wept, but it must have been for at least an hour. I realized that I was angry with God, and even angry at Ronald for dying. I suppose that may sound silly, but I was. ‘Why did you leave me? Why did you do this to me?’ I screamed, and it sounds a little crazy to write that.

“Your story has given me peace. Because you’ve been to heaven and come back to share that experience, I am ready to move on with my life.

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