Update 1/19/18:  My memoir, Angels in the OR: What Dying Taught Me About Healing, Survival, and Transformation, is available for pre-order.  It is a #1 new release in several categories.  I would love your support of a pre-order.  My aim is to help make near-death experiences more mainstream.

One of the challenges of writing about my Near Death Experience is the disdain I will feel from family members once this novel is published.  Not only am I “too liberal for Texas” (except for that lovely blueberry Austin), but I am also an outcast in my family for my spiritual beliefs.  In my family, there seems to be a contest in place.  The more pious and judgmental you are, the more “holy” and “Christian” you are.  Hate, judgement, and disdain for others is not at all what the light demonstrated to me. 

Love, acceptance, and compassion are traits that are closer to God.  If these traits are expressed through a sermon and a church, then this is a good sermon and a good church.  If hate, fear, and judgement prevail, you’ve got the wrong spiritual leader and the wrong establishment.  Don’t drop money in the collection plate.

I’ve told my story to the Bio Channels’ I Survived Beyond and Back Series, and briefly to a researcher for an article in National Geographic, but I’ve never asked my family members if they wanted be interviewed.  I worry that my mom might talk about how she thinks my near death experience is “of the devil.” 

A few months after my accident when she handed me a pamphlet from her church citing examples of suicide among a few people who experienced the other side, I felt only sadness that she believed arguments about NDEs from people who had never experienced an NDE.  The claim made by a minister was that these experiences took people away from the church, encouraged them to get divorced, and made them more suicidal.  I haven’t personally heard of anyone committing suicide after having an NDE.  I know I had a much greater joy for life after my experience, and this trait is common among NDEers.  I saw God in everyone and unlimited possibility for each person.

I tried to imagine why someone might commit suicide after an NDE.  Perhaps, if a person already suffered from depression  or addiction before their NDE and didn’t address these issues after the NDE, suicide might be an option.  In that case, the suicidal person needed therapy, recovery, and other forms of healing to help with depression and/or addiction.  These particular cases didn’t need to be made into an example of why NDE’s are “from the devil.”  That is not logical reasoning.  The pamphlet my mom gave me reeked of fear and hatred of anything that contradicted the box that minister lived inside.  The pamphlet didn’t change my mind; rather, it affirmed that fear and a lack of compassion for others is not of God.

Even recently, LifeWay Christian bookstores pulled all books relating to near death experiences, citing that they would “refer the sufficiency of biblical revelation over subjective experiential explanations to guide one’s understanding of the truth about heaven and hell.”  Specifically, 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper was pulled along with other titles.  I am aware that my audience will not be Baptists and Evangelicals, so this decision does not disturb me.  I’ve seen people coming from these places of fear write reviews for books that I adore, especially Proof of Heaven.  The more Godly thing to do with one’s time is to focus on love, not hate, to focus on helping others.  Writing angry reviews seems a waste of time, and it seems better to focus on authors and writing that brings joy to one’s life.

Many of these angry reviews also claim that those who write about NDEs, do it only to make money.  Most people who labor to write a book, labor to write out of love and conviction.  They hope that others will be touched by their message.  They hope to connect.  No writer knows in the middle of the struggle to complete a book if their book will be a bestseller or not.  They only know they must write.  Criticisms that people write these books only to make money don’t take into account how much time, blood, sweat, and tears goes into writing a novel.  All that time and passion given to the page is a gamble, like anything else, not a guarantee of success.  Most writers can only hope they have an audience.

In my memoir in progress, Healed, I write about how my mom handed me a pamphlet from her church which attempted to discredit NDEs.  I hoped to better understand why Evangelicals fear those who have had personal experience with the light.  I also wrote about when I first told her about my experience, and I was still quite groggy after surgery. 

I don’t think my NDE contradicts the love and teachings of Jesus, but I didn’t see Jesus specifically during my NDE.  Pure love and understanding that surpasses all human reasoning is not “of the devil,” and my experience showed me more beauty and love than I ever imagined possible.  I saw that people were either shrouded in darkness or operating from a place of light.  Fear is darkness.  An absence of goodness is darkness. Love is the light.  Doing good things for others and the world is how we live in the light. My mission on earth is to remind people of their light and their ability to spread light in this world.