I am not afraid to die. I think I feel this way, because my sister, Barbara Christie Mansfield, died and came back. Barb was born with a frightening birthmark, all purple with vicious blood vessels. When she was just two-years-old, a quack doctor tried to burn it off in his office. My father held my baby sister down as the doctor did his dirty work.
My other two sisters and I sat in the waiting room, listening to her screams. After it was over, we headed home. That is when she started having convulsions, when she started to die. My eight-year-old self leaned between the seats watching, wishing I could do something, helpless. My parents turned the car to the hospital where the doctors and nurses returned her to life.
When Barb and I were adults, she told me that experience caused her to never fear death. Her life-after-death experience gave her a great sense of poise and humor. Some people are terrified of dying. They may think there is nothing on the other side. Many are just frightened of the unknown. Others imagine they would miss the day-to-day trivialities of life and the people they love. A friend of mine took her own life, due to her deep emotional pain. We each have a very personal opinion about life and death.
Don Piper had a life after death experience, which he turned into a bestselling book and newly released movie “90 Minutes In Heaven.” He died on January 18, 1989 following a head-on accident with a semi-truck. Then Piper’s spirit spent the next 90 minutes in Heaven and returned, so he could tell us about his experience.
Piper describes that journey to Belief.net:
“It was the most real thing that’s ever happened to me. This (life on Earth) doesn’t seem real. Even all that pain and all those surgeries pale – as traumatic and painful as they were – to the joy, the excitement and the bliss that is Heaven because we’re with God.”
But Piper faced a grueling path once he returned to life here. He narrated his story for the movie:
“Survival was going to be difficult, because heaven was so glorious.”
According to Charisma News, his wife Eva addresses how hard the months after recovery were for all of them and how they survived them:
“Before Don’s accident, I prayed for the right things, but not with the right heart. And when I was in his hospital room, I learned for the very first time how to cry out to God.
As the recovery went along, I found that I could talk to God at any time. You don’t have to bow your head and close your eyes. Sometimes the conversation is long and sometimes it’s short, but when you are honest and open with Him, He sends you the most amazing peace and comfort.”
Hayden Christensen (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) plays Piper in “90 Minutes in Heaven,” and Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns) plays his wife, Eva. The movie was written and directed by Michael Polish (The Astronaut Farmer, Twin Falls). Amazingly, Giving Films is donating all of its profits to help widows and orphans.
Is Piper’s story true? We don’t know and probably never will. Yet, Piper appears believable, and his words can touch a deep core within ourselves. Here is the trailer to the “90 Minutes In Heaven” movie:
Deuteronomy 11:31: For you are about to cross the Jordan to go in to possess the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall possess it and live in it.”
Deuteronomy 12:10: When you cross the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security.”
My sister Barbara went on to be a nurse in nursing home, where her patients would wait for her shift, so she could help them cross the river, Jordan.
