I decided to read Imagine Heaven by John Burke shortly after our 19-year-old son, Caleb, died in a car accident. I saw a book review on Facebook (although, I didn’t read the review). That was the first I’d heard of it. Then, people started recommending books to me, and Imagine Heaven was one of them. (NOTE: If you click through my links to amazon to purchase this wonderful book, you are clicking through my affiliate link. I will earn some pennies to fund my reading habits, but you will not be charged any extra for your purchase. Thank you! I love books!)

Imagine Heaven‘s subtitle reads: Near-death Experiences, God’s Promises, and the Exhilarating Future that Awaits You. And that is exactly what the book is about.

If you struggle to get through the first chapters of the book, I did too. Some of the experiences shared are valuable reading, but I really wanted to get to chapter four, where Mr. Burke gets into what Heaven is like.

John does a great job of basing the findings of these NDEs on a Scriptural foundation. In doing so, He reveals what God says in His Word about Heaven and how these people have experienced bits and pieces of it during their brief encounters with the Father, Jesus, angels, and loved ones who have gone before them. Each of these stories affirms God’s amazing love for us.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one. It provides a wonderful glimpse of what he or she is experiencing, provided they had a solid relationship with Jesus Christ and had accepted Him as their Lord and Savior. (See John 3:16-17, John 14, Matthew 25:1-13) Honestly, I can’t see how anyone could deny the Truth of God’s love for us and His eternal plan for us after reading the accounts of so many NDEs. I’ve always loved the descriptions of Heaven within the Scriptures. This book only magnified them more, and I continue to long for the day I get to experience the Father’s love on this level.

One of my favorite parts of Imagine Heaven is found on page 58, within the chapter titled “A Better Body.” Marv Bestemen, a retired bank president, was having surgery and is recalling a NDE he had after his family had left his hospital room for the night. “Standing in a short line of people, I observed the other thirty-five or so heavenly travelers, people of all nationalities. Some were dressed in what I thought were probably the native costumes of their lands…” On pages 68-69, in the same chapter, we get more from his story. “…he looked down and noticed he no longer wore his hospital gown; he was dressed in what he might normally wear to take his wife out…He later noticed that those he met in Heaven seemed to be dressed in what they felt most comfortable in on earth.”

If any of you knew my son, Caleb, you would have chuckled as I did while reading this. I can just picture my son standing before Jesus wearing his cowboy hat and boots, thumbs wrapped around a large belt buckle, shirt tucked in, smiling, with his guitar slung over his shoulder. He’s probably performing his newly written song for the Lord.

I must confess: Early in the reading of this book, I found myself asking God why Caleb couldn’t have been one to have a NDE and come back to life and a full recovery from his accident wounds. I wavered between jealousy that he is in Heaven with the Lord, experiencing all the wonders of eternity with Jesus and wishing desperately that he was still here with us. As I read farther into the book, I became more and more okay with the fact that Caleb remained with the Lord, rather than returning to us. Maybe it’s because it took me four months to read it, and with every passing day the pain of grief lessens little by little. Maybe it’s because I have come to terms with our temporary separation. Only God truly knows the deepest issues in our hearts and the answers we seek until eternity greets us. And I am okay with that too.

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