Heaven is real.

Can there be more important or beautiful words that any grieving parents could hear?

Yeah, there could be better words. “Honey, wake up! You’re having a nightmare,” or “There’s been a big mistake, your son isn’t dead, he’s just been in the witness protection program. But it’s all OK now, so he can come back into your life again,” come to mind.

But it’s pretty clear those words aren’t going to be played sweetly to our ears. Learning that heaven really exists is our greatest source of hope.

Todd Burpo says he has proof, Heaven is real.

Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back is his book. He shares the story of his 4 year old son Colton’s trip to heaven.

The early parts of this book were hard for me to read. Colton was in the Intensive Care Unit. Been there, done that, and don’t want the damned t-shirt. It brought back a lot of hard memories. It was intensely stressful – I think that’s where the “Intensive” part of the name comes from.

Like Colton, Richard recovered and came home from the hospital. Unfortunately Richard also came home with scar tissue in his brain that would cause him to have seizures and ultimately kill him.

Colton was touch-and-go, the doctors didn’t have much hope for him.

But Colton made a miraculous recovery. He also came home from the hospital. He came home with stories about Heaven.

Some of the things in this book will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. For example, Colton was able to tell his parents things they were doing while he was out of it and in surgery. He couldn’t have possibly known what they were doing, each in a separate room and not with Colton. It gets your attention.

Much of this story seems too perfect. The author, a pastor at Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska, takes every detail of Colton’s story and matchs it perfectly with Bible scripture. It just seems too pat and lines up so well it’s hard to believe. Mr. Burpo could say anything he wants in his book. It just might be all made up.

But it might also all be real.

Debbie and I were talking about this. She made the comment,

“If they had listened to the prophets back in Biblical times, we wouldn’t have all the problems we do now.”  She thinks we need to listen to the prophets God sends to us today. And this little boy just may be one of those prophets.

You can read the book and come to your own opinion.