Alan’s Near-Death Epiphany

by

Special to United Methodist Insight

Have you had a near death experience (NDE)? Do you know someone who has? NDEs are more common than most of us know.

The Apostle Paul may have been reporting an NDE when he wrote in his second letter to the church he founded in Corinth, “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows—  was caught up into paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.”

I have not had an NDE, but I know many people who have.  Alan Davis of Allentown, Pennsylvania, a retired AT&T Bell Lab employee, wrote about his NDE recently and gave me permission to share it in this column.

“Fifty years ago, when I was just 15, I died from an intense asthma attack and fell to the bathroom floor of our home. As I rose above my body the house appeared to be glass, I could see through all three floors like an X-ray.

"I was fully aware and conscious. Then there appeared a Light behind me in the distance which quickly grew brighter, as if it were pulling me toward it like gravity. There was no fear. The place in the Light was the most wonderful place I had ever known. I had a new body made of energy, one which did not have asthma, or any other ailment, and did not age. I did not want to go back.  

"Then I saw my mother weeping without control, my lifeless body in her arms. I was shown without human words that she would never recover from this death of her son. I saw her remaining life decimated because of my leaving.

"And the Light said: ‘You must go back. You cannot leave your Mother in this way at this time, for she birthed you, and she will not survive this event.’ Yet the decision to return was mine to make, and so I responded immediately, ‘I will go back now, for I am able to see her agony.’

"Upon thinking that, I was sucked back immediately to my body on Earth, I began to breathe, as my mother frantically squeezed the asthmatic nebulizer into my mouth. I found myself back on the bathroom floor, my mother's face above me, conscious once more.

"Before all this happened, and before I returned, I was able to turn and see the Light, back and forth, in this new body I found myself in, which seemed to look just like my physical body, except that it was not physical, and my new body was able to penetrate physical objects like the house itself.

"The Light could only be best described as unconditional Love. It was a Light of the Past, the Present, and the Future, all three, in a single beam of focused Light. There is so much more I experienced while bathed in that Light of Love on the other side, too much to write here.

"Then, as I returned to my mother, I heard these words delivered crystal clear to my mind from the Light, as if they were the whole point of this experience: ‘You are loved. You are not judged. Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.’

"Not a single day of my life has passed since that time, that I do not recall this experience in some manner. I am not able to look at death in the same manner as before. The experience taught me that there is no death when we depart Earth.

"My mother is gone now. And many years later, after my event, I was called to her bedside in an urgent vision. She was in the last stages of cancer. I was given another directive just 30 seconds before she died. The words appeared in my head. I was directed not to cry when I delivered the words to her lest she sense this, and pull back from leaving, 'Follow the Light, Ma.'

"She drew her last breath, and immediately left the body and departed. I was able actually to see her spirit rise up and fly away into that Great Light which now appeared on the ceiling above her hospital bed. It was the very same Light I had seen at age 15, when I died in her presence on the bathroom floor.”

Alan concludes, “There just are no human words that can describe The Light. No human language that can do it justice. No human utterance that can relay its depth or can describe the experience of the ‘new body.’ This Light is the place from which we all originated; it is the place we all return to. It is home.”

John Sumwalt is a retired pastor and the author of “Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels & Holy Coincidences.”