← Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke
Imagine Heaven Podcast with John Burke
Jewish Woman Surprised by Jesus in NDE
01:01:08
Heidi Barr was raised in a Jewish home with atheist parents—but when she flatlined after a horse-riding accident, she encountered someone she never expected: Jesus. In this extended conversation with John Burke, Heidi shares what she saw, what she...
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- [00:00]
A
What is daddication?
- [00:01]
B
The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariona.
- [00:04]
A
We call him Dae Date for short.
- [00:06]
B
Every day he's hungry for something, whether it's attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together. We did a good job. That's dadication. Find out more@fatherhood.gov brought to you by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Well, hey, this is John Burke, author of the New York Times best selling book Imagine Heaven. And this is the Imagine Heaven Live series. I'm doing this live series in between seasons of the Imagine Heaven podcast where I take my 40 years of research into near death experiences and show how it aligns with the Bible. So if you haven't listened to those or watched the first season 10 episodes, I hope you'll go check that out. But in this live series, I'm letting you hear from some of the live interviews that I've done over the years. The full interview. And today I want you to hear from one of my favorite NDE stories and one of my favorite people. Today. I have a nurse originally from California, I think now up in Oregon. Is it Oregon?
- [01:21]
A
Montana.
- [01:22]
B
Oh, Montana. Sorry, But Heidi Barr is here with me. She was originally from California. So you're on a ranch in Montana now, huh?
- [01:33]
A
I am living in Montana. My daughter's on a ranch in Montana. We're close to. We're right behind a ranch in Montana.
- [01:41]
B
Awesome. Well, so Heidi and I met because when I was on a news program in New York City, afterwards she emailed me and said, hey, I saw you on the news. I don't know who you are. I've never read your book, but I grew up in a Jewish agnostic, atheist family. Although I always believed in God, but that happened to me. I died and Jesus was with me. I've never told anyone that. Thanks.
- [02:13]
A
Yes, thank you, John.
- [02:14]
B
And that was about it. And so I was like, what? And I, and I reached out to you by email and we started interacting and I got to hear this just incredible story. Why don't you, why don't you tell us a little bit about it? About, you know, you said you had never told anyone. Why had you never told anyone that?
- [02:36]
A
Well, it's a really good question. And mostly it was because. Well, there were a couple reasons. First of all, I told my parents about 24 hours after the accident, when I was in the hospital, and not only did they go deadly silent and not believe me, they called in first a psychiatrist and then a rabbi who was also an atheist, to tell me that I had imagined the entire thing. The second thing was my father, who is still living, he's elderly, is a firebrand atheist. And growing up in our house, he had a mantra. He, he taught us all this mantra that Jesus Christ was the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. There is no God, there is no heaven, there is no hell. Anyone who believes in God is a fool. And when you die, you're buried, the worms eat you and everyone forgets you ever existed. And he then he would continue to.
- [03:40]
B
Say, awesome, awesome, awesome.
- [03:43]
A
Your life has less significance than the most minute speck of dust in the universe. So that's what we lived with. And there was no discussion about that. So I kind of didn't tell it any. I.
- [03:57]
B
Awesome.
- [03:58]
A
I didn't tell anyone for a long time. Although my kids are aware of what happened and my husband is aware of what happened. And I had a best friend who did. She died in her early 30s of a viral congestion. She developed congestive heart failure from a virus. And she knew what had happened to me. She was the girl I rode horses with, so she was aware of what happened. And then my sisters, of course, witnessed my death. So they knew I had died and come back.
- [04:25]
B
Awesome. And so I'm assuming the last person you would expect to see in this near death experience would be Jesus, right?
- [04:37]
A
I would say if I were, if you were to ask me that question before I died, I'd say, yeah, I would never in a million years have expected to see Jesus. I'm not sure what I would have expected to see, but it definitely wouldn't have been Jesus. Not at all.
- [04:53]
B
Well, you didn't grow up, you told me, in a great environment, but it sounds like you did believe in God.
- [05:00]
A
I did believe in God. And the odd thing about my family is even though my dad's an atheist and my mom is at best an agnostic, she really doesn't know much about God or religion. She doesn't even talk about it. I grew up in an orthodox Jewish community and I received a pretty Orthodox education. So I'm not saying that's why I believe in God. I don't think that had much to do with it. I believed in God for as long as I can remember. Being a very small child, I believed in God. I would. I didn't really have parents. I could Talk to God was kind of my parent and I. I talked to him every night in a very personal way. It. It felt as if to me as a child, it felt as if God was sitting right at my bedside and we would chat every single night about small things, big things, what was the meaning of life, what was going on in the universe. I. I was a kind of a weird kid. And I did ask those questions. Why are we here? There Ha. To me, it just seemed to me that as opposed to what my dad believed, there had to be some point to life. It wasn't random. So I would ask God those questions and he awesome. I'm not going to say that he said he gave me specific answers, but I knew deep in my heart that this was not random and there was a point to life. I wasn't quite sure what that was when I was a little kid, but I knew there was a point, there was meaning.
- [06:35]
B
And you had told me at the time that you were going through some severe hardship growing up, right?
- [06:43]
A
I did. And it's hard because, as I said, my parents are still alive, so it's not like I want to talk about them, but my parents both had emotional problems. They had pretty significant emotional problems, and they do to this day. We experienced. It was a. It was. Let me just say it was a challenging childhood. I was sexually. I experienced sexual abuse from one of our rabbis, and it was ongoing sexual abuse I experienced. And problems is after that, you know, I was 12 years old after that, I got into drugs and hung out with kind of a bad crowd and experienced kind of continued abuse. It's sort of a pattern that, that when you grow up with it, awesome. Kind of continue the pattern. It's familiar to you. That's what you do. It took me a long time to get past that. Even after I died, which I did make, it did change quite a bit. But even after I died. Old habits die hard. And it took me a number of years to kind of pull myself together and get myself out of abusive relationships.
- [07:50]
B
Okay, so Heidi, take us back to that day. You're. You were a 16 year old at the time. What happened?
- [07:58]
A
I was 16. I had just gotten my license, although I had been driving since I was 14. But I just gotten my license and it was actually in. In April. And I took my sisters, put my sisters in a big old green Oldsmobile Delta 88, and headed out to the ranch where we boarded my horse. My dad had gotten this horse in exchange for legal work. He'd done legal work for a guy who owned a ranch, and the guy gave him a horse for me because I had always been obsessed with horses. So normally my friend rode with me, but she was sick that day, so she couldn't come. So it was just me and my sisters. Um, my little sister was 11. I think my little sister was 11. My middle sister was probably awesome.
- [08:47]
B
Awesome.
- [08:48]
A
And I had. I got my horse out of the paddock where she was. Where we stable there. And when I was getting her out of the paddock, there was another woman who boarded her horse of white Arabian. And she and her husband were having an argument in the barn because he wanted to ride the horse. And the horse was just an awful horse. And you couldn't. You couldn't even go near this horse without it trying to kick you or bite you. And I couldn't stand that horse. But I thought, whatever, I'm just gonna go ride. It was kind of a blustery day. It was some, you know, pretty cloudy. Not cold, but pretty cloudy and windy. And I didn't. I rode bareback. And I took my horse out. I think Charlie had thousand acres, maybe a little more, back in the Iowa hills. And I was out riding for about an hour. And then I thought, you know, I should go back, because my sisters are probably pretty bored. My middle sister was allergic to horses, so she was still in the car with the windows up. My little sister used to go and play with the mini horses. Charlie had a couple of miniature horses that she would play with. So I headed back, and as I approached the barn, there was a ridge above the barn, and a trail ran along the top of the ridge. So I thought, well, I'll just head down the trail and just. It was a nice view. I had a view from each side, so I could look back over the hill country where I'd ridden, and I could look down to the barn, and I saw my sisters. I saw things going on at the barn. And as I was sitting there at the end of the trail, I heard hoofbeats. And I knew immediately it was that guy on the white Arabian. And. And he came running around the corner, and he had. The horse had two choices. He was totally out of control. He dropped the reins. He was hanging on the saddle horn for dear life. And I thought, okay, the horse is going to head. Take the trail down to the barn, because most horses, when they're running away with you, will go back to the barn. But the horse instead chose the ridge trail and came running down the ridge toward me. And I was actually paralyzed for a Minute, because I wasn't quite sure what to do. And I thought, do I jump off my horse? Do I wait? Because maybe my horse is standing perfectly still. Maybe when that horse sees my horse, she'll stop. But she didn't. She just kept going. And she. She ran into my horse. My horse reared up. The first time she reared up, I held on. I dropped the reins and just grabbed her mane and held on. The second time she reared up, she stepped with her back feet off the trail, over, down onto the float, flipped over backwards and fell across my body, breaking my pelvis, breaking some vertebrae in my back and crushing my chest. And it was the instant she hit my chest that I left my body. Do you want me to go on?
- [11:37]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So were you left your body? Could you see yourself? Could you see your sisters? What. What did you see?
- [11:48]
A
The instant she left my chest, and this is the only way I can describe it, it felt like every cell in my body stood still and I left. It was as if my soul was in everybody, and it left as if my soul was in every cell and it left. I saw my body, and I knew it was my body. What I saw was I saw the horse roll over my body, and I saw my body tossed like a rag dollar. And I didn't care. I really was very disinterested in my body. If there was one thing I didn't care at all, I realized it was my body. I realized I was dead. And I had no concern for my body because I realized in that moment, my body was nothing more than a shell built to house my soul. But the one thing I thought about was, go ahead.
- [12:39]
B
I mean, did you still have a body? Did you feel like yourself?
- [12:43]
A
Yeah, I totally felt like myself. I felt like myself, but I was 30ft up in the air. I felt like I could see. I had hands, I had feet, I could think, I had eyes, I had ears, I could hear. I couldn't feel my body. You know, the body that I was watching, that was the result. I wasn't in that body anymore, but I could still feel the wind. I could still hear all the sounds. I could see. You know, there was. I was still me. I was 30ft up in the air, and I was still me.
- [13:16]
B
And. And some people, you know, describe still having our five senses, but even more than that, or kind of supercharged somehow. Did you experience that?
- [13:29]
A
Well, I did in the sense that. Well, first of all, it was an odd feeling. Feeling. And I noted very briefly, oh, I'm 30ft up in the air. But I wasn't afraid. The thing I saw was that even though I was quite a distance away from my sisters.
- [13:52]
B
Awesome. Awesome.
- [13:53]
A
I could see my little sister scream and cover her face with her hands. And I saw my other sister in the car with her face pressed up against the window. But I could also watch. I watched my horse run down to the barn. I watched the white horse with the guy flapping on her back run down to the barn. And I could basically see into the barn. I don't know how I could see into the barn. It had a roof on it. But I could see into the barn, and I could see the commotion they caused when they both ran into the barn and all the yelling. And at that point, I noticed that Charlie realized, oh, oh, there's Heidi's horse. And Heidi's not on the horse. Where's Heidi?
- [14:34]
B
And you. And you saw all this from a great distance and 30ft up in the air?
- [14:41]
A
Yes. And I don't know how I could see through the barn door because it was facing the other direction, but I could see through the barn door.
- [14:47]
B
Well, so. So here's one of those commonalities that is just fascinating, is that people commonly say when they have this experience, they have eyesight that's just like, telescopic. And, you know, they can see things up close. They can see every blade of grass from a distance, things like that, which actually, you know what. What's been fascinating to me is to correlate it to what God's already revealed. So in. In Revelation, chapter 21, John, one of Jesus disciples is taken to heaven, and he's up on a great, high mountain, and yet he's looking down at the city of God, and he reads the inscription on the gate. It's like, how could you read from a great high mountain? But it's exactly what people say, right?
- [15:35]
A
Yes. And the thing is, I was almost legally blind at the time. I've since had Lasik. I had Lasik as soon as I had lasik. As soon as it was available, I was. My vision was probably. I think it was. What is it, 2600 in both eyes, I could not see. I see if I was reading. If I took my glasses off, I could see this far. So I was really blind at the time. But when I was dead, I had no problem seeing. I could see perfectly.
- [16:10]
B
So.
- [16:11]
A
So I had. That sense was perfect.
- [16:14]
B
And I'm just curious, did you afterwards talk to your sisters about what you had seen and did they corroborate that? Yeah, that's what happened. In the barn. That's what they did.
- [16:29]
A
Yes, I did. I talked to both my sisters and I talked to Charlie, and that's exactly what happened.
- [16:34]
B
Did that kind of freak them out that you knew that?
- [16:37]
A
Yes, it did. Especially my little sister because she was only 11. But she believed me right away. She saw me die. I mean, she was horrified. She and I were very close. I was like her mom. I had erased her. So we were really close. I am not as close with my little sister, but as we've gotten older, we've gotten a whole lot closer. You know, she had middle sister syndrome with one on either side. But my. My little sister was just awesome. She was in shock. She was horrified. And, you know, I did have one thought in terms of myself. I didn't care about myself. My only. The only thought in my mind at that moment was, I wish my sisters didn't have to see me die. I didn't want them to have to experience that heartache. I really didn't. And when I had that thought, that's when things changed In. In my floating experience. That's when things began to happen. Was with that thought.
- [17:39]
B
What do you mean? What. What started to happen?
- [17:41]
A
Well, as I said, it was kind of a partly cloudy day. It was blustery. And that's when I noticed. It was when I had that thought that I noticed a light shine over my shoulder. My shoulders, but it. Mostly my right shoulder. And it was lighting up everything. Like the sun. But it wasn't the sun. It was lighting up everything before me. That's all I can say. It was shining behind me, lighting up everything before me. And I realized as the light moved forward that it was a man.
- [18:13]
B
Awesome.
- [18:14]
A
And he was the source of that light. And he. He kind of. He would. He. And I. I. What I'd like to say is. Because it's. It works best to say we were both standing there at 30 to 40ft up in there. We were standing there. So he moved forward and was standing next to me, up in the air. And at that moment, I recognized him immediately. I recognized him as Jesus. He didn't say anything. He didn't. There was no chest thumping. There was no. I am Jesus, Hear me roar I am Jesus Believe in me. Yeah. I just knew. He smiled at me. He looked me in the eyes. And I knew immediately.
- [18:56]
B
Awesome.
- [18:57]
A
And I recognized him. And I knew he was who I had been talking to all those years. What do you mean? Sitting at bedside. I. I mean, he was. When I would talk to God at night, when I was A little kid. That's who I was talking to.
- [19:10]
B
I knew. And you just. How did you know that?
- [19:13]
A
I knew it in my heart. I knew it with different eyes. I. I saw him with. I was able to see with different eyes, and I recognized him instantly. And I knew he had always been outside. Always. There was no. There was no. Great. Oh, wow, where'd you come from? There was just, wow. Hi. I know you. You. You know, I, I just. That's how it was. It was a knowing in my heart. It wasn't seeing with these eyes. Even though I did see him with these eyes, it was seeing with. It's different. It's a different kind of seeing.
- [19:54]
B
So you weren't expecting Jesus? Probably the last. The last being you would expect to encounter, yet you did. And what was it like in his presence? What was that like? Awesome.
- [20:09]
A
That's so hard to describe.
- [20:12]
B
Awesome.
- [20:12]
A
It was like being with the person who knows you better than anyone else. It's being with the person who has always known you. Being with the person who loves you and accepts you for what you are.
- [20:33]
B
Awesome.
- [20:33]
A
I mean, he was so awesome. Beautiful. And he wasn't perfect. And let me tell you what I mean by he wasn't perfect. His nose was crooked. He didn't have a perfect nose. His nose was crooked.
- [20:50]
B
That's what you noticed.
- [20:53]
A
So it's true. His nose was perfect. Wasn't perfect. He. His hair was, I mean, kind of like mine. It was about the length of mine, a little bit curly. He didn't have, like this coif. He didn't have styled hair. He.
- [21:11]
B
Awesome.
- [21:12]
A
He was perfect in my eyes. And his love for me was palpable. I could feel his love for me. It emanated from him. It surrounded me. And when he looked at me, with. When he looked at me, when he looked into my eyes, awesome. He knew everything about me and he loved me anyway. And I loved him. And we were best friends. And he was my brother and he was my dad. We were all those things all at once. And it's. It's. It's so hard to explain. And his eyes are filled with humor and laughter and gaiety and joy and love. I didn't see him. I mean, I suppose if I did bad things, maybe he would have been kind of mad at me, but I was actually a pretty good kid and he was just filled with. With love.
- [22:09]
B
Awesome.
- [22:09]
A
And, you know, when you. You are the first person I told the color of his eyes, I was terrified to tell, just to admit the color of his eyes.
- [22:20]
B
I Don't remember what.
- [22:22]
A
You were the first person.
- [22:24]
B
Awesome.
- [22:26]
A
You. I told you his eyes are blue. And I was terrified to tell anyone that because I figured if I said his eyes are blue, people would think I was a liar.
- [22:36]
B
Because he's Jew.
- [22:37]
A
Yeah. Jews mostly have brown eyes. His eyes were blue. They were a beautiful blue. And they basically took in the whole world, and I couldn't look away.
- [22:47]
B
Well, and so, yeah, and I do remember now because I had. I had written in Imagine Heaven about, like, four other accounts where people said his eyes were blue and. Which didn't really make sense to me until I found out that. That there is a certain tribe of Jewish people that were known to have Jewish eyes or blue eyes. I mean, blue eyes. Jewish eyes. Blue eyes, yeah.
- [23:14]
A
There are Jews all over the Middle east who have blue eyes. If you go to Israel today, there are a lot of Jews with blue eyes. But I grew up with everyone. Now my dad even has blue, blue, green, green eyes. But I grew up where most people had brown eyes. And, And I thought, he's Jesus. He's Jewish. I mean, I didn't think that at the time, but I thought, later, I can't tell anyone. They'll say, you know, know, I'm making this whole thing up because he has blue eyes. At least when I saw him, he had blue eyes. So.
- [23:44]
B
Yeah, and that's fascinating. I don't. You know, I. I've. I've since talked to others who said, like, his eyes were all the colors, and, And I've. I've come to the thought that maybe even the way Jesus presents himself, I mean, he's. He is the light of the world. So, you know, some people see him as just brilliant, like the sun. Some people see in a. In a. In a more of a physical form. Like, did you see what, what he was wearing, or.
- [24:17]
A
Yeah, I did.
- [24:18]
B
Yeah.
- [24:19]
A
Yes, he was barefoot. He was wearing. You know, I hate to be trite, but he was wearing a white robe. And it wasn't a perfect robe. It looked like a homespun robe. But his hands were. I, I.
- [24:35]
B
Awesome.
- [24:35]
A
Saw his hands, you know, his hands were perfect. He had really nice long fingers. We were both barefoot. That, that I know, because when we went to heaven, we. And we surfed, we were both barefoot. But I think. But, yeah, he was just wearing a nice white robe, homespun, with kind of a belt, and that was what he was wearing. I know that sounds trite. I know that. And. But I. And I, I'd say it was trite if I would Say it was even more trite if I had been to a Christian service and heard that that's what he was supposed to look like. But I didn't really know what he was supposed to look like. So, yeah, I, I, I mean, I had seen paintings of him.
- [25:20]
B
Awesome.
- [25:20]
A
But I didn't. It wasn't like I had a preconceived notion that this is what he should be like. I actually had a preconceived notion that there was no Jesus. So this, this. And there he was.
- [25:33]
B
And were you. Was he talking to you? Would. Did you communicate?
- [25:37]
A
Oh, yes, we talked a lot. But I can't. I'm gonna say I heard his voice, but I'm not. I can't tell you for sure that we were both speaking aloud. But, yes, I heard his voice. It was really melodious. It was really beautiful. And, And I didn't ever want him to stop talking. I heard his voice, in fact, because as we were there, we were still hovering above the barn area. I have a life review with him. Talked to me during that.
- [26:09]
B
What was that like?
- [26:11]
A
Well, it was like having a 3D picture of every single thing that happened in your life from the time you were formed in your mother's womb. But you were. You were not only watching, you were experiencing it. So I'm watching it and reliving it at the same time. And I honestly hadn't been a bad kid, but what I experienced was what you do in this life, the way you treat other people after you die, it's not so much how you feel after you die, it's how they feel when. What did you do that made them feel bad? I felt if I said something mean to somebody, which I only said something mean to one kid that he specifically pointed out, I felt really bad because I felt what that kid felt when I said that mean thing. And later I apologized to him. So.
- [27:03]
B
So you're not just seeing your life, you're experiencing it from the perspective of how you impacted other people?
- [27:11]
A
Yes, absolutely. And I, I mean, it actually made me see that there are a lot. There are a lot of bad things that had happened to me. Jesus did not emphasize that. That was not his emphasis. His emphasis was, what did you do? How did you treat others? And the truth is, he wasn't sitting there judging me. He was there supporting me. I was judging myself with his support. I was judging my actions.
- [27:41]
B
What do you mean by that?
- [27:43]
A
I mean, I looked at myself and I could see myself. I could see when I did something good and people were Happy. It made someone happy. And I could see when I did something bad and it hurt someone. Someone's feelings or made something sad. And he was there to support me as I came to these realizations as a. As I acknowledged what I had done, he was there. He wasn't pointing things out and saying, you were really bad here. Did you see this? He was there saying, yeah, that. Yeah, that's how that kid felt. I mean, he was there supporting what I was feeling.
- [28:19]
B
You know, it's interesting because people have. Have misinterpreted this life review many times, saying that God was showing me my life. God was not judging me or condemning me. I was judging myself. Exactly what you were saying. Awesome. Thinking that that doesn't correlate to what the Bible's taught. But actually, Jesus said, I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, everybody, through me, might be saved or set right with God.
- [28:58]
A
Yes.
- [28:59]
B
And he was the God of compassion. Who A woman caught in adultery, he says, you know, he drives off the ones who wanted to stone her to death and says, where your condemners, they've gone and said, well, neither do I condemn you.
- [29:13]
A
Yes, this is my favorite story.
- [29:15]
B
Well, and then. But then the other side is that Jesus also said, by your own words, will you be acquitted. By your own words, will you be condemned?
- [29:26]
A
Absolutely.
- [29:27]
B
And he said, you know, there's a time coming when every motive of the heart, everything done in secret, it will be revealed. And he even says that, you know, God wants to reward us for all those little acts of kindness. You know, Jesus also said the smallest act of kindness when you, you know, when you visited me in prison, when you gave me a cup of cold water, when you, you know, healed me or clothed me, and, you know, the story is people would say, when did we do that for you? And he said, when you did it for the least.
- [30:04]
A
Yes.
- [30:04]
B
Of the people, you did it to me.
- [30:07]
A
Yes. And that's what I. That's what I experienced. That we. We will. Whether I don't know what the ultimate judgment will be, I don't know. I didn't die that long. But I know that there are no secrets when you're dead. There's only truth. And if the truth is good and if the truth is bad, you're gonna see it all. Because there is nothing but truth when you're dead. You can't pretend anymore. You can't hide stuff. It's there. It is all there for you to see. And he looks at it too. He's the Right. Well, he already knows about it, but, you know, he's there to be with you while you are looking at your life and saying, oh, my gosh, how did, how could I have done that? Or, oh, I'm so grateful I did that. Or. But it, but it's not. What I experienced was it's not about other people. No matter how rotten your life was, it's not about other people. It's about what did I do, what did I do to others? Not what did others do to me, what did I do to others? That's what you have to look at.
- [31:14]
B
So, you know, the, the message. The message of Jesus is that God forgives, you know, everyone who turns back to him. That He. He forgives, he washes our sins away. That, that. That's what Jesus died for. You didn't have any sense of context of that at the time. Did you experience that? Awesome.
- [31:36]
A
I, as I said, I was actually a pretty good kid. I had. There were some things I was doing. I was getting into drugs a little bit. I was hanging with kind of a bad crowd. I didn't drink, but I was always a kind person. I tried to be nice to other people and I didn't feel like he was awesome. It didn't feel like he was hard with me. I didn't feel like I was hard with myself. I just felt like I want to be that. That I did some things wrong. And, you know, mainly the changes came after I was alive again. That's when the changes came. There were. There was a change inside of me while I was dead that carried over to my life when I came back.
- [32:24]
B
What changes did you make?
- [32:27]
A
Well, you know, when I came back to life and when I was in the hospital, I mean, I never used. For instance, I never used drugs again.
- [32:37]
B
Awesome.
- [32:37]
A
After that, I broke up with all the gang I was hanging out with. I focused on school, which I had really messed up. I had really screwed up. Just. I didn't even barely went to school that whole year. I really focused on school. I focused on getting things done. I didn't argue with my parents. I realized that was counterproductive. There was no reason to fight with my parents anymore. I had a plan and I had another year of school left. I got through that year of school and I went to Israel because if there was one thing I knew I wanted to do was find Jesus. I wanted to follow him. I didn't know what I was. I was. I wasn't seeing Jew. I was when I died, but I wasn't a Christian. Either. I just knew that wherever he was, that's where I wanted to be and I wanted to see where he had grown up and where he had lived and where he had preached. So my senior, I graduated early, I, I worked my butt off. I focused and graduated early and went to Israel and spent a year there when I was, I went when I was 17 and spent a year there. I just knew I had to be there. I had to see where he had walked.
- [33:44]
B
Awesome. So take us back now to that moment because you, you said something that probably, maybe if people caught it, about when you and Jesus surfed and you know, me after, when we talked that I grew up surfing and love. There's something just mystical and magical about waves. I thought, this is so fascinating because here you are, you're a 16 year old and talk about what you and Jesus did together.
- [34:16]
A
Well, we had so much fun. Well, I can tell you another funny story about when we both burst out laughing. But we had so much fun because I didn't go through a tunnel and I didn't know anything about near death experiences. And it's my understanding since that a lot of people go through a tunnel. I did not go through a tunnel. There was no darkness. There was nothing dark about our experience. He took my hand and we held hands like Superman and Lois Lane. And there was this wave of light under our feet like a wave of water. And we surfed the. We were, it was like body surfing on this wave of light. And we were grinning. He was grinning from ear to ear and he was like, this is so cool. Don't you think this is cool? And it was the greatest thing I have ever done. So this wave of light is pushing us and I can actually feel it tickling under my feet. And I looked back and I could see both of our bare feet with this wave of light under it. And it was pushing us faster and faster and faster. And I could actually see individual things for a long time. I could see, I don't know, trees, buildings, things pass by.
- [35:23]
B
And is this, I mean, are you. This is still on Earth?
- [35:28]
A
Kind of seem like at first we were still on Earth, but then we left and I really, honestly, I was looking at Jesus and behind him, I could see things go by. They may have been stars, I don't know. I could see things go by. It was things that were light, like pinpoint lights. And then we seemed to. We were going really fast and. And we went so fast that we seemed to hit a barrier and we crossed the barrier and I knew the Difference. I knew exactly when we crossed the barrier. I didn't see individual things anymore other than Jesus. What I saw was everything became one thing. And that one thing was God. And it was a light. We crossed the barrier into this light that was all things, but he and I were still individuals, but as we.
- [36:25]
B
So you were experiencing a oneness, but not a oneness where you lose your sense of self.
- [36:33]
A
Correct. I did not. I still knew who I was, and I still knew who he was. We were still separate entities, but there was a oneness that I experienced that we were entering. We entered this oneness, and it was. As we got into the oneness, as we got closer, everything I could see everything. Everything. Everything. It's. The only way I can describe it is. It is a white, perfect, blemishless light. It is brighter than anything you can imagine, but it doesn't hurt your eyes. You can look at it, and it's not hot. It's perfect. I. And it took up my entire field of vision. It was infinite in its scope. Everything and everything entered the light. When we got very close, we went right into the light, still holding hands and everything. Be. The next thing I knew is Jesus went into the light. Okay, this is hard to explain. I can't. I don't have words to explain this. Jesus went into the light, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on God's lap. I mean, it's like he was a. At first the light wasn't a person, but then the light was a person, and it was a really big person, and it had a lap, and it was sitting so I could sit on its lap, on God's lap. And he wrapped his arms around me, and I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest. And I ever wanted to leave him. I never wanted to leave. I have never felt so much joy and happiness and love. And this was God.
- [38:20]
B
So I have to. I have to ask what some people probably are thinking, because when I will be honest, you're not the only one who has talked about that. Like this idea of you're sitting on God's lap. I honestly didn't even write that in the book Imagine Heaven. There were some things I just didn't write because I was like, I'm having a hard time accepting it. I know people, they'll just. They won't be able to accept it.
- [38:48]
A
Right.
- [38:49]
B
But I've heard it a lot, actually. So explain more because that's hard to understand. Like, what do you mean? I mean, a little kid, and it Seems to be more little kids. You were, I guess, a teenager, but kids talking about that, like, sitting on God's lap, this intimacy.
- [39:09]
A
Well, I know that everything. When I woke up, I was thinking, how can a light. The light was alive. Let's just. I'll just flat out say that the light was alive. The light encompassed. Encompassed all of life. It was alive. There was nothing. There was no death there. There was nothing bad there. The light was alive. How light can have arms and a lap, I don't know, but it did. And I felt like a little kid sitting on her dad's lap, kicking her feet, you know, with her face buried in his chest, knowing all was right with the world. That's how I felt everything. And. Yeah, it sounds really weird and everything, even to me, hearing me say it maybe sounds weird, except I experienced it, and it was very real.
- [40:00]
B
Well, I think, you know, as. As I've pondered these things, you know, Jesus. I mean, Jesus said his last night on earth, his last prayer. You know, he prayed, father, make them one. Everything us as you and I are one. Yeah. That the world would believe you sent me. So he was praying for this oneness that is a. I guess, a unity that Jesus experiences with God the Father. Is that. I mean, is that what you were experiencing? The mystery of that?
- [40:34]
A
Everything? I don't. All I know is I wanted to mesh. I wanted to be one with God. I didn't. I wanted to sit there. If you would have told me, okay, Heidi, you're gonna sit on God's lap for all eternity, I would have said, thank you. This is good. I'll do this for all eternity. I'll just say here and never move. I. Basically, all I can tell you is that I smashed my head into his chest so hard, I felt like I could melt right into him and everything. He had his arms around me.
- [41:03]
B
I mean, so there was, like, a physicality to this.
- [41:07]
A
Yes. Yeah, there was. I could feel his arms around me. But yet in the midst of that, there was still this massive, infinite, perfect light. And it was everywhere. There was no end to the light. It was. It extended everywhere. It extended everything.
- [41:24]
B
Yeah.
- [41:25]
A
As I said, it took up my entire field of vision. There was nothing but the light at that point.
- [41:30]
B
You know, one of the things I try to point out is that listening to enough of you guys, I take it, like, it would be like experiencing three dimensions of color, like, in this room, and then press back into a flat black and white painting and trying to describe three dimensions of color in flat black and white terms. Yes, that kind of your experience then to come back and try to describe it. But you know, you think about Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. And you know that he revealed the God who is infinite, who fills all and is in all, and in whom we have our being. We live and move and have our being. So, you know, I mean, he talked about all the things you are experiencing, but still there's a mystery to it, right? So hearing it is like a lap, really.
- [42:29]
A
Yeah, really a lap. Really a lap.
- [42:33]
B
So did you. Where were you and what else did you see?
- [42:38]
A
Well, at that point I had my face buried in his chest, so I didn't see much. I mean, I was just so happy that I didn't care about anything else. That's all I cared about was being there with God. But then God kind of shifted a little bit. So my, I lifted my head, I lifted my face away and everything. Here's. This is the only way I can describe it. And this is another thing that's not going to make sense. Everything, this infinite light, right. It was as if he just say everything for the sake of explaining the image. It was as if he pulled away, he lifted a section of his robe, and this is an infinite sized robe. He lifted a section of his robe to show me heaven. And it was infinitely far away, but I could see it. I was sitting on his lap and I'm looking at heaven as if he withdrew a portion of himself, withdrew a portion of his light so that I could then see heaven. I had a view of heaven.
- [43:44]
B
And what was it you saw?
- [43:48]
A
I saw. Well, the first thing I saw, which was fascinating was grass. And as I'm saying this to you, remember this is a person who was basically blind on earth. And I am looking an infinite distance away and I can see, see every single blade of grass. And I was fascinated because the colors were so amazing. The green color of the grass was so green, it was a million times greener than anything on earth. And I could see each blade and each blade was singing, each blade of grass was singing the praises of God. And I was absolutely fascinated. I could hardly look away and. But I did kind of my gaze moved and I could see flowers. But let's say an iris. Let's say, for example, I could see an iris, but I could see every detail of that iris, all the little veins in the iris, the pollen. It's as if you're looking at an iris under a massive microscope. And I looked farther and I could See trees, like say, poplar trees or aspens. And the leaves were moving in the light. They were. There wasn't wind, but the leaves were moving with the music that the grass was singing. You know, the, the leaves were. They were all making music. They were all making music in praise of God and the colors. And I could see every vein and every leaf. You know, I don't know how many leaves are on a tree. And I saw all these trees and I could see every single leaf and every single vein in every single leaf.
- [45:27]
B
So clearly this is, this is an experience beyond what we're used to.
- [45:31]
A
Yes.
- [45:32]
B
Yeah, but beauty, like not unlike earth. It sounds like, like it, it was.
- [45:38]
A
I mean, it's a tree. I'm familiar with trees. It was flowers. I'm familiar with flowers. They were different. They weren't like earth. And I knew in that moment, I knew immediately that everything's a reflection. The light we see here and the beauty we see here, which is really beautiful on the most beautiful day is a reflection of what we see in heaven. It's just a reflection. It's a shadow. It's like a shadow world here. Even on the clearest, most beautiful day is a shadow world there. Everything, it was clarity, just pure clarity. I could see everything. Everything. And it was really cool that the grass was singing. I mean, that's stuck with me that the grass was singing.
- [46:22]
B
So it's funny because that's another one that I didn't write about. But you know, I mean, in the Jewish scriptures, in the, in the Old Testament, it says the, you know, the trees and the forests and the nature, all nature will sing God's praises. And I always just thought it was metaphorical. Right.
- [46:42]
A
Real.
- [46:43]
B
Well, I've heard enough of you guys say that. And I'm like, it's like, it's kind of like all our fairy tales. All the things we could even imagine of a magical, wonderful world.
- [46:56]
A
Yes.
- [46:56]
B
It's almost too good to be true, isn't it?
- [46:59]
A
Well, maybe, but I mean, it was to me, it was the most real thing I've ever experienced. Life is real to me. And I don't sit around and think, oh, I want to be back in heaven. That will happen when it happens. But this was real. Real. This was totally real.
- [47:16]
B
Real.
- [47:17]
A
It was more real than anything I experienced, you know, than eating a meal. This was more real than anything I experience on a day to day basis here.
- [47:24]
B
I mean, how can that be? Explain.
- [47:28]
A
I can't explain it. It was everything real. It was, I mean, you could say, except That I don't believe that. I suppose I could say, oh well, life is an illusion. Heaven is real. No, life is real too. But this is real real. So there's. Life is really important to God. He has us here for a reason. We're born here for a reason. And. But heaven is the real real. And that's the best way I can describe it. I don't know how else to describe it. Everything be just real. So.
- [48:07]
B
Did you experience anything else before Jesus sent you back? And why did he send you back?
- [48:12]
A
Well, I did, I saw the, you know, a lot of people see people. I, I actually didn't see people. I, what I saw was. And I heard voices, I heard voices singing and I saw shadowy figures coming towards me through the grass, but I didn't see any specific individual. And at that point, and I honestly think in some ways I was supposed to stay dead, but that Jesus or God or somebody changed their mind because there was something else they wanted me to do at that point, just as I was looking at.
- [48:47]
B
Why do you say that?
- [48:48]
A
Because Jesus was in a really big hurry to get me back to my body. And I think, I think he didn't want me to have any brain damage. Um, that's the, I mean he was in a big hurry to get me back, but he would. Just as I'm looking at these figures, Jesus was right there. He grabbed my hand and he said, you didn't die, we need to go back. And I said, no, I'm not going back. And he said, you didn't die, we need to go back. And I said, no, I'm not going back. And then he said, we're going back, you're going back. And I started screaming, I actually yelled at him and I said, I'm not going back. And I.
- [49:30]
B
You, you, you were still a 16 year old girl.
- [49:33]
A
Yes, I was not going back.
- [49:36]
B
But I think that's so important, you know, to realize that God is so understanding of us and we're ourselves, even in heaven, like even to go, no, I'm not. Because it was so, I assume because it was so great, you didn't, you didn't want to go back to.
- [49:53]
A
I did not want to go back. Well, the other thing was when he grabbed my hand and pulled me off of. He pulled me and I said, I'll feel pain. I don't want to go back, I'll feel pain. I said that I was cognizant enough to know that's what was going to happen when I went back. And everything this time We. This was not fun. There was no fun time. Here we were, bam. Right. Right above my body instantly. And I saw myself lying. I was actually lying on my left side. I had an arm thrown over my head like this. And he shoved me into my body really fast. He. Not from the top. I came up from underneath my body and actually hit the inside of my face. I mean, if you can imagine that, we all know what a skull looks like. And I. I hit the inside of my skull. The me. Me personally, I hit the inside of my skull. And I panicked. I had a total panic attack because I was flailing about in my body. My body itself wasn't moving, but the part of me that had been in heaven was flailing about in my body screaming. Because I have never experienced claustrophobia like that ever. And I never hope to experience it again. I was not part of my body at that point.
- [51:13]
B
Okay, that's really bizarre, I gotta say.
- [51:17]
A
Horrible. And what Jesus did was he actually went in my body with me. And this is the only way I can describe it. He smoothed me into my body. He meshed me into my body so I was one thing again, so that I was back in my body. And. And then he. He stayed there for a second. He stayed there to make sure everything in. In my body. And then the next thing I did, I. I wasn't sure. I remember he was there and I wasn't. I couldn't remember how to use my body. I couldn't remember how to do anything. And he helped me with that too, because I finally, I. I really literally could not remember how to do anything with my body. And he helped me. And I cracked open one eye. And Charlie was kneeling next to me. The ranch owner was kneeling next to me, crying everything, calling my name and praying. And I just cracked open one eye and managed to croak out everything. Name, barely, and everything. Then the rest is history. It. Was it everything that you could do wrong with someone who'd just been injured like that? Charlie and my parents did wrong. So I. I didn't even get to the hospital for 24 hours, so. And so it's kind of a miracle that I can walk because I couldn't walk for a long time. I didn't have any sensation below the waist for a long time.
- [52:44]
B
You know, I think that's one thing that people think, gosh, why couldn't I have an experience like this? You know? I mean, then I would believe, right? But what people don't realize is it's a responsibility. Because talking to enough of you. You come back and you have to go through. I mean, you died for a reason, right? And you have to go through that still. And I think that, you know, even, you know, as we go through the kind of the sufferings and, you know, we're in the middle of the COVID 19 right now, and, you know, I think all these trials and tribulations that we have to go through, people kind of think, well, God must just not care. He must not be there. You know, one. One kind of last question. What would you say to us from your experience?
- [53:35]
A
What I learned is that God has always cared. He. He does always care, and he's always there. You know, like I said, my life wasn't great, but I'm blessed. I have three amazing kids. I have two wonderful grandkids. I have a great husband. But I. I never. When things went bad in my life, the one thing I looked at, especially after this experience, was myself. I was making bad choices. God wasn't making these choices for me and saying, okay, I'm gonna go throw you in with this really evil person now. I was making bad choices, and I had to take responsibility for those choices. And God was with me the entire time, and I had to get myself. Extricate myself from situations. And he helped me. He got helped get me out of a lot of really bad situations. And I had to learn the hard way to stop making bad choices. But in terms of things that happen in this life, a lot of bad stuff happens in this life. I don't think God sets out. God doesn't say, okay, now I'm gonna make this car accident happen. And now I'm gonna do this bad thing and I'm gonna send a plague to. To punish every. I. I think he is with us during this plague. I. I have. I have never lost his presence. And I. I guess I'm a bit sanguine about it. I don't freak out about too many things. And if anything came back with a greater appreciation of the life he has given us, a notion that I shouldn't waste it. Everything. And I. I love life. I. I think some people feel like, well, I, you know, wouldn't you rather be in heaven? And I'm like, well, that'll take care of itself. I need to take. I need to make the most of this life that God gave me and appreciate the people who love me, appreciate the people I love and be the best person I can be. I mean, my whole goal after this experience was. I mean, this may sound silly, but I wanted to have kids. And I wanted to raise them to be good human beings. That was my goal. I wanted. I knew that I would. That was really important to have kids and raise them to be good, decent human. Human beings who would treat others well. So everything I felt that was really important.
- [56:06]
B
Well, and thank you as a nurse for being on the front line and.
- [56:11]
A
Oh, you're welcome.
- [56:13]
B
You know, caring and taking care of people. I know everybody really appreciates that right now.
- [56:19]
A
You're welcome. I. Yes, all frontline responders are saints, in my opinion. You know, they're working.
- [56:27]
B
You told me you consider yourself Jewish still.
- [56:32]
A
Yes, I do.
- [56:33]
B
But you're a follower of Jesus.
- [56:35]
A
I am. And the weird thing is I struggled with this for a long time because I couldn't quite say, I can't quite call myself a Christian. I'm Jewish, and you were the one who helped me. You said, it's okay, you can still be Jewish. Because I did get baptized, and I felt like baptism actually made me a stronger Jew. It reinforced my Jewish identity. Because what I realized was I was trying to straddle two worlds, and I wasn't doing either successfully because I didn't feel comfortable in either role. But then you said Jesus early followers were all Jewish. Jesus was a Jew. And I thought, well, wait, why am I struggling? Why am I making a battle where there is no battle? I can just be a Jew. And it's been easy ever since.
- [57:23]
B
Yeah. And that's the thing that I love to point out is that, you know, as you and I talked about, I mean, in Genesis 12, God created the Jewish people for a purpose. And he said very clearly to bless all the nations. And you experienced Jesus, who came as a Jew, foretold for the purpose of blessing all nations, all people. And so I think that's too many times. I think today we get caught up in what religion are you? God cares about, where's your heart? With him. And he.
- [58:01]
A
Yes.
- [58:02]
B
I think he did what he did through Jesus so that all people, no matter what background or religion, can know though we've done wrong, one day we'll all have to account for that. Right. But Jesus paid for it to forgive us and so we can know we are loved. And he's always with us.
- [58:20]
A
Yes. And, yeah, he's. He's pretty amazing. That's all I can say. He's pretty amazing. He is like love incarnate. And you really don't. I mean, you. You don't want to leave him, let alone look away from him. You just. He's like a Magnet. You just want to stick to him. So.
- [58:39]
B
Well, that's a great way to wrap it up. So thank you so much, Heidi. I appreciate you taking the time.
- [58:44]
A
Thank you, John. It's great to talk to you.
- [58:47]
B
Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing Heidi's story. There's even more. You know, I have become friends with Heidi and. And over the years, she shared with me about, you know, the abuse she went through with her father, which was extreme somewhat with her mother as well. You can read it all in her book, which I'll link to below. But she was a hospice nurse, you know, and as her mother was dying, her mother kept saying to her, you saw God, didn't you? You had that experience with Jesus, didn't you? And she was able to talk to her about her about it. And her mom came to Faith. Then her dad is dying, and again, she's a hospice nurse, and she's forgiven him because she realized what Jesus had done for her. And she's trying to say to him, she felt like. She felt like God said to her, tell your dad when you're passing, if you'll look over your right shoulder. Remember, Jesus was right over Heidi's right shoulder. I will be there for you. And she told him that. And he was belligerent and just resistant. And she said, I have never seen someone hang on for so long. For about two months, he was right on the brink in hospice, on the brink of death and. And having these both hellish and heavenly visions of what was to come. She said it was like he was wrestling back and forth. And Kathy and I and Heidi were all praying for him. And the week that he passed away, he made peace with God and peace with Heidi. And the really cool thing is God recently gave her a very vivid dream in which she saw her father alive and happy and in the place that she had been. And it's just an amazing story that God can bring redemption even to the worst situations possible. Well, I just wanted to share that with you. I hope this podcast has encouraged you and been. Be sure to subscribe. I will be doing these live episodes, and then I'll start a new Imagine Heaven podcast, more of a teaching episode as well, in the fall. And until then, be blessed.