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From the book, “The God of Miracles” by Michael Brown

 

            I once interviewed a woman from Long Island named Barbara who had a near death experience during exploratory surgery for endometriosis, a female reproductive disorder. She is another of those who had technically died.” “They told my husband they had lost me and didn’t know if they could bring me back,” recounted Barbara, who found herself out of her body, beyond the operating room, and in the presence of an extraordinary light. “The first thing that happened was that I realized I was in a void. It was a total black place in space and for a fraction of a second, I was scared."

 

"But as quickly as that came, I was directed to the left side of me, and as soon as I turned, there appeared a Light in the distance to the left side which immediately comforted me.

“At that point I just started heading toward that Light with my being (I don’t know how and I was surrounded by what I would describe as a tunnel” Barbara continued. “There were like rings of wind, like the funnel of a tornado, and it was moving forward. Besides the Light, which was very bright, there was a prism and music unlike any that is on earth. I don’t know how to explain it. The music was moving up this tunnel and getting closer to the light and I know there was some kind of companion with me, because every time that I thought to ask a question, everything was immediately answered...  

     

“The light was brilliant. You can’t describe the brilliance. It was just filled with love, peace, and the knowledge of God. As you move through that tunnel, you’re more and more consumed by it. And then I was in the Presence of the Lord. I was prostrate. I was not able to withstand the majesty and the awesomeness of what was before me! I was nothingness compared to that. And then there was a period of being embraced by this love and peace and serenely and knowing I had reached my final destination, that I was truly home.”

 

 

There was also review of her life. Call it Barbara’s judgment. And she found it astonishing to see the needle point.

 

            Especially wondrous was how her life had interwoven with others.

 

            What Barbara thought was small achievements in her life - barely remembered- were magnificent to GOD. She was shown the day she had spent time listening to an acquaintance who had lost her fiancé in a car accident. This was crucial to Christ; it was one of the highlights of Barbara’s life, and she didn’t even know it. She was also shown the time she had placed her hand on the shoulder of a woman grieving at church.

           

Christ considered this one of her great achievements in life--just that little gesture, just that moment, and when we see life from that perspective, we realize that every person we encounter  is meant to be encountered and is often set there as an opportunity for us to become a little miracle. It is not great feats the Lord is looking for - not feats as men describe great feats; it is how much we help others. It is how we make each other feel. It is kindness. It is personal touch.

           

When you see it through the eyes of the Lord, you see your life as a whole,” emphasized the long Island woman. “You see how in the course of all creation your life makes a difference and you see how it affected the Creator - how it stops at the Creator when you offend one of his Own.

           

“ We  don’t see things the way the Lord does, and for me it was a tremendous eye opener. At this point the way I was offending the Lord the most in my life was my attitude and the way I spoke to my husband and children--my nearly verbal abuse. It was the tone and the things that I said that were very offending to another’s soul and heart. You can be firm with your kids, but the Lord doesn’t want you to use an insulting tone. I was shown my vocabulary and the tone with which I said things, because it was a condescending one.”

           

In this trip to the other side, Barbara was shown how particular events bore tremendous repercussions. When she rose grumpily from sleep and was negative to her family, she saw how this spread to others throughout the day - at school, at the workplace, at stores - and then through the families of those who were touched by the negativity.

           

She was shown a drop of light that started in one spot and went in around the globe in the band of light. That was the way it was supposed to be. But she was also shown that when she awoke and was negative, a circle of darkness went over the circle of light, erasing it. “When I got up in the morning, smiled, and presented breakfast, hugging the children, it went from my house to everywhere,” said Barbara. “I was shown a drop of light that falls into this ocean and has a rippling effect.”

           

We have more of an effect on the world with our everyday lives than we realize, Barb’s experience showed. God wants us to create goodness. In this way we are little co-miracle workers. The goodness we present to our families will spread at work or to a guy at the deli who then conveys it to others who take it home to home to disseminate in a chain reaction that doesn’t stop - that seems, at least in the spirit, to have miraculously global consequences.

                                                                      End of book excerpt    

 

I.N.R.I.