A Little Slice of Heaven

I was caught up in Heaven. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only Dad knows.....2 Corinthians 12:2



A nice Sunday afternoon nap was the occasion for the vision/dream I am about to share.  Within the vision, I woke up from the nap with tunnel vision, got up, and began frantically searching for something of which I had no idea what it was, and in the end all I found was exhaustion. 

Standing there exhausted, Dad asked me what I was looking for, to which I had to admit I had no idea.  At that moment of confession, the tunnel vision disappeared and our current home where I was instantly transformed to the house I grew up in.  From the middle of the living room, I glanced over my left shoulder to the front screen door and suddenly had a desire to leap through it, a thought I believed was only known to me.   However, Dad invited me to go for it, to which I responded.  The door served as a portal for I leaped through it from one dimension to another as I went from leaping to floating to the awaiting ground outside.

Once outside, the place I was now in had a sense of peace all about it and I felt the most peaceful I had ever personally felt.  I was then surrounded by a host of friendly individuals and the encounter can best be described as something out of the Wizard of Oz.  Everyone warmly greeted me and I simultaneously couldn’t visually identify them and yet felt safe around them as if I’d known them all my life.  I am convinced they were loved ones who have passed on and that my earthly vision couldn’t capture what they look like in Heaven now.  They accompanied me down the path, carrying on friendly chatter with me all the way, until we arrived at a building that looked very similar to the one pictured above. 

When we arrived at the building, I glanced in one of the doors and saw an individual inside.  When I asked who it was, they told me this was a church and the man inside was the assistant pastor.  I then asked about the main pastor, to which they told me he had to run an errand, would be back shortly, and his name was Herschel Holley, my father-in-law who passed away in January 2008. 

Needless to say, I was elated to finally soon be encountering someone I finally both knew and, as I sensed, would be able to identify.  As I anticipated him coming around a bend to the building though, Dad calmly told me it was time to go.  He didn’t force me to depart though, but simply suggested it, and even though it was extremely tempting to stay in what was no doubt to me, Heaven, I knew I couldn’t stay.  I then turned to face Dad, and that is when I awoke. 

As the apostle Paul declared similarly in the Scripture above, I don’t know if this was a dream, reality, or a combination of both.  My own personal relationship with Dad has me steering towards the latter explanation and that there isn’t much of a difference.  In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this and I’ll leave interpretation between Sarayu (aka the Holy Spirit in the book The Shack) and you.  In sharing this story with my wife, she told me not to be leaving her anytime soon.  I take this as an indicator she and I both believe I experienced in some shape, form, or fashion, a little slice of Heaven. 

This encounter happened a while back, but the picture above prompted me to share it now.  As I previously mentioned, it is a similar depiction of the church building in my vision.  It is also a church my wife took a picture of while on her last mission trip to Ethiopia.  With that, hope you enjoy reading this, share as led to, thanks, and may Dad continue to bless you all richly!