Heaven and Our Son's Experience



Morning After



Our son, Sam has always had a thing with Jesus.  When he was only two years old I was reading a Little Golden Book about Jesus to him.  He would wave at the drawings of Jesus at every turn of the page.  I didn’t encourage him, he did it himself. 

Over the years (he is now eight) he has had a faith that is strong.  When his tummy hurt, he’d ask me to pray for it to be better and he’d walk away from me confident that it would be.  It would. 

In a car ride to go boating with friends, the sky got dark and it began to downpour and a storm seemed to be ending our plans.  He sat in his child car seat, folded his little hands, bowed his head and clenched his eyes tightly shut as he prayed asking God, "Please, make the storm go away."  The clouds parted and there were blue skies.  It impacted one of our friends in the car so much that he wrote a blog post about the faith of Sam. 

Our son has often said things that were always spot on at the moment needed. One of those times I was in quiet prayer early in the morning and asking the LORD to help me be more aware of giving.  Our son awoke  and walked up to me.  He said, “Mom, I’ve been thinking.  Giving to people is like giving to God.”

Last year, he really surprised us.  He said to our oldest daughter, “You are going to have a baby this year.”  My eyes bugged out and our daughter laughingly told him that she didn’t know how that would be possible.  She had been diagnosed in her teens as clinically sterile.  Just the month before he said this, she had been so sick from the complications of her condition that the physicians were recommending a hysterectomy.

Ten months later, our grandson was born.  

Sam doesn’t see himself as anything unusual.  This is normal to him.  This is part of his relationship with Jesus; believing and looking to Him and saying the things placed on his heart.  He says and does them without hesitation or questioning, because as a child’s faith is, it is without doubt and filled with expectation.

When he was around five he had a dream that Jesus was a lion and the Jesus-lion was laying on him while covering and protecting him from mean animals.  He said, “It was so loving; He loved me!  He roared at the others and they backed away and then He licked me, snuggled me and purred.  It felt so good!  It felt SO good!”  Sam had never heard of the Lion of Judah or had ever seen or read a one of C. S. Lewis' books about Narnia like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe yet.  I showed him a cover of one of those books later as we walked through a store and I asked him if Jesus looked like that kind of lion and he said, “Yes.”

 This week Sam came down with a high fever.  He was lethargic.  He has had many cycles of sickness like this that we had become accustomed to.  He would often miss a few days of school until it went away.  This time he found it hard to move and the fever seemed really high as I carried him to bed for the night.  I didn’t take his temperature so as not to disturb him more, but I went to bed very concerned.  The medicine wasn’t decreasing the fever and I was considering the number of sick days ahead.

The next morning I let him sleep and called the school saying he wouldn’t be there that day.  Shortly after, he came walking out of his room.  He said, “Mom, I’m healed!  I dreamed Jesus healed me!”  I jumped up and felt his head.  The fever was gone.  I asked if he still hurt anyplace and he told me, no.  He was well!

I asked what it was that he dreamed.  He said, “I was in heaven.  Jesus told them, ‘Sam is very sick and this makes Me sad.  I’m going to heal him.’  Then Jesus turned to me and said, ‘Be healed.’”

Asking him if Jesus put His hands on him, he told me, “No, He just said it. ‘Be healed.’” I was in awe.  I saw how happy Sam was and how bright his eyes were. 

Continuing to check on Sam and feeling his head, no fever came back.  He was certain he was healed and I had kept checking.  (I’m convicted of this now.)

Once I settled into this having happened, I asked Sam if he remembered anything else about his dream.  He exclaimed, “I remember lots of things!”  I eagerly asked him what.

He said, “There were lots of streets and they really ARE made of gold! Every road is gold!” 

“It was beautiful. BEAUTIFUL!” 

“There were lots of churches everywhere! Everything we like is there.  Everything!  There were Bibles everywhere and books and shops filled with Bibles and books!”

“I saw houses, lots of houses!  I saw the houses!! The houses are all SOFT!  You can sit anywhere and lay down anywhere in them and it doesn’t hurt because they are all soft!   He wants us COMFORTABLE!!”

“I saw our house!  It even said, ‘Willey House’ on it!”  His joy kept growing as he shared more and more.

“I saw Grandpa Willey.  He was partying!”  Sam laughed and he made a gesture of dancing.  “Grandpa said, ‘Hi,’ to me and then he went back to partying!”  Again, Sam laughed.

“Everything you LIKE is there, EVERYTHING!  I’m going to play floor hockey ALL OF THE TIME!” 

I was soaking in every word he had to say and held to his exuberance, certainty and authority in the way he said them.  Then I asked him who Jesus was talking to when He was telling them that he was sick and that Jesus was sad and that He was going to heal him.  He said, “He was talking to the angels!”

“There were so many angels!  An army of angels!  There were thousands, no, MILLIONS! It was an army of angels and they were all in front of Him!”  I asked Sam again what Jesus said to him and he again said, “Be healed.”

When Sam had shared about the angels I knew what he was talking about.  I hadn’t shared with very many others what he so freely shared with me.  I had been in prayer a couple of years ago at an ARC (Alliance of Renewal Churches) gathering and I had a vision.  Jesus was standing behind me with His arms around my waist and His head over my shoulder and along side my face as we stood facing forward.  In front of me was the army of angels facing forward, too.  They were lined up, row after row for as far as I could see.  They were in white and stood strong with broad, straight shoulders.  The air of strength and impenetrable protection overwhelmed me.

 I can still remember the fragrance of Jesus.  It was the most lovely, fresh and clean fragrance.  I had wept after seeing His angels and being embraced by His love like that; to feel Him and know Him that near.  Later, when I heard the song by Chris Tomlin, “Whom Shall I Fear” (God of Angel Armies) I knew exactly the truth of it.

One evening, on a different occasion, I was in bed and praying.  I opened my eyes and I saw gold overhead.  It was even lower than the ceiling of the room.  It was all gold, the most beautiful sparking gold.  I knew I was seeing the underside of heaven and I realized how near to us it is.  It’s just right there! 

This quote is a quote I received today by Graham Cooke and it sums this up well.

 “Ours is a life of resolute expectation.  God’s goal is that you would be fully persuaded, secure and unafraid in His steadfast love for you.”

Reminding our son of all the LORD has done to show him who He is and how He loves him, I pointed out the places in his dream of His protection, comfort, love, joy, power, sorrow for his suffering and power of His words of healing.  That the Bible matters and the Word of God is forever and that the words in other books that were there were words that passed with eternal and lasting value.

 I showed him how family mattered, that he saw a home with our name and we will be together again and we can have joy for those who get to go to heaven before us.  I told him to hold to these things because Jesus is giving him a strong faith by letting him know Him so well.  He readily and knowingly nodded through it all.

Jesus is also letting us know Him through the experiences that Sam has freely shared.  When we share, it is a giving and a gain for those who receive it. Sam and I hope that by sharing this, you will know how much Jesus loves you, too, and that Jesus is worth knowing now and for always.