Pastor Piper in Paradise

 

I’ve read more than my share of vapid books about heaven. But this one is different. Pastor Don Piper  does not come across your typical money grubber trying to capitalize on people’s desire for knowledge about heaven. Instead, he simply shares a life changing experience in which he was nearly killed – or in his telling, actually killed – in a head-ion with a tractor trailer. For an hour and a half, paramedics assumed he was dead, and left him to treat others. A passing minister ignored them and prayed for the man. Who suddenly regained conscious. During the period, Hicks reports that he experienced heaven – a luminous , peaceful place where he met lost loved ones and friends, and saw a “pearlescent” gate.

For the next 13 months, Piper suffered almost constant pain as he recovered from horrific injuries that destroyed lengths of bone in his left leg and arm. These were encased for many months in a heavy, immobilizing, painful  and infection-prone braces. Though he never fully recovered, his story about the reality of heaven and of the power of prayer has inspired many.

Did Piper go to heaven? God knows,  though I don’t doubt that he experienced what he took to be was heaven. Was he actually dead in his crushed vehicle until he was prayed back to life? Again, there’s no way of telling. He had no discernible pulse, true. But the lack of injuries to brain and internal organs might we’ll have been happy chance. And the fact that he wore his seat belt.  The trauma of the accident, combined with months of brain-addling drugs and excruciating pain – not to mention his fervent commitment to the heaven that he reported -- are more than enough to account for his honest perception that he had visited a realm of beauty and light. But, who knows? What I appreciated about the book is Piper’s brutal honesty about himself and his recovery. Other people might marvel at his resilience and faith, but Piper tells how pain and deep depression nearly overcame him. Many times during his recovery, he only wanted to go back to heaven. That level of self-awareness and honesty, shorn of sanctimony and ornamentation, was refreshing. Even his depiction of his time in heaven is short and to the point. Where others write entire books about their supposed experiences, what Piper reports could have occurred in 5 minutes time, and includes no earth-shattering revelations.

I am the type of Christian who sees miracles in the way God craft something beautiful from broken humanity. And Piper was as broken as it gets. “Resurrection” aside, the miracles came as he learned to let go of his need to be in control of himself and everyone around him. His wife had to take over the “male only” tasks of budgeting and bill paying. And Piper had to accept being helped by this friends and family. Ironically, his experience allowed him to become an angel of mercy to others who suffered as he did, bringing them hope that recovery was length, but possible. Piper didn’t see these as miracles on a par with the biggies he dwells on. And he doesn’t seem to have moderated the cultural aspects of his Texas Christianity. But that’s fine.

Whether you believe that human beings can experience heaven and return, or you see the miraculous in everyday acts of love and overcoming, “90 Minutes in Heaven” is a beautiful book, filled with honesty and hope.