Read Online My Journey to Heaven: What I Saw and How It Changed My Life by Marvin J. Besteman, Lorilee Craker - Free Book Online

women were between seventy and ninety years of age.
    There were three children in line, each of them around four or five years of age. These little ones were not standing still, but moving around, wiggling in their spots in line, like children do. They all had big smiles on their faces.
    It’s terribly sad, I know, to think about children dying, and of course these precious kids had died or they wouldn’t have been in that line. Their loved ones were experiencing the heartrending loss of a child—perhaps the worst and deepest loss anyone can ever experience. I wish I didn’t know how awful that is, but I do. So what I’m about to tell you is said from a heart that has felt the wretched loss of a child. I don’t share this piece lightly. But I promise you, dear one, those children were delighted to be in that place. Their eyes were shining with life and pleasure, just like everyone else waiting for their turn through the huge doorway.
    The Mystery of the Indian Baby
    Very soon I would see many, many babies in heaven, just beyond the gate, but while I was in line I noticed just one baby. He was of Indian heritage, and was as tiny as a baby would be on his first day of life.
    This baby, or rather the people surrounding him, was and continues to be somewhat of a mystery to me. You see, a man who appeared to be around fifty years old was holding the baby, but I got the impression he wasn’t the baby’s father. Actually, I felt a strong intuition that he was carrying the tiny boy for another person in line, a young woman standing in front of him. All three of them were Indian, but besides that, they seemed to know one another. The young woman, a beautiful girl of about twenty-five or so, was standing very close to the man and the baby, and every time I glanced at her, she was turned around, standing backward in line, and holding intense eye contact with the baby, as if she didn’t want to tear her eyes away from him for one second.
    The mystery is twofold. As I said, I didn’t get the feeling at all that the man was the baby’s father. He didn’t look fatherly at all; in fact, he didn’t appear to be comfortable holding the baby. In some cultures, men rarely hold babies, even their own, but beyond that, I just felt instinctively he wasn’t related to the baby, or at least he wasn’t the baby’s father.
    For one thing, the man was holding the little one gingerly instead of tenderly, as if he was afraid to drop it. So who was this man in relation to the baby and the young woman, who I felt sure was his mother? It seemed that the three of them had died together, but I suppose it’s possible they died separately. Others who have heard my story have had theories, that maybe the man was the girl’s father and the baby’s grandfather. Or maybe the man was their cab driver, and they had all died in the same accident. I just don’t know. But I did feel as if the girl had just given birth to the baby.
    The second part of the mystery was why this young lady had needed someone else to hold her baby for her. One’s frailties, illnesses, and vulnerabilities end the split second one’s feet touch down on the holy ground of heaven, so even if she was recovering from a difficult labor, she would have been strong and healthy the moment she died. Yet I felt in my spirit that she had just given birth and was unable for whatever reason to hold her baby.
    I know for sure I had a renewed body there. I felt so good. I was in terrible pain when I lay in my hospital bed in Ann Arbor: I was as weak and uncomfortable as I ever want to be. In line at the gate, I felt no weakness. Actually, I felt like a teenager again, vital, very awake and alert, strong and as healthy as a horse. Marv Besteman was restored, completely. I was better than ever, truth be told, better than when I was a strong, young buck, playing hockey for a short time for the University of Michigan.
    Seriously, it was incredible, how fantastic I felt! When God tells us