Scott:
I would like to relate my near death experience to you. To my knowledge I was not near death, in the classical sense, when this experience occurred. Instead it was a direct encounter with the light. A light beyond imagination. It happened this way. On a Sunday morning around 7:00 AM when I was 13 years old I decided to turn on the television set and watch some TV. I was bored and had nothing else to do. We lived in a hugh three story house and on the third floor we had a kids television viewing room. I went upstairs, sat down in a big old overstuffed chair, and turned on the TV. As I turned the channel knob I found no programs I was interested in. The only programs I could find being broadcast were religious ones. I was about to turn off the TV and go do something else. Then a program caught my attention. It was a telecast of a Billy Graham revival meeting. It was taking place in a large amphitheater. Dr. Graham had just made his alter call and the people began streaming down the isles to accept Christ. He was telling the people to come and not worry about the people they came with waiting for them. He said their friends and loved ones would wait for them until the service was done. While this was happening I can remember thinking what a waste. These people coming down the isle, would be back doing the same old sins on Monday, that they were trying to rid themselves of on this Sunday morning. I don't know if the Revelation or the LIGHT hit me first. Perhaps it happened simultaneously. The Revelation was that this was real. This God thing was more real than all human perception rolled into one. I had been an agnostic before this time but the revelatory answer to the age old question 'Is God Real?' was no longer debatable in my mind. I knew that I knew that I knew. At the same moment the room lit up with a light that was beyond belief. It was a light so bright that I should have been blinded. A light so warm and soothing that I thought I was in some kind of a dream state. My body felt weightless as if I were floating over the chair. There was an immense feeling of love and peace that radiated from it and I never wanted to return to my previous state. I just wanted to stay in that light suspended for eternity. I felt young and old at the same time. I felt like the secrets of the universe had been unlocked for me and that everything was and always will be in order. I knew that I was totally immersed in the universal force and that force was pure love. Not like we humans experience love but a love that can not be put in words. Language cannot convey what I experienced and I feel impotent in even attempting to describe my experience with the light. I am 55 years old and this experience happened in 1954. I have never forgotten that light and although the universal wisdom I gained in the light vanished when the light left I have never forgotten the feeling of peace and love I was bathed in on that Sunday morning so long ago. Over the course of my lifetime I have read about and met many people who have had experiences with the light. The light changes people. How could it not. The light is pure love
Jerry