Written by John Mark Adkison
We all want to see heaven; we are just not usually so eager to forsake our bodies and hear our heartbeats go silent. We all have heard of those near-death experiences, where the nearly departed see angels in their hospital room or hear someone calling them home.
We have all heard of the books, such as Don Piper’s “90 Minutes in Heaven,” that recount supposed visitations to heaven and even hell. The latest best-seller in the genre of heaven-and-back adventures is a short, simple book called “Heaven is for Real.”
However, the person who claims to have visited heaven was no adult, but a 3-year-old boy by the name of Colton Burpo. The book is written by Colton’s father, Todd Burpo, a pastor at a small Wesleyan church in Imperial, Neb., and co-authored by Lynn Vincent, who also co-authored “Same Kind of Different as Me.”
The story revolves arounda traumatic experience for Todd Burpo and his wife, Sonja, as their young son, Colton, suffered from a burst appendix and had to undergo an emergency appendectomy. Colton miraculously survived the illness and returned to the life of a regular boy, with the exception of one thing: Colton claimed he had been to heaven during the operation and had seen Jesus.
The book is written from Todd Burpo’s point of view, as he asks his son about his trip to heaven and who he saw there. Colton begins by describing Jesus as wearing white clothes with a purple sash, with the most beautiful eyes and “markers,”and meeting John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary. Todd Burpo is hesitant at first to believe his son’s stories, brushing them off as childish fantasies and the result of excellent Sunday school lessons. However, Burpo continually assures the reader he and his wife had not taught Colton about Jesus'”markers,” which are the nail holes from the crucifixion. And thenColton begins describing others he met in heaven, such as Todd’s grandfather who died years before Colton was born and his “other sister” who had died in a miscarriage, whom Colton had never been told about before.
But with such accounts comes skepticism, which is only natural.
However, Todd Burpo is careful not to sensationalize his son’s stories; his writing style is simplistic and smooth, by no means a feat of prodigious storytelling. It is written by a common man trying to tell an uncommon story. And whatever Colton says about heaven, Todd Burpo is sure to back it up with Scripture, such as the rainbow in God’s throne room or the imagery of Jesus’ clothing.
After reading this strange, yet strangely simple, account of a little boy’s adventure into heaven, I must say it was nothing like I anticipated. I expected minute details of heaven and its host, but instead I was given a child’s account of heaven, told justas a child would tell it.
And so here is where I say I believe every sentence of this story. The book opens with a quote from Jesus himself in Matt. 18:3, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”Children do not need proof or factual basis; it is like faith is an extra appendage they are born with. If God split the sea, made manna fall from the sky and raised people from the dead, what is to stop him from bringinga little boy to heaven?