After My Death, I Felt Absolute Peace

Now I am going to get “woosoo” with you—a word I will use for the ineffable things of God for which there are no words.

I also use that indescribable term to try to explain those truths that sometimes appear contradictory to our common understanding. Here it goes: God does not value us for our achievements.

“Revelation: God does not value His children by their actions. Rather, He values their hearts.”

You and I are off the hook in terms of earning God’s acceptance. I did not observe any hierarchy in Heaven, such as Abraham residing in the Beverly Hills version of Heaven while “doubting” Thomas lived in the Bronx. As much as I could tell, Heaven is egalitarian with one benevolent Ruler, Jesus Christ. Residents of Heaven traversed through “homes” in every place they dwelled. They lived harmoniously as extended families within exquisitely designed communities comprised of a contiguous blending of various structures surrounding the throne of God.

No one was more prestigious than another. While our status in Heaven is not dependent on any worldly or heavenly merits, that does not mean that we should not do good works. Indeed, seventeen Bible verses make it clear that we were created to do “good works.” However, pleasing God by doing good works should not be confused with the value God places on you and me. Human value, from God’s perspective, is fixed the moment we become born again (John 3:3). Understanding our value in Christ underpins our ability to overcome obstacles, because feeling valued is the antigen to fending off the foreign spiritual pathogen we call fear.

Fear Stems From the Unknown

When the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic spread around the globe, fear paralyzed much of the world. Many businesses closed. Many people isolated themselves. Social distancing became the norm. Many wore face masks, and some remained isolated in their homes for months. Prudently, people at risk of dying from this disease took precautionary measures to safeguard themselves against the potentially deadly virus.

After 100 million cases worldwide had been identified with 2 million deaths and 72 million recoveries having been reported as of January 26, 2021, the mortality rate of 2 percent proved to be less than the death rate of the hospital acquired strain of the MRSA infection that contributed to my death. I remember thinking during these times: If they only knew. If everyone who fears death only knew how baseless their fears are in comparison to the absolute peace I felt after my own death.

While my body started shaking and as my heart fluttered before dying, all of my thoughts centered on wanting it to stop. At some point the hospital room seemed full of a “reassuring presence” and that is when I knew that I was about to die. Suddenly my body settled with no awareness of my body’s existence, except that for a brief period my thoughts transitioned to a sense of peace. My assumption is that there was a period after my heart stopped when my brain remained active within my lifeless body in a vacuum of stilled awareness while my senses had become dormant. After my brain ceased, I was in an ethereal funnel pulled by a light from above.

After being resuscitated, the first words I heard from one of the clinical attendants was, “Mr. Kay, can you hear me?” That is the first time I felt present within my body again. Death to me is essentially nonexistent today. I certainly empathize with the angst sufferers felt from diseases like COVID-19, since I experienced similar affects from MRSA; however, I no longer consider death the end of life. That was certainly not my attitude before dying.

In this world, before Heaven, I was more of a hoper than a believer. I would hazard to guess that many Christians sometimes question their faith, especially during tragedies. Post Heaven, I am a true believer. I walked with Jesus. I became aware of Christ’s absolute dominion over everything. Whenever Jesus motioned to a field of flowers, they started blooming. Wherever He moved, life sprouted forth. Even the golden-brown translucent path upon which we walked appeared teeming with life. Everything in Heaven quivered in response to the King of king’s commands.

Now I look back and think: Was the paralyzing fear of COVID-19 merited? Here is a general answer I surmised: only one fear is acceptable to God, and that is fear of Him. Fear of God for the believer is more accurately defined as awe. Scripture tells us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and the beginning of wisdom is to depart from evil. How do we depart from evil? By doing the opposite, which is to pursue God—to wholeheartedly desire His presence. When in the presence of God, reverence replaces fear with the ensuing confidence that God has authority over all things.

In Heaven, fear was irrelevant. Did I fear—perceive as a threat—God in Heaven? No, I was struck with an awe never experienced before or after living in this world. Being in the presence of God, the name given to Jesus multiple times in the Bible, elicits reverence. Reverence in relationship to God leads to wisdom, and wisdom results from obedience to the all-knowing authority of Jesus Christ. Fear in relationship to this world equates to a distrust in God. The only antidote to fear is trust in the One who loves us most, and that happens through growing in love with God. In the presence of Jesus, I desired only to please Him because He loved me infinitely more.

The COVID-19 pandemic unmasked a vulnerability in the human condition. Isolation from each other mirrored an isolation many felt from God. Complete trust in God, as I experienced in Heaven, dispels all manners of fear. During the pandemic, governments imposed shutdowns of businesses. Many lost their livelihoods. Panic raged through much of the world. No one knew much about the COVID-19 virus, and many feared the worst. This pandemic exposed not only humankind’s susceptibility to contagions, it also exposed a spiritual distancing from God within our world.

Fear disables our ability to relate to God. Believing in the providence of God dispels fear. Allow me to state this emphatically based on what I heard from Jesus while walking with Him: “Only at My appointed time will you return to Me in Heaven.” Only when God says it is time to die will you and I die and never return to this world. A virus cannot tell us when to die. A car smashing into a vehicle cannot tell us when to die. Even a criminal holding a gun to our head cannot tell us when to die. Only God can do that.

So if you and I are to trust God, we should also no longer fear dying. At no time after my heart stopped beating did I feel as though I was dead. My conscious remained although my body ceased to function. No believer should ever be conscious of death because Jesus Christ has overcome the consequence of death.

Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen?

Sometimes we wonder why God allows bad things to happen, or seemingly turns a “blind eye” to others’ cruelties. At one point during my journey in Heaven, Jesus turned His head to open a window to the world from which I came.

“What do you see?” He asked me.

“I see spirits hovering over people, Lord.”

“You see the unseen, My beloved. You see those beholden to Me, who speak My truth, and you see those who are not of Me, who deceive,” Jesus said.

“Your angels?”

“And those who have departed from Me who were once Mine.” I knew these to be the fallen angels, or demons.

“My beloved, those who hear My truth, and obey, they are like the wise man who turned away from dark clouds to avoid a storm. And those who listen to the deceivers are like the foolish man who chose to defy My truth. They obey the whispers of the defiler and so they defile others.”

Jesus sacrificed Himself so that no one should perish (2 Peter 3:9), and now He appeared as a grieving father seeing wickedness defile His loved ones. The only time I witnessed Jesus’ sadness was during that time when He saw the corruption of His loved ones. His overwhelming love reached to those who heeded God’s truth—those who listened to His words and obeyed them.

His heart aches for those who deny Him. I know from my time with Jesus that God does not cause His children to suffer, but that He will always redeem for good what this fallen world and the powers of darkness inflict upon us. That is God’s promise. In some cases God may allow the powers of darkness to inflict people, as with the biblical Job, but always for the purpose of returning evil for a greater good.

If we blame God for not saving us from trials, then we must also blame Jesus for not saving Himself from the cross. For God’s children, suffering inevitably leads to redemption, just as it did for each of us because of Christ’s suffering on our behalf. My friend, please think of your suffering as a living sacrifice. In my experiences, many of those who have suffered the most have sought after God most. They became closer to God in the process. Those devotees to Christ will gain immeasurably greater Kingdom rewards because of their sacrifices.

When bad happens, God always redeems what was lost for something of greater gain. God does not ignore those who suffer, He weeps with them. God grieves for the lost. He beckons everyone to His truth and will deny no one of their free will to deny Jesus Christ or to accept Him.

Angels and Demons Were Battling for Souls

In the end, COVID-19 proved to be less devastating than some originally feared. Meanwhile, other related travesties happened as people suffered from depression caused by losing either their income or from fearing their own death. What we learned from this pandemic is that fear can paralyze people more than any other factor. Indeed, the devil and his minions—fallen angels who dared to think of themselves as equal to God—use fear to separate us from the love of Jesus Christ perhaps more than any other factor.

Those seven feet tall, or so, figures I saw in the distance while ascending to Heaven were the angels and demons battling in the netherworld. They battled with each other; however, their battle was not for their own lives, but for the lives of others, people like you and me. The angels appeared untarnished; however, the demons appeared ancient and decrepit like warmed-over corpses. That is how I imagine spiritual battles within our own lives in the netherworld. In my case, I believe those spirit beings were battling for my soul, and whenever I called out the name of Jesus Christ or declared His authority in my life, demons fell.

Angels and demons battle for the rights to whisper lies or truths to peoples’ souls in this world. These whispers from demons elicit oppression, despair, avarice, and a host of other disparaging impressions that isolate individuals from God. Ultimately, their aim is to compel a person to take his or her life in order to destroy God’s appointed purpose for that person.

Angels whisper God’s truths, whereas demons whisper deceitful ideas to confuse people; and, if demons win the battle, they can convince even believers that good is evil, or that lies are truth. They can oppress their victims through deceit, convincing them that they are worthless. Angels whisper the edifying words of God that uplift the downtrodden soul and give hope. I could sense these spiritual dynamics lucidly in my spirit, though in Heaven I maintained an overriding confidence that God’s providence would always prevail.

Angels can only speak what God tells them to say, which is always the truth. In Heaven, I witnessed these spiritual dynamics in a way that cannot be fully explained even though I understood precisely what was happening in the spiritual environs of this world. Both angels and demons can morph their appearance, but only demons can possess disbelieving humans with their spirit beings. Angels in Heaven could only influence God’s believers with God’s truths, but under God’s authority they never possess anyone.

You may ask if demons inflicted me with the disease that ravaged my body. I am not sure. More likely God allowed my suffering that was caused by the flawed nature of this world for a reason, and maybe that reason is you. I am sure that the spirits of darkness (demons) spoke lies to me that all hope was lost. Indeed, I felt this way at times before dying. I suffered from a disease potentially more life threatening than COVID-19. But as with any suffering—whether allowed by God for a reason, imposed upon someone through the complicit actions of people who refuse God, or influenced through the spiritual forces and authorities of the unseen dark world who impose their powers in the fallen spiritual realm inhabited by evil spirits—God always rescues those who place their trust in Him. Always.

God Turned My Fear to Good

At the time of my dying, the MRSA infection coursed through my body from an infected intravenous line. This type of pathogen destroys organs as it essentially eats away human tissue. It can settle in the lungs, as with COVID-19, and my lungs had already been damaged by asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). I slowly suffocated to death from pulmonary emboli (blood clots) exacerbated by the MRSA. Yes, I became fearful of losing my life and my family’s security at the time. Fears ratcheted my soul as I dwelled on the imminent possibility of death. But like all cases of fear, the cure exists on the other side of what caused it.

Whether fear of death, public speaking, or an unknown virus like COVID-19, it only takes getting through the event to overcome that fear. Think of a trial that caused you to fear. You got through it. Not knowing the future creates a fearful expectation of what might happen. Death represents the ultimate unknown. What the physical mind cannot comprehend in the mysterious, the undiscovered, and the untested, the spirit can fathom beyond the mind’s capacity to understand.

My greatest fear, death, turned into my greatest joy in meeting Jesus. Fear stems from the absence of faith. Worry results from unfounded anticipation. Confidence arises from crossing the bridge between our fears and worries to the calming influence of what God invariably turns for good. Take it from someone, me, who feared death and the inability to breathe more than anything else. Each morning I awoke to a counter filled with vitamins, supplements, and pharmaceuticals to fend off the possible effects of illness, the greatest of which would be my inability to breathe. My affliction in the hospital stopped my ability to breathe. It killed me.

I would not trade that experience in retrospect, because on the other side of my fear stood the One who gave me infinitely more than my wildest dreams could have envisioned. Meeting Jesus face-to-face resuscitated my soul so that I could inhale the very breath of God. Being given a private tour with the Creator of the lush paradise in which my soul found itself in Heaven birthed a new purpose to serve God full time in building a future filled with creativity in helping others.

Here lies the truth of our reality apart from our own understanding: only that which God first created in Heaven is everlasting. God is Truth. John 14:6 tells us that Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Colossians 1:5 further explains that our faith and hope is stored up for us in Heaven. God is Spirit, so we know that truth can only be revealed in a spiritual language between God and His children. The full manifestation of our faith and hope only exists in Heaven, as I experienced it in my spirit. In Heaven was the only time I felt perfected.

The Key to an Enlightened Life Is a Spiritual Life

Our life in this world will eventually end; however, what exists in Heaven will never end. I learned that the key to an “enlightened life” is to live more fully in the spiritual realm of life with Christ instead of the physical reality of what appears possible in this world. To express more goodness by becoming more heavenly minded. To transcend from a mindset of physical boundaries to a Christ-centered mindset that focuses on Heaven’s reality requires absolute trust in God.

Not only me, but countless others have tried to explain the reality of Heaven, and of God. When I attended a gathering of Christian NDEers in Texas, it felt like a “Heaven reunion” to me. My brothers and sisters in Christ shared their experiences in Heaven that sounded identical to mine. In Heaven, the senses are intensified. Many of us spoke of numerous shades of colors never before seen, newfound fragrances more striking than any on earth, and about how everything in Heaven sprouted life. Heaven appeared as another dimension, as John Burke explains it in his book, Imagine Heaven, unlike the three dimensional space in which we live on earth.

Unlike this world, in Heaven nothing dies, and everything thrives. Even relatives and friends appeared vibrantly youthful. Beyond the beauty of Heaven, most of the NDEers I have met treasured their meeting with Jesus foremost. We felt all-together comfortable with Jesus and abundantly loved. Although we remained aware of our life on earth, nothing in this life felt condemning. We were forgiven as though all of our faults never even existed. Only peace and comfort remained—and that incredible impression of Love as a person, Jesus Christ, and not just as an emotion.

Would you like to experience Heaven on earth? Sure, who would not want to experience that life of abundance in this world. All of the Christian NDEers in John Burke’s multi-decade study, including me, left Heaven having been indelibly changed. There is an ole adage: “Once you’ve been to the city, it’s hard to go back to the farm.” Well, this world is the farm, and Heaven is the shining “city on a hill” (Matthew 5:14 Living Bible).

Indeed, the “city” I viewed in Heaven sparkled like a cut diamond with abodes of various heights and magnificently adorned designs unlike any architectural elements I have witnessed on earth. In the center I saw angels standing around a court surrounded by a floor made of deep blue stones that gave forth what appeared to be a blue flame through which the angels walked; and before the angels rested a glorious figure whom I knew was God the Father, whose white hair and robe flowed elegantly through the wind. I still recall the ethereal wonder of Heaven and the consuming love of Christ as if it is still happening. The memory of it remains fresh to this day, almost fifteen years later.

Our Faith Challenge Is Real

The challenge in this physical life is that believing remains primarily an exercise in faith minus the reality of absolute conviction. We hope that the foundation of our faith is justified; but until we see Heaven, at that appointed moment when God calls us home, we simply hold on to that hope like an anchor that keeps us from drifting into a sea of doubt. Is Heaven real? Is God real? These are not just the questions of unbelievers. Most Christians, if they are completely honest, at least maintain a thread of doubt in their minds, especially when trials hit.

To experience Heaven on earth, we need to adopt a spiritual mindset—and specifically, a Christ mindset. What are realities in heaven can only be seen through the spirit. And it is our faith that presses us to walk out, here on earth, what is shown to us in God’s Spirit. Faith is the starting point—it beckons us to move in obedience. And obedience always requires action on our part.

“Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17 NKJV) begins with the word “faith.” Faith establishes relationship with God. Being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ compels us to do good works. Trying to do good works before establishing the desire to do them is a little like the proverbial way of “putting the cart before the horse.” The horse, or driver, is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The cart is filled with all the good works that we are called to carry out.

Being heavenly minded, that is focused on the spiritual truths of God’s Kingdom, will transform us by the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:2). A renewed mind focuses on what God established in Heaven. Heaven contains everything that is good, and right. Heaven is an impartation of God’s truth come to life. Heaven is not just a reward, it is a place of absolute truth, love, and life.