12-Year-Old Sees Heaven After An ICU Asthma Attack

Despite our family’s lack of structured religious upbringing, my parents instilled in my brother and I a strong sense of moral justice.

We knew right from wrong; we knew it was wrong to steal and lie and cheat. We also knew that God created the world, that Heaven is where the good people go when they die, and that a little white lie that caused no harm, or enabled us to get a good deal, was okay by Him.

Like when we hid behind the sofa so the milk man would think we were out when we didn’t have the right change to pay his bill. Or when I pretended to be younger than I actually was so we could buy a cheaper train ticket. These were “little white lies” that we thought never hurt anyone and made common sense according to worldly logic.

Then there were the other lies that I didn’t know what to do with. The lies I told my parents to hide the truth, to hide the shame, to keep us safe…or so I thought.

Before I started school, I didn’t think about it much. I didn’t know what to think. A four-year-old sitting on her grandpa’s lap to read a story would not be expecting a hand to slip down into her panties. I had no point of reference for that experience, no words to explain the way that it made me feel, no way to fill the void that just opened in my soul. He didn’t say anything to me that first time. He just quietly stole my innocence.

The world became a smaller place with each revelation of what normal life should look like. As I watched my friend Lucy twirling the hula hoop below me, giggling as she spun with her braids spinning like a helicopter rotor, I wanted to be her. Just for a day, to forget everything and feel clean inside again.

As the days rolled by into years, the sometimes-daily violations inflicted on my little body grew more intense. I lost hope of it ending, and instead developed ways to cope, to control any areas of my life that I could. I concluded, after much thought on the subject, that if God created the heavens and the earth, Heaven sounded like a more promising proposition.

Relocating there would be the logical goal of my existence. One had to leave Earth to gain entry to Heaven, which would solve multiple issues. So, I began to plan my journey there and develop an exit strategy from this world.

I was too young to truly understand the concept of suicide, so that wasn’t part of my plan. In the logic of an eight-year old, purposefully shrinking myself would accomplish my goal. Shrinking from sight, shrinking inside myself, then later as a teen, shrinking through self-starvation, and praying that Grandpa wouldn’t make me a teenage pregnancy statistic.

Interestingly, contemplating death was not a sad choice for me. I knew innately that God loved me, and I talked to Him daily. The longing to know God was in me from as early as I can remember. It didn’t take too long to figure out that talking my feelings through with God was more beneficial than crying about them.

Crying never changed my situation. The pain was still there afterward, and the feelings of disgust, self-loathing and shame were just as real. But talking to God made me feel special, different for the right reason. Like I had a secret of the good kind, a friend to confide in.

Despite my ignorance of any religious instruction, other than morning mass at school, I had a relationship with Almighty God. I didn’t know about sin, or salvation, or even that Jesus was anything more than a baby in a manger, but my God was real, and I was convinced that He was taking me to Heaven one day!

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek (Romans 1:16).

Face to Face

Just as it was not God’s plan for me to suffer at the hands of a man, it was not God’s plan for me to end up in the ICU fighting for my life. It was not God who caused me to have the asthma attack that separated my spirit from my body at the age of twelve, but it was God who I met face to face that night in the middle of that mess.

I’d never heard of any out of body experiences or spoken to anyone who could describe Heaven to me. The only people I knew at twelve-years-old who had been to Heaven had become permanent residents, and they never called home! It would be decades later until I found out that there are others with experiences like mine.

The years of suppressing my emotions, to hide the pain of trauma, had chipped away at the childlike faith inside of me. Trauma does that. Lie after lie that become imbedded in a person’s soul, eventually cause the heart to harden and become dull, spiritually insensitive.

So, by the time I was twelve, I didn’t know if God was still there or if He still cared. And if He was and did then why didn’t He make Grandpa stop? I had bought the lie too. God was God—all powerful—but the one lie that constantly whispered in my ear, How can God love you since He let all these bad things happen, had been germinating in my heart. I didn’t know it then, but I needed more than the powerful God Almighty. I needed God, the good, good Father.

Laying there in the hospital bed, as some level of conscious thought returned, I realized that I was not dead. Based on the hustle and bustle of activity around me, that was obviously more than the doctors knew. I tried to move or speak to let them know I could hear them, but my limbs would not cooperate. Despite my most focused attempt to open my eyes, or twitch a finger, there was nothing I could do to communicate. They looked upon my body and saw the outward shell without hearing my silent screams.

At some point, a doctor peeled back one of my eyelids to shine a flashlight into my eye. I was looking back at him, but it was like he couldn’t see me. Irritated, he mumbled his discontentment under his breath, “Incompetent, wet-behind-the-ears doctors,” and something about disturbing him at home in the middle of his dinner party.

As he looked into my eyes, I saw sadness in his. He flicked between my pupils with his flashlight and drew his silent conclusion. He had nothing more to offer me. He was as lost as I was, painfully aware of the fragility of life—my life—as it slipped away in front of him.

I retreated inside of my body like a turtle curling up inside its shell. Wondering how this weird experience was going to end, and if I would be trapped like a prisoner inside my own body forever, a panic began to swell like a wave within me.

If no one can hear me screaming how will this end? Will I be zipped up in a body bag and buried in the ground or shoved in an oven to be burned to ashes?

I began concentrating on calming myself down. This is no time to panic, Carlie—it’s not going to help, I told myself as convincingly as I could.

Relaxation crept over my soul, a welcome relief.

God, where are You? I needed to know now more than ever.

And then it happened. I started floating up through my body, which was still tied to the hospital bed with IV tubes, and various monitors all alarming at once. I saw the doctor pressing the mask over my nose and mouth, felt his little finger pressing under my chin to secure the seal of the mask to my face. Rhythmically squeezing the bag trying to get me to breathe, thumping my chest so hard, my body bounced on the rigid bed with such vigor that I was sure my ribs would crack, shouting at each other, ripping open syringe packets to pump drugs into my veins and scurrying about.

Suddenly, every cell in by body was at peace, except now I had two bodies. One was in the bed and the other was me, the real me. Very aware that the real me was not the one who was lying on the bed, I tried to reconcile how I was moving. I was walking, I think, but not consciously. Floating may be a more accurate description.

Turning away from the hospital bed, on my right was a set of white double doors that shone with light through their frosted glass windows. I found myself moving toward them and then through them as they swung open to the long hallway on the other side.

Passing through the door and down the hall, the light became brighter. It reminded me of the warmth that penetrates your body when you lie in the sun on a hot summer day. It was so inviting, so overwhelmingly peaceful and loving. I was captivated by it, drawn toward the light by a love that words cannot adequately describe.

As I continued down the hallway, I found myself pulled to the side. There was some kind of scaffolding, which I thought was odd. I mean, surely there is not going to be construction in Heaven, right? As I looked more closely, I saw that the scaffolding covered a gate. It was my gate.

Suddenly aware that I was not alone, I turned around to face the presence behind me.

The light shone so brightly that I couldn’t look at His face, only down at His feet. They were big feet, feet that had walked many miles. They were beautiful feet. The figure in front of me was so close that His white robes brushed against my knees and I felt His warm breath on my head, flooding every cell in my body and making my toes tingle.

The memories of the day had melted away to the point I was not even conscious of them. I was completely captivated in the moment. My flesh was entirely at peace in the presence of this stranger who was towering over me. If I had been back in my earthly body, I would have been afraid, intimidated, and looking for an exit to get away from His gaze.

Yet, somehow, I felt like I knew this person, like I had always known Him. I knew things without Him using words, without either of us speaking. Words are inadequate to describe the depth of love and peace I experienced while in His presence. I wanted to stay in that moment forever.

My knees began to wobble under my robe. I wasn’t wearing the hospital gown anymore. I had on a white robe. I could see my legs waver as all of my muscles relaxed, but just before the point at which I thought I might melt onto the floor, a finger touched my chin. He lifted my face until our gazes met. The brightness that shone from his skin was so intense that it was difficult to make out His facial features without squinting.

I didn’t know His name, but I knew who He was, and I knew He knew me. Like, really knew me. He knew everything about me, He always had. He had always been there, right beside me, holding my heart in the palm of His hand.

Now I saw it. My tender heart at four years old was all the while being protected from the evils of this world by My Creator, My Father. Like asteroids hitting the outer atmosphere of the earth and burning up was every physical and emotional violation, every weapon sent to crush me. Though they tried with great force, they could never penetrate those hands to loosen His grip on me. I was His, and I wanted to stay with Him forever.

But my visit was premature, and I knew I had to go back to my earthly life. No sooner had that thought entered my mind than it was gone…

When you abide under the shadow of Shaddai, you are hidden in the strength of God Most High. He’s the hope that holds me and the stronghold to shelter me, the only God for me, and my great confidence. He will rescue you from every hidden trap of the enemy, and he will protect you from false accusation and any deadly curse. His massive arms are wrapped around you, protecting you. You can run under his covering of majesty and hide. His arms of faithfulness are a shield keeping you from harm (Psalm 91:1-4 TPT).