Just a generation ago, near-death experiences (if acknowledged at all) were usually dismissed as chemical or anesthesia side effects, or products of a vivid imagination.
Today, due to the research of professionals such as Raymond Moody, we now know that a person can go through a “death,” meet angels, saints and even Jesus during this time, and then miraculously awaken.
Lacking up until now have been the input of children experiencing this phenomenon, but with the publication of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, we have new angles to ponder.
In 2004, Kevin Malarkey and his six-year-old son, Alex, survived a terrible car crash. Alex was so injured that he was given up for dead several times by medical professionals. But when his broken spinal cord was healed without medical intervention, and he awakened from a coma two months later, he had amazing stories to share, of a wonderful place he had been, of angels who showed him around, and of Jesus who spoke with Alex many times. He had much to tell his astonished and grateful family too, and eventually his father wrote a book to share it with all of us.
In the book, the messages from heaven are just what we would expect, coming from an absolutely normal child, but they deepen as Alex matures (the book takes place over a period of six years). There’s no evidence that he continues to hear from heaven. But I wouldn’t be surprised….
The book’s format is helpful, with a variety of people adding their comments to the whole, and Kevin is painfully honest about the trauma’s effect on his marriage and family life. And as a Catholic who has always wondered why apparitions seem limited to Catholic children, I was thrilled to see that a little evangelical boy enjoyed heaven just as much as his Christian counterparts.
There were some bumpy parts, however. Not to spoil the ending, but it comes as a jolt. I would have appreciated a more gradual journey, and perhaps that’s why I came away with a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Of course Alex is still a work in progress, so perhaps it ended right where it should.
Anyone have any thoughts on this book?
