7 Lessons From Heaven

by Mary C Neal

  2. An Ebenezer is a physical and sometimes public reminder of God’s faithfulness. Do you have Ebenezers in your life? If so, what are they? How often do you use them?

  3. Which of the practical memory minders that Mary lists sound most inviting or helpful to you?

  4. Would you say that joy characterizes your life (a) a little, (b) quite often, or (c) a lot? How do you feel about your answer?

  5. Mary closes her book by making two bold claims. First, she writes that “the joy-filled life is the natural outcome of choosing to live in the truth of God’s promises.” Then she adds that the joy-filled life “offers a taste of what our loving God has in mind for our future…right now.” How could the promise of these assertions help you as you make decisions and face challenges in the week ahead?

  Notes

  Chapter 3

  1. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, cited in The Joy of Kindness (1993), by Robert J. Furey, p. 138.

  2. Carla Wills-Brandon, One Last Hug Before I Go: The Mystery and Meaning of Deathbed Visions (HCI, August 2000).

  3. Mona Simpson, “A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs,” New York Times, October 30, 2011.

  4. Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick, The Art of Dying (Bloomsbury Academic, 2008).

  5. P. Fenwick, H. Lovelace, and S. Brayne, “Comfort for the Dying: Five Year Retrospective and One Year Prospective Studies of End of Life Experiences,” Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 51, no. 2 (2010): 173–79.

  6. S. Brayne, et.al., “Deathbed Phenomena and Their Effect on a Palliative Care Team: A Pilot Study,” American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care 23, no. 1 (2006): 17–24.

  7. William Barrett, Deathbed Visions (Methuen & Co, 1926).

  8. Cokeville Miracle Foundation, Witness to Miracles, Remembering the Cokeville Elementary School Bombing (Pronghorn Press, 2006).

  Chapter 4

  1. Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve (HarperOne, reprint ed., April 12, 1996).

  Chapter 5

  1. Eisenberg, Mickey, ed., Resuscitate!: How Your Community Can Improve Survival from Sudden Cardiac Arrest (University of Washington Press, 2009).

  2. Susan J. Diem, John D. Lantos, and James A. Tulsky, “Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on Television—Miracles and Misinformation,” New England Journal of Medicine 334 (June 13, 1996): 1578–82.

  3. Akihito Hagihara, et. al., “Prehospital Epinephrine Use and Survival Among Patients with Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest,” JAMA 307, no. 11 (2012): 1161–68.

  4. Wendy Russell, “A Nonbeliever’s Near-Death Experience,” Blogspot, May 2013, http://www.wendythomasrussell.com/​blog/​a-nonbelievers-near-death-experience.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Jessie Davis, “Mystery of Death Solved: DMT Is the Key,” Wondergressive, February 1, 2013, http://wondergressive.com/​death-solved-by-vestigial-gland/.

  7. J. P. Orlowski, “Prognostic Factors in Pediatric Cases of Drowning and Near-Drowning,” Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians 8, no. 5 (May 1979): 176–79.

  8. Suominen, et. al., “Impact of Age, Submersion Time, and Water Temperature on Outcome in Near-Drowning,” Resuscitation 52, no. 3 (2002): 247–54.

  9. L. Quan, et. al., “Association of Water Temperature and Submersion Duration and Drowning Outcome,” Resuscitation 85, no. 6 (2014): 790–4.

  10. P. van Lommel, et. al., “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” Lancet 358 (2001): 2039–45.

  11. J. Allan Hobson, The Dreaming Brain (Basic Books, 1988).

  12. P. M. H. Atwater, “Children and the Near-Death Phenomenon: Another Viewpoint,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 15 (1996): 5–16.

  13. M. Morse, Closer to the Light: Learning from the Near-Death Experiences of Children: Amazing Revelations of What It Feels Like to Die (Ivy Books, reprint ed., 1991).

  14. Y. Miyashita, “Inferior Temporal Cortex: Where Visual Perception Meets Memory,” Annual Review Neuroscience 16 (1993): 245–63.

  15. I. Fried, “Auras and Experiential Responses Arising in the Temporal Lobe,” Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 9 (1997): 420–28.

  16. P. van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (HarperOne Publishing, 2011).

  17. N. J. Cohen and H. Eichenbaum, Memory, Amnesia, and the Hippocampal System (MIT Press, 1993).

  18. L. R. Squire, “Memory and the Hippocampus: A Synthesis from Findings with Rats, Monkeys, and Humans,” Psychological Review 99, no. 2 (1992): 195–231.

  19. Cohen and Eichenbaum, Memory, Amnesia, and the Hippocampal System.

  20. T. Y. Kao, et al., “Hypothalamic Dopamine Release and Local Cerebral Blood Flow During Onset of Heatstroke in Rats,” Stroke 25 (1994): 2483–86.

  21. Lee A. Phebus, et al., “Brain Anoxia Releases Striatal Dopamine in Rats,” Life Sciences 38, no. 26 (1986): 2447–53.

  22. S. A. Barker, et al., “LC/MS/MS Analysis of the Endogenous Dimethyltryptamine Hallucinogens, Their Precursors, and Major Metabolites in Rat Pineal Gland Microdialysate,” Biomedical Chromatography 27, no. 12 (2013): 1690–700.

  23. Rick Strassman, SDMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences (Park Street Press, January 2001).

  24. “DMT, broken down and described,” April 23, 2012, https://tmblr.co/​Zq_O-wKB3IrL.

  25. Pipp UK, “Amazing Airbulb Invention: An Experience with DMT (ID 62835),” May 24, 2007, erowid.org.

  26. James L. Kent, “Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason” (PIT Press, Seattle, 2010).

  27. Kevin Williams, Nothing Better than Death (Xlibris Corporation, 2002).

  Chapter 6

  1. G. Gallup and W. Proctor, Adventures in Immortality: A Look Beyond the Threshold of Death (McGraw Hill, New York, 1982) pp. 198-200.

  2. The Republic (Dover Publications, April 2000).

  3. The Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great, translated in 1608 (Evolution Publishing & Manufacturing, 2010), book 4.

  4. The Republic (Dover Publications, April 2000).

  5. “St. Gregory the Great,” introduction by Edmund Gardner, The Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great, translated in 1608 (Evolution Publishing & Manufacturing, 2010), book 4.

  6. Personal communication and K. C. Sharp, After the Light: What I Discovered on the Other Side of Life That Can Change Your World (William Morrow & Company, 1995).

  7. Personal communication.

  8. Laurelynn Martin, Searching for Home: A Personal Journey of Transformation and Healing After a Near-Death Experience (Cosmic Concepts Pr, August 1, 1996).

  9. Cohen and Eichenbaum, Memory, Amnesia, and the Hippocampal System.

  10. Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper, Mindsight (iUniverse, 2nd edition, 2008).

  11. Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me (Hay House, 2014).

  12. Victor and Wendy Zammit, A Lawyer Presents the Evidence for the Afterlife (White Crow Books, 2013).

  13. Todd Burpo, Heaven Is for Real (Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2010).

  14. Comments made at an IANDS meeting, August 2014.

  15. B. Greyson and I. Stevenson, “The Phenomenonology of Near-Death Experiences,” American Journal of Psychiatry 137, no. 10 (October 1980): 1193–96.

  Chapter 7

  1. Cherie Sutherland, Within the Light (Bantam Books, 1995).

  2. P. M. H. Atwater, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences (Hampton Roads Publishing, 2008).

  3. P. M. H. Atwater, Beyond the Light (Carol Publishing Group, 1994).

  4. Ann Price, The Other Side of Death (Ballantine Books, 1996).

  Chapter 8

  1. Susan Spencer, “Just a Coincidence, or a Sign?,” CBS News, October 12, 2014.

  2. Christy Beam, Miracles from Heaven (Hachette Books, November 2015).

  Chapter 9

  1. Betty Malz, Angels Watching Over Me (Fleming H. Revell Co., 1986).

  2. Marilynn and Wil
liam Webber, A Rustle of Angels (Zondervan Press, 1994).

  3. Joan Wester Anderson, Where Angels Walk (Ballantine Books, 1992), pp. 60–62.

  4. Elaine Jarvik, “Cokeville Recollects ‘Miracle’ of 1986,” Deseret News, May 15, 2006.

  5. Sue Bohlin, Angels, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—The Range of Angelic Activity (Probe Ministries, 1995).

  Chapter 10

  1. Brother Andrew, et. al., God’s Smuggler (Spire, 1960).

  Chapter 11

  1. P. M. H. Atwater, Children of the New Millennium (Three Rivers Press, 1999).

  2. Leslie Weatherhead, The Will of God (Abingdon Press, 1987).

  3. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (HarperCollins, 2011).

  Chapter 12

  1. Ibbotson, Eva, The Dragonfly Pool (Puffin Books, reprint ed., 2009).

  Chapter 13

  1. http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/​2015/​09/​daily-catholic-quote-from-st-francis-de-sales-11/​.

  Chapter 15

  1. Douglas Ell, Counting to God: A Personal Journey Through Science to Belief (Attitude Media, 2014).

  2. El Bianconi, et. al, “An estimation of the number of cells in the human body,” Ann Hum Biol, no. 6, (Nov–Dec 2013): 471.

  3. Ecklund, “Religious Understandings of Science,” presentation at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science, February 16, 2014.

  4. Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press, 2007).

  5. “Hurrah! The animals could have floated two by two according to physicists,” posted by the University of Leicester Press Office, April 3, 2014. “Noah’s Ark would have floated…even with 70,000 animals,” Sarah Knapton, science correspondent for The Telegraph, Friday, April 3, 2014.

  6. Christian Research Journal 27, no. 2 (2004). Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (The Free Press, 2001).

  7. Kathleen M. Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho (Ernest Benn, 1957), Excavations at Jericho, vol. 3 (British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1981).

  8. Tacitus, Annals 15.44, cited in Strobel, The Case for Christ, (Zondervan Publishing House, 1998).

  9. Pliny, Letters, translated by William Melmoth, rev. by W. M. L. Hutchinson (Harvard Univ. Press, 1935), vol. II, X:96, cited in Habermas, The Historical Jesus.

  10. Josephus, Antiquities, 200, cited in Bruce, Christian Origins, p. 36.

  11. Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” December 9, 2009.

  Chapter 16

  1. Charles W. Colson, Born Again: What Really Happened to the White House Hatchet Man (Conservative Press Incorporated, 1976).

  2. Willie Jolley, A Setback Is a Setup for a Comeback (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000).

  3. Liz Davis, “Willie Jolley: The Comeback King,” Success.com, January 2, 2010.

  Chapter 17

  1. Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (Here’s Life Publishers, Inc., rev. ed., December 31, 1986).

  2. A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life (HarperOne, October 6, 2009).

  About the Author

  DR. MARY NEAL authored the acclaimed bestselling book To Heaven and Back, has been a featured guest on many national television and radio shows, and is a sought-after inspirational speaker. She is a board-certified orthopedic spinal surgeon, has published in academic journals and books, is a member of numerous medical professional organizations, and currently practices in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.