I repeatedly and forcefully tried to reach the grab loop of my spray skirt, but the power of the water forcing my arms downstream was too great and my attempts were laughable. I tried to push against the foot braces. I tried to jiggle the boat. I thought about my family and desperately tried to raise my head out of the water in search of air. I quickly realized that I was not in control of my future.
God had saved me more than once in the past so I, once again, reached toward God and asked for His divine intervention. I did not demand rescue. I knew that He loved me and had a plan for me. I asked only that His will be done. At the very moment I turned to Him, I was overcome with an absolute feeling of calm, peace, and of the very physical sensation of being held in someone’s arms while being stroked and comforted. I felt like I imagine a baby must feel when being lovingly caressed and rocked in his mother’s bosom. I also experienced an absolute certainty that everything would be okay, regardless of the outcome.
I thought about my husband and young children, about the Longs, and about my life on earth. I thought about my relationship with God. I was grateful that He was holding me and marveled at the intense physicality of this feeling. I easily recalled a long-forgotten poem that hung on the wall of the home of a childhood friend. I had absent-mindedly read it each time I entered my friend’s house and now understood its words. The poem was “Footprints in the Sand” by Carolyn Joyce Carty. I have since purchased framed copies that hang in my home and on my office wall. I continue to read these words almost every day:
One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Scenes from his life flashed across the sky
And he noticed two set of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to him and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life had flashed before him,
He recalled that at the lowest and saddest times of his life
There was only one set of footprints.
Dismayed, he asked, “Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
I don’t understand why, when I needed you most,
You would leave me.”
The Lord replied, “My precious child.
I love you and would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
When you saw only one set of footprints …
That was when I carried you.”
Although I felt God was present and holding me, I was still entirely conscious of my predicament and my surroundings. I was able to feel the current pushing and pulling my body and feel the pressure of the water. I could not see anything or hear anything but I was acutely aware of everything that was happening around and within me. I was comfortable, calm, and marveled at God’s presence.
When I no longer felt myself trying to breathe, I assumed that I would die. My thoughts returned to my husband and children and as I pondered what would become of them without my presence as a wife and mother, I was deeply and profoundly reassured that they would be okay; even if I died.
As I waited under water, I thought about and analyzed my life; its course, my choices, my joys, and my regrets. I thought about everything. Eventually, I thought about how bored I was. I was tired of thinking and tired of waiting; I was ready to get on with the journey, whatever that was meant to be. With the assurance that all would be okay regardless of the outcome, I found myself impatiently urging God to “Hurry up.”
CHAPTER 11
MY RESCUE
“With man, this is impossible, but not with God.
All things are possible with God.”
—Mark 10:27 (NIV)
While I was experiencing profound comfort, peace, and boredom, the rest of my companions were not so tranquil. When Chad realized I was missing, he frantically looked for my boat. He climbed out of his boat and began to scurry upstream. Tom was boating “sweep” when he saw his son jump onto a rock. He called out to Chad, only to be told that there was one boat stuck, and I and my boat were both missing. Tom was insistent, saying, “Boys, you have to find her!”
As Chad reached the rock ledge above and near the main channel, he saw what he thought was the red of my helmet. The call went out and within a minute, Tom, Chad, and Kenneth were all surveying the situation from the same ledge. They could see my helmet, but there was about four feet of deep, strong current between the ledge upon which they were standing and me. The water was too deep and fast moving for anyone to stand in it, and the gap was too wide to step across or span. It was a classic example of the phrase “so close, yet so far.”
Chad held Tom as Tom tried to lean across the gap. Tom then tried to jump the gap in order to grab my boat. He succeeded only in being flushed under my boat and into the pool below.
Again and again they were unsuccessful in their attempts to reach me, and each attempt brought increased yelling and a rising sense of desperation, despair, and discouragement. Nothing seemed to be working. Tom describes everyone in our group, including Chad and Kenneth, as being in a state of “tragic terror.”
Anne and the other kayakers sat in the pool below consumed by a feeling of total helplessness and mounting hopelessness. The Longs are well versed in, and quite experienced with whitewater rescue, but this was different. Not only was it me, their friend, who was in peril, but they seemed to be making no appreciable progress toward a successful rescue. Nothing they did seemed to work. Time seemed to bend and stand still.
When Tom surfaced after another failed attempt to reach me, he heard Chad yelling, “Hurry, hurry.” It had been a number of minutes and they were all aware of the importance of speed. This was quickly becoming the work of body recovery rather than rescue. The boys desperately tried to think of something that would help, including ways to divert the water so that they could reach my boat. As Tom neared total despair, he climbed back onto the rock and felt the scene totally change. The situation seemed to shift, like a light switch being clicked.
He felt like they had spent five or more minutes imitating the Keystone Cops, then suddenly it was different. He felt the atmosphere shift and felt the physical proximity of God. Tom had the distinct feeling that God was saying to them, “You guys are pathetic. Nothing you are doing is going to work, so I had better get involved.” Tom felt as if time shifted and God was taking control. Trying to express this to Chad, Tom said, “This has got to be supernatural.” Chad thought that his dad meant that his efforts needed to be supernatural, so he reassured Tom that he was trying as hard as possible. Tom told him, “No, not that. I mean this really must be supernatural.”
Things began to happen.
They looked down and a dry rock suddenly appeared in the middle of the water flow that separated them from me. They were able to step onto this rock and use it as a platform from which they could reach my boat. Chad was then able to straddle the rocks and securely grip my boat. He had solid footing and was pulling downstream. He was a young, strong, world-champion athlete and everything was aligned for success. He thought to himself, “This will be the time that superhuman strength will kick in, like the woman who is suddenly able to lift the car off of her child.”
He pulled forcefully with all of his strength and with the absolute belief that he would be successful. Nothing happened. He felt that if anything was going to work, this is when it would have worked. It didn’t. Chad felt totally inadequate and felt that he, and they, had failed me. Kenneth said they tried again and again to move my boat, but it was stuck—really stuck.
Kenneth, Chad, and Tom felt totally helpless with the realization that they could not move my boat. They each noted that only God’s intervention would make a difference and, as they reached for my boat one more time, Tom describes feeling a “sonic boom without the sound.” My boat rolled a little bit and suddenly Chad was in the water.
During this “sonic boom,” my boat shifted slightly, moving my body more fully into the c
urrent. The force of this current ripped off my lifejacket and helmet, and then sucked me out of my boat and down the river.
No one saw me exit the boat, but Chad caught a glimpse of something red downstream. He thought it was my lifejacket and sadly thought he should retrieve it for my family. He dove in and grabbed my lifejacket as it bobbed to the surface. As he held my empty lifejacket, he felt my body bump into his legs. He hadn’t even known I was there. He reached into the water, grabbed my wrist, and hung on tightly.
Anne, still in her boat, paddled over to help him swim my purple, bloated, oxygen-starved body to the shore. My eyes were devoid of life.
The Longs teach water rescue courses, so they are often the first people called to the scene of an accident on the Payette River. Mine would not have been the first dead body they recovered from a river, but Chad was devastated. Later on he told me this was because he had “watched someone I love die,” and he felt that they had utterly failed me. Tom said the atmosphere felt “crushing—like being in the middle of a big car crusher.”
They dragged my body to the rocky river bank, where Tom, Chad, and Kenneth began systematically to move through the standard steps of evaluation and resuscitation. Eleven to fourteen minutes had passed since Anne had started her watch, and the atmosphere was gloomy as they began CPR. Tensions were heightened when one woman insisted that they should not revive me, as “she will just be a vegetable,” and another boater wanted to videotape the whole event.
One usual teaching of resuscitation is the need to detach oneself emotionally from the specific individual being resuscitated and focus entirely on the CPR protocols until the individual is either revived or pronounced dead.
Contrary to their teaching and experience, Tom, Kenneth, and Chad were never able to let go of the fact that it was I, their friend, who was being resuscitated. While they went through the steps of CPR, they continually prayed for my return and continued calling to me, “Mary, you cannot leave us. We know you are here. Come back. Please take a breath,” again and again. They felt as though time had stopped.
When I finally took a very large gasping breath, they were not sure whether it was a recovery breath or merely agonal breathing, the kind of gasping that usually heralds an approaching death. When this breath of mine was not immediately followed by a second one, they called to me again and pleaded for me to take a breath. I followed that repeated call with another single, labored breath and then stopped. They resumed their calling, and again I rewarded them with a single, gasping breath. This pattern continued again and again.
Each time I took a breath, their emotions rose to “total lightness.” Each time I stopped, they sunk into “total darkness.” Each breath returned their sense of time to “normal.” Each time I stopped, time stood still for them.
Occasionally between these infrequent breaths, I let out an eerie and unnatural wailing scream. It seemed to them that I thought I was still trapped, and it was heart wrenching. They continued to plead with me and to pray. After what seemed like an eternity to them, I began to breathe more regularly, and time returned to “normal.”
CHAPTER 12
GOING HOME
“And I am convinced that nothing can
ever separate us from God’s love.
Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
Neither our fears for today nor our
worries about tomorrow—
Not even the powers of hell can
separate us from God’s love.”
—Romans 8:38–39 (NLT)
The current was strong and slowly pulled off my helmet and lifejacket before trying to claim my body. While still in the boat, I was seated with my legs stretched out in front of me under the front deck of the boat. I was bent forward at my waist, and my body and arms were lying on top of the front deck, pressed down by the force of the water. I was facing downstream and, as the current worked to pull my body from my boat, my body was forced to bend around the front edge of the cockpit. This was not a problem for my hips, which normally bend in that direction, but my knees were forced to fold back upon themselves in order to free my body.
It was a relatively slow process, during which I was conscious, alert, and fully aware of what was happening. It sounds rather morbid but from an orthopaedist’s perspective, I was intrigued as I felt my knee bones break and my ligaments tear. I tried to analyze the sensations and consider which structures were likely involved.
I seemed to feel no pain, but wondered if I was actually screaming without knowing it. I did a quick self-assessment and decided that no, I wasn’t screaming, and really wasn’t feeling any pain. I felt curiously blissful. This is quite a remarkable statement considering I had always been terrified of drowning.
While my body was being slowly sucked out of the boat, I felt as though my soul was slowly peeling itself away from my body. I finally felt my body release from the boat and begin to tumble with the current. That was the last physical sensation I had with regard to my body. I do not remember scraping along the bottom of the river, bumping into Chad, or being pulled to the river bank.
At the moment my body was released and began to tumble, I felt a “pop.” It felt as if I had finally shaken off my heavy outer layer, freeing my soul. I rose up and out of the river, and when my soul broke through the surface of the water, I encountered a group of fifteen to twenty souls (human spirits sent by God), who greeted me with the most overwhelming joy I have ever experienced and could ever imagine. It was joy at an unadulterated core level. They were sort of like a large welcoming committee or a great cloud of witnesses as described in Hebrews 12:1 (ESV): “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses … and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” This welcoming committee seemed to be wildly cheering for me as I approached the “finish line.”
While I could not identify each spiritual being as someone by name (for instance, as Paul, my dead grandfather; Mrs. Sivits, my old babysitter; Steven, my neighbor; or other such individuals), I knew each of them well, knew they were from God, and knew that I had known them for an eternity. I was a part of them, and I knew they were sent to guide me across the divide of time and dimension that separates our world from God’s. I also had the unspoken understanding that they were sent not only to greet me and guide me, but also to protect me during my journey.
They appeared as formed shapes, but not with the absolute and distinct edges of the formed physical bodies we have on earth. Their edges were blurred, as each spiritual being was dazzling and radiant. Their presence engulfed all of my senses, as though I could see, hear, feel, smell, and taste them all at once. Their brilliance was both blinding and invigorating. We did not speak, per se, using our mouths, but easily communicated in a very pure form. We simultaneously communicated our thoughts and emotions, and understood each other perfectly even though we did not use language.
God’s word is certainly not limited to one language, and I gained a new understanding of the biblical description of Pentecost. In that story from Acts 2:5–11 (NIV), it is written; “Jews from every nation were staying in Jerusalem. Suddenly a sound came from heaven and the Holy Spirit began to speak. The Jews and the visitors heard declarations of the wonders of God and they were amazed, bewildered, and perplexed because each person heard the declarations in their own native language.” I now understood entirely how this could be. God doesn’t need verbal language for communication.
My arrival was joyously celebrated and a feeling of absolute love was palpable as these spiritual beings and I hugged, danced, and greeted each other. The intensity, depth, and purity of these feelings and sensations were far greater than I could ever describe with words and far greater than anything I have experienced on earth.
Don’t get me wrong … I have been very blessed in my life and have experienced great joy and love here on earth. I love my husband and I love each of my children with great intensity, and that love is reciprocated. It’s just that God’s world i
s exponentially more colorful and intense. It was as though I was experiencing an explosion of love and joy in their absolute, unadulterated essence. The only earthly thing I can begin to compare this difference to is television; when you compare images on an old-style cathode-ray-tube television screen to the ones on a new high-definition television, the HD images are almost painfully crisp and clear in their relative brilliance and clarity.
Regardless, it is impossible for me to adequately describe what I saw and what I felt. When I try to recount my experiences now, the description feels very pale. I feel as though I am trying to describe a three-dimensional experience while living in a two-dimensional world. The appropriate words, descriptions, and concepts don’t even exist in our current language. I have subsequently read the accounts of other people’s near-death experiences and their portrayals of heaven and I am able to see the same limitations in their descriptions and vocabulary that I see in my own.
In Ned Dougherty’s account of his near-death experience in the book Fast Lane to Heaven (Hampton Roads, 2002), he writes “Suddenly, I was enveloped in this brilliant golden light. The light was more brilliant that the light emanating from the sun, many times more powerful and radiant than the sun itself. Yet, I was not blinded by it nor was I burned by it. Instead, the light was a source of energy that embraced my being.” His description, like my own, probably seems nonsensical to anyone who has not shared this type of experience, but it is really pretty accurate.
Even writers of the Bible had difficulty describing their encounters with God’s angels. Matthew described his encounter with an angel of the Lord this way: “His face shown like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow” (Matthew 28:3, NLT). Daniel wrote: “I looked up and saw a man dressed in linen clothing, with a belt of pure gold around his waist. His body looked like a precious gem. His face flashed like lightning and his eyes flamed like torches. His arms and feet shone like polished bronze, and his voice roared like a vast multitude of people” (Daniel 10, NLT).
To Heaven and Back Page 5
