Strange and slightly surreal

I took Joshua in for his PET scan this morning. (No results until tomorrow). When we arrived, there was an old man in the waiting room (waiting for his wife who was also having a PET scan), who we briefly said hello to. I am allowed to stay with Joshua up to a certain point and then they kick me out. It's quite a long procedure, so I had almost two hours to kill. I went to get a coffee and then was debating what to do. I wasn't sure whether to go and find somewhere quiet to sit, but I somehow felt strongly to go back and sit with and talk to the old man. 

I went back and sat next to him (possible slightly weird) and we started chatting. We talked about a lot of things, the million acre property his family farms out west, his time serving in Vietnam where he got shot, his 7 children, his marriage and then he started talking about heaven.

At the moment I'm reading the book, 'Imagine Heaven' by John Burke' about near death experiences, so I got it out to show him. "I've had one of those", he said (as you do!) I was assuming it was after he was shot in Vietnam, but apparently this was a whole different experience. 

Until he was about 4 years old he was brought up by his grandmother, at which point, for reasons he didn't say, he was put into an orphanage. His grandmother was a Christian and prayed for him and taught him about Jesus - 'the great I AM'. Time passed and obviously life didn't pan out so well for him, and he found himself, at the age of 30, on the streets of Brisbane. He was in pretty bad shape, hadn't eaten properly in weeks and lay dying on the street. Whether it was actually a near-death experience, a vision or whatever, he said that while he lay there dying, a figure appeared to him. What was interesting to me, and what gave it some authenticity, was that his description of what he saw bore a lot of similarities to some of the experiences I had read about in the book. He talked of a figure in white, with lots of light and all this love emanating from him. He also talked about seeing a great city. Up to this point he had no idea what or who he was looking at. Then the being spoke to him and said he was the great I AM. He remembered all those years ago what his grandmother had taught him and realised he was talking to Jesus. He was told this wasn't his time to die and that God had plans for him. That was how he became a Christian.

More recently, about a month ago, he was in hospital with bowel cancer and had almost given up. The guy in the bed opposite had been in a big car crash. He tried to share the gospel with him, but the man was verbally abusive and had no interest. However, during the night a figure appeared at the end of the old guy's bed (sorry, I don't even know his name) and told him that there was still work to do. To the disbelief of the man in the bed opposite, he also saw the figure. I'm not sure of the details, whether it was an angel or Jesus himself, but obviously he knew what he was looking at. He said he couldn't believe the old guy had been telling the truth and was greatly impacted. The old guy was moved out of that ward so had no time to take it any further, but felt at least a seed had been sown.

What was really nice was the man said that he knew there was something different about me and that after I left the waiting room the first time he had prayed for Josh. We spent nearly two hours talking (quite loudly as he was quite deaf) and reading bible verses. No idea what the rest of the waiting room thought, they probably thought we were religious maniacs - talking about the end times, the blood of the lamb and the great cloud of witnesses!! Still, it was a very encouraging way to spend the time. If he hadn't had a wife having a PET scan I would have wondered if he had been an angel!

For those of you who are interested, our church in Cairns is doing a series called Imagine Heaven based on the book. Click on the link if you would like to listen, its very interesting.