Near-Death Experiences

Near-death experiences, or NDEs, often trigger being even more sensitive. And, even if you're not, we are spirits living in physical bodies. Most of us do not remember what heaven was like, but for those who have crossed over and come back, it is a memory that increases our sense of spirit and, possibly, our sensitivity to life as well. I experienced this in my own life at about 10 years old and again in 1978, after giving birth to my youngest son. You can read about my experiences below, if you're interested. 

 

If you are already a Highly Sensitive Person, having an NDE may make you even that much more sensitive because it can leave you completely open to seeing others and the world in a whole new light.

 

You'll have a keen sense of what love really is and how the world could be if love were always in place. This can be disheartening, as the world we live in doesn't seem to live up to that expectation. Still, we can create our heaven on earth by acting out of love, rather than fear.

 

When you are afraid, remember that God watches over you and guides you. His power and energy are always available to you. It's a gift. He won't force it upon you, but you have but to ask. It is your choice to choose love. When seeking the right path, always choose love. I've referred to God as He or His (male), but God is also referred to as female (She and Her), as in the Goddess. 

 

 

My First Near-Death Experience

 

#1-Drowning in a swimming pool at 9-10 years old.

 

I was playing in the deep end of a neighborhood swimming pool. I was alone, my parents visiting friends across the street. They had given me a Styrofoam inner tube to help me stay afloat in the water. I did not know how to swim. So I kept the thing around my waist. It was small and it tended to pitch me forward, especially when the other people in the pool began roughhousing, as they were doing.

 

Someone splashed water in my face, and as I bent forward to rub my eyes, I ended up going face-first into the chlorinated blue-green water. The stuff went up my nose, and I choked. The small tube got caught around my legs and was pinning me under the waves. Bodies were bumping into me, and I tried to grab hold of someone, anyone, but they were too slippery from tanning lotion, and I could not raise my nose above water level.

 

At some point, I stopped panicking. I remember hearing splashing and laughing, but garbled, as though it were all muffled under a pillow. Then I became very warm. I saw yellow and orange lights and began to hear a faint tinkling sound which grew gradually louder until I realized that it sounded like beautiful music, only no music I had ever heard before.

 

I saw little white lights circling, circling, and coming closer and closer. They began to look like tiny white angels flying in a spiral toward me. My fear was leaving. Panic was gone. I was warm and happy, and a sense of peace came over me, making me feel loved, perhaps for the first time. I was happy. I was content. I was going ...home.

 

Then, suddenly, I felt pain. It felt like my hair was being ripped out at the scalp, and I didn't understand what was happening. Things were moving so fast! The lights, music, and the angels were fading away into blackness behind my eyelids, more pain, now in my chest and nose, from the burning of the chlorine.

 

I was being yanked up and out of the water by a teenage boy. He set me upon the side of the pool. The sunlight was blinding. It hurt my eyes. It wasn't at all like the beautiful light inside the tunnel.

 

"Hey! Are you OK, Kid?" he asked. He didn't seem to wait for an answer. He dived back into the pool. I fell over on my side and lay on the warm cement, in the sunshine, with the tube still around my legs, gulping in precious air. And I was angry. I didn't fully comprehend all the reasons at the time. I thought maybe I was mad at myself for being in over my head (and embarrassed) or frustrated with my parents for not being there with me at the pool. But the real reason I was angry at the boy who grabbed me back from death's grip was that in warmth and the singing, there was love, a love I didn't want to be parted from.

 

 

My Second Near-Death Experience

 

1978: When my third child was born, I hemorrhaged to death.

 

Two weeks after giving birth to my third son, Joshua, I had complications. The birth itself had gone wonderfully quickly and easily, and immediately after giving birth to Joshua, I was taken to surgery to have my tubes tied. Everything seemed to have gone well enough, but after two weeks of being at home, I still couldn't stand up for more than five minutes without becoming severely fatigued. I knew something wasn't right. This was my third baby, and I had always recovered right enough.

 

One day, I struggled down the hallway to go to the bathroom, and I realized that I was bleeding a little. This had also happened every time I pushed a little to urinate. That day, I kept calling the nurse at my doctor's office, but she said, as always, that it was nothing to worry about and to stay off my feet. Nothing turned into something when I woke up from a nap the next afternoon and was drenched in blood. The bed was soaked two to three feet all around me. I called Joshua's father at work, and he called the minister and his wife, who rushed me to my doctor's office. By then, I was leaking clots the size of my liver. They sent me to the hospital for immediate surgery.

 

In my weakened state, I began to have problems breathing and was put on oxygen. I was in and out of sleep. At least that is how I remember it. I was hooked up to more tubes than I could count, and I just wanted the bleeding to stop so that I could go home and resume caring for the kids, especially Joshua, whom I was nursing.

 

The nurses would come in and press on my abdomen to see if I was still bleeding. It hurt something terrible because I was not yet healed from having my tubes tied. Finally, a nurse told me I would be going back into surgery. I remember feeling as though I didn't have the strength to blink. I remember demanding to nurse my baby and did so with his father sitting beside us. I could see fear in Jessie's eyes, and it unsettled me. I stopped breathing again. They gave me more oxygen. The baby was taken away. No! No! Not my baby. Where were the others? My daughter, Leah, and my oldest son, James? Had they been there? Why couldn't I remember? Jessie was picking me up when? The minister and his wife, Ralph and Evelyn, had they been in my room praying for me?

 

The next thing I remember was seeing myself small and helpless on the operating room table. I knew I wasn't supposed to dream under anesthesia. Obviously, I wasn't sedated enough. Why wasn't I feeling any pain? I looked up, then, to my right. I was about seven years old again and walking up a grassy knoll. The hillside was covered in little yellow buttercups and itty-bitty daisies. The grass was the richest shade of green I had ever seen. As I walked further up the hill, I found myself walking through clouds that reached waist-high. They fell away from me, and I was left alone under the sun with the blue sky above me.

 

When I was almost at the crest of the hill, two little girls with shiny hair and faces so bright I couldn't see them came running down to greet me and said that I couldn't come any further. I wanted to know why, and they told me it wasn't time. Then 'He' came walking up and over the hill in my direction. He took my hand in his and we began to walk back down the mountain the way I had come.

 

We sat together on a gigantic rock. The little girls were walking back over the hill, the sun still shining on their backs as they went, a sun with light so bright it cast no shadows but was gentle on the eyes. He was wearing a white robe. He sat close to me. He began to tell me things. Things I cannot remember completely. And his voice! Just the sound of it filled me with an enormous peace. I felt safe, protected, and loved. I wanted to stay with him forever, there on that sunny hill. There were things there to look forward to. I felt it.

 

The clouds had returned and had been at our feet. He parted them now, and I saw the earth and began to cry. I did not want to return. I saw myself on the table, just a limp little thing. But he reminded me of my babies and said that I was still needed where I was. There was no one else for them. He promised that he would see me again sometime, but that it was not time yet, meaning it was not time for me to die and to come to this beautiful place. We stood up. He still had my hand. He began to walk with me down the slope, but I remember I finished the distance alone.

 

I woke up feeling heavy, weak, and distressed. Later, the nurse told me, in strictest of confidences, that I had had 'problems' on the table. I had cried through the whole surgery, which was supposed to be impossible under anesthesia. When I wasn't crying, I was whimpering, which equally disturbed the surgeon. There was something about my heart, but she would not tell me everything. After all was said and done, the surgery was still not successful. They were lining me up for another as soon as they could get the team together again.

 

Ten hours later, I was still bleeding. I was dying. The doctor came in and told me to prepare for the worst. I needed to decide what to do with my children and provide instructions to family members regarding my potential passing. My first reaction was one of relief. I would be able to go back to the hill. I was so tired. I was dizzy. I was having problems breathing. My insides ached, and my arm was burning from the repeated blood transfusions. Death was nothing. I just wanted to sleep. It was a cake walk compared to living in the body I was in. But then I began to think seriously, although I don't know how I managed it in my state. I realized that God was giving me a choice because he knew how badly I wanted to be with him. It was up to me to decide whether to go or stay.

 

I thought about my life and how much pain I had already suffered. I thought, "I'm out of here." And then I saw those little faces that I had given birth to, and how 'He' had said they had no one but me. I had so many doubts about my abilities as a parent. I really did. I finally reasoned that without me, they would be divided and sent to the four corners of the earth, and maybe their lives would be worse without me. That bothered me. I prayed to Him for my life, and then I proceeded to pass out.

 

An hour later, they were going to take me back to surgery, and the nurse decided to check me one last time. The bleeding had stopped, and surgery was cancelled! I began to heal. They could not tell me what had started or stopped the bleeding. They did not know. I had prayed that if it were God's will for me to live, I would. And, I did. Was it worth it? Yes! No doubt. And what's more. I have never forgotten the peace of being in his presence, and I know, someday, I have that to look forward to again.