The fact that the author of To Heaven and Back is a superbly well-qualified medical doctor is what drew me to choose this book from amongst all the other recent publications depicting visits to heaven. I wanted to know how someone who is truly a scientist might interpret and define her near-death experience. This book provides a well-written journal of events, starting long before the author’s accident so the reader can correctly recognize that she is both believer and scientist. She’s also a very real person with a family that she cares for, living in a community that cares about her.

With many books of this type I might ask, did she really die? In this book the author avoids the question by listing the amazing coincidences that led to her not dying. She should have died. And something awesome happened to her as she waited to die. It’s impossible to read this account without recognizing, whatever your belief, that the author is genuinely determined to tell her story exactly as it occurred.

The story doesn’t end with a vision of heaven. More visions come later, even intriguingly carrying that same secretive nature of visions in the Bible. But Mary returns to her medical practice and her family, memories retreating into the past. She promises to write about it sometime and always puts it off.

The author is changed by her experience of course, as anyone would be changed by almost dying. But a sudden urge to write later in life is "coincidentally" tied to what happens straight afterwards, raising that question again--not so "much did she die?" or "was it real?" as "where do all these coincidences come from?"

I believe, with the author, that they come from God. I might not interpret everything the same way she does, but I thoroughly enjoyed arguing and talking with her in my head as I read her account. I recommend this book to anyone who imagines scientists don’t believe or can’t accept the spiritual. I recommend it as well to anyone who’s lost someone dear to them, or who’s seeking assurance that there truly must be more to life than just our everyday experience. It's a well-written, engaging, fascinating and truly absorbing book.



Disclosure: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.