Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

by Todd Burpo

Colton nodded. “Yeah, at the hospital. When I was with Jesus, you were praying, and Mommy was talking on the phone.” What? That definitely meant he was talking about the hospital. But how in the world did he know where we had been?

all of which combined to drain our bank account to the point where I could almost hear sucking sounds

I knew: God had loved me with a little miracle.

I looked at her and then at Colton. “Hey, bud, it’s time to go. Are you still sure you don’t want to hold Rosie?” I said. “Last chance to get a sticker. What do you think?”

It was hard to believe that the broken leg, the kidney stones, the lost work, the financial stress, three surgeries, and the cancer scare had all happened in half a year’s time. In that moment, I realized for the first time that I had been feeling like I’d been in a fight.

For months, I’d had my guard up, waiting for the next punch life could throw.

If I’d let my mind roll with that boxing metaphor just a little longer, I might’ve followed it to its logical conclusion: In a boxing match, the fighters absorb some vicious blows because they’re ready for them. And usually, the knockout punch is the one they didn’t see coming.

I was desperate for prayer, desperate that other believers would bang on the gates of heaven and beg for the life of our son.

I thought of the times where the Scripture says that God answered the prayers, not of the sick or dying, but of the friends of the sick or dying—the paralytic, for example. It was when Jesus saw the faith of the man’s friends that he told the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”1 At that moment, I needed to borrow the strength and faith of some other believers.

Matthew 9:2

Some people freak out when their teenagers want to talk about sex. If you think that’s tough, try talking to your preschooler about dying.

what do people do when they have no extended family and no church? In times of crisis, where does their support come from?

Our church gathering around us in the eye of the storm would change the way Sonja and I approached pastoral visitation in times of trial and grief. We were faithful about it before; now we’re militant.

That’s when Sonja lost it. “I can’t do this anymore!” she said and broke down in tears. And right about then was when a group of people in our church decided it was time for some serious prayer. Church friends began making phone calls, and before long, around eighty people had driven over to Crossroads Wesleyan for a prayer service. Some were in our congregation and some from other churches, but they had all come together to pray for our son.

“Do you still want me to write the tithe check?” Sonja asked, referring to our regular weekly donation to the church. “Absolutely,” I said. God had just given us our son back; there was no way we were not going to give back to God. At just that moment, Colton came around the corner from the living room and surprised us with a strange proclamation that I can still hear to this day. He stood at the end of the counter with his hands on his hips. “Dad, Jesus used Dr. O’Holleran to help fix me,” he said, standing at the end of the counter with his hands on his hips. “You need to pay him.” Then he turned around and marched out. Around the corner and gone. Sonja and I looked at each other. What? We were both a little taken aback, since Colton had seen the surgeon as the source of all the poking, cutting, prodding, draining, and pain. Now here we were, just a week out of the hospital, and he seemed to have changed his mind.

By the end of the week, our mailbox was full again—but with gifts, not bills. Church members, close friends, and even people who only knew us from a distance responded to our need without our even asking. The checks added up to thousands of dollars, and we were astonished when we found that, combined with what my grandmother sent, the total was what we needed to meet that first wave of bills, almost to the dollar.

Suddenly, there in the Expedition on our holiday trip, the incidents of the past few months clicked into place like the last few quick twists in a Rubik’s Cube solution: Sonja and I realized that this was not the first time Colton had let us know something amazing had happened to him; it was only the most clear-cut. By

flood of images tumbled through my mind—especially those horrible moments I’d spent in that tiny room at the hospital, raging against God. I thought I had been alone, pouring out my anger and grief in private. Staying strong for Sonja. But my son said he had seen me . . .

Had our son died and come back? The medical staff never gave any indication of that.

What is childlike humility? It’s not the lack of intelligence, but the lack of guile.

It is the opposite of ignorance—it is intellectual honesty: to be willing to accept reality and to call things what they are even when it is hard.

And Jesus answered my prayer? Personally? After I had yelled at God, chastising him, questioning his wisdom and his faithfulness?

all I felt like I could do was yell at God.”

“At that time, when I was so upset and so outraged, can you believe that God chose to answer that prayer?” I said. “Can you believe that I could pray a prayer like that, and God would still answer it ‘yes’?”

I believed that before. But now I knew it.

“You’ll see him again.” Of course, I believed those things in theory, but to be honest, I couldn’t picture them.

I began to think about heaven in a different way. Not just a place with jeweled gates, shining rivers, and streets of gold, but a realm of joy and fellowship, both for those who are with us in eternity and those still on earth, whose arrival we eagerly anticipated. A place where I would one day walk and talk with my grandfather who had meant so much to me, and with the daughter I had never met.

With all my heart, I wanted ...

The Scripture says that as Jesus gave up his spirit, as he sagged there, lifeless on that Roman cross, God the Father turned his back. I am convinced that he did that because if he had kept on watching, he couldn’t have gone through with it.

I’ve always been very conscious about what I share about heaven from the pulpit, and I still am. I teach what I find in Scripture.