I was a self-made man who thought that providing for my family and giving them a life of luxury was the only way I could show them that I love them. I had this materialistic ideal in mind but my wife prayed for me to know Jesus and have a relationship with him. Over the years, I drew apart from my family as my desire for material wealth consumed me.
Then at 61, I was diagnosed with an incurable disease that plagued me with chronic pain, so painful that it would often render me paralyzed. I relied on pain relievers for the next five years and I was becoming an angry person. But the pride in me never asked for help from above. I never asked God for help.
But my wife prayed fervently for God to change me and that happened during that unfateful day in 2014 when I had a near-death experience. I felt as though I was drowning and as I was about to take my last breath, from somewhere inside of me that I didn’t even know existed, I cried out to God and asked for his forgiveness.
I was rushed to the hospital where the doctor told my wife that I was brain-damaged. I was on full-life support because my organs have shut down. She was told that there was no way to bring me back.
But she didn’t know that I was experiencing a different reality. I remember I saw a vista of beautiful flowers when I turned to look to the right but to the left, I saw the most hideous creature that gave me this look of hatred. At this moment I looked toward the light and raised both hands and I cried to God for help.
Then I remember there were three angels who came and took me to heaven and to none other than Jesus Christ the Son of God. He looked at me with those violet eyes and he asked me what I was doing with the life God gave me. But then he smiled and I felt his love for me in that smile. I felt his forgiveness and in that moment I surrendered my life to him.
Suddenly, I woke up in a gurney in the hospital screaming. I saw my wife and told her that I saw Jesus face to face. From that point forward, I made sure to do right by God and be more focus on Him.