The brutal murder of six members of the Alday family, Reggie Anderson’s close relatives, devastated his childhood faith in God. Why? He screamed at God. Why did you do this? Over and over he screamed: Why did you let this happen, God. They loved you!
Karen, a wonderful woman he began to date while in medical school, made Christian faith a requirement for any long-term relationship. But Anderson wasn’t convinced, until he had what he calls “the dream that changed my life.”
While camping beside a beautiful falls, he read the copy of Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis that Karen had given him. “Finally!” Anderson writes, “Someone had articulated the unresolved questions I had with Christianity. Lewis had also believed in the promises of science and the prophets of logic and knowledge; yet he had returned to love and defend the God I had grown up with. How? I tried to understand how he had reached that conclusion. Could I come to that same understanding?
Before falling asleep, Anderson read through the Gospel of John, which Karen had recommended and Lewis mentions in Mere Christianity. “Without warning,” Anderson writes, “I fell into a deep sleep. But this slumber was different from any sleep I’d ever experienced. My mind was tumbling, free falling, like the waterfall nearby. An overwhelming peace filled me, and I felt everything was right with the world.
“When my mind stopped tumbling, I opened my eyes to the most fantastical countryside imaginable: everything was vivid and radiant. All of my senses were finely tuned, like I had awakened in some enhanced version of reality. In front of me, a picturesque meadow was filled with vibrantly colored wildflowers. Pops of yellow, orange, red, blue, and indigo swayed with the breeze like living rainbows. The green was the lushest green I’d ever laid eyes on; the hue so saturated, it seemed like a new color to me. The splendor before me was stunning!
“I wanted to breathe in the view. As I did, I inhaled the most fragrant scent, so light and pleasing—like a mixture of citrus and lilac. I held my breath, allowing it to cleanse my insides and open my mind. I heard a trickling noise behind me and turned to see a running stream. Crystal clear blue water flowed over shiny rocks lining the bed and made a tranquil babbling sound. I moved toward the stream, and I felt an icy but refreshing spray, almost like the feeling I got as a boy when I opened the freezer door on a hot Alabama day. The flowing water was a glassy sapphire blue, but surprisingly light and clear when I scooped it into my cupped hands.
“Everything felt so real, more intense and tangible than my ordinary life. My senses seemed to awaken and open like a flower to the sun. I could see, hear, touch, smell, and feel things as never before. I didn’t feel like I was in a dream; I felt like this was the real life I’d always been searching for. This was more real than my life.
“I didn’t have time to think about how I’d gotten there because I heard an unmistakable voice calling me from the distance. It was the voice of someone whom I had once loved and who still loved me. It didn’t make an audible sound; instead, it resonated inside me and echoed outside, as if I’d heard it with my heart, or maybe my soul. It was easily the most compelling, yet comforting, voice I’d ever heard.
“I spun to my right to glance at the person who had spoken to my heart, and I saw a great crowd of people moving toward me. As I scanned the crowd, a cool breeze engulfed me. That’s when I recognized them. Jimmy, Jerry, Mary, Ned, Chester, and Aubrey! [RT: The six members of the Alday family who had been murdered.]
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but there was no mistaking them. They looked ecstatic. I’d never seen anyone as happy as they were. They didn’t speak with words, but they seemed to know how much I had struggled with their deaths, and how that trauma had put up a barrier between God and me. In the most kind and loving way possible, they communicated that they weren’t the obstacles to my faith. They were there to lift the burden I had been carrying around for so long.
“They were so real, so present, and so very joyful. I had never seen such bliss radiate from a person’s face, but the essence of who they were was still apparent. Jimmy and Jerry even seemed to tease each other the way brothers do—in the same way the three of us had done at the farmers market. I wanted to run to them, to join them, and to live in this paradise with them. I wanted this to be my home too.
“Then I saw him. He inhabited more of a presence in the midst of the crowd than a human form, yet he definitely had human qualities. I couldn’t identify his race; he seemed to be a composite of all races, or possibly of a race I’d never seen before. Likewise, he appeared ageless—of every age and none, at the same time. He was unlike anyone I had ever seen before. Even his long hair defied description. It was at once silver, golden, and onyx-colored as it moved in the light. There was almost a glow from behind him, creating the effect of a halo.
Reggie, why are you running from me? Your friends are here with me in paradise; you can stop running.
“That’s when I knew. It was Jesus.
“He communicated with such authority. Yet I couldn’t see his mouth moving—I somehow intuited his words. As he spoke, I noticed that the light behind him glowed brighter. His eyes shone like the cool waters of the stream between us. His smile was so reassuring, like the one a loving mother gives to her baby. And inside me, I could feel the warmth of his love wrapping itself around my heart and my soul.
I am the one who came for you, he said.
“Immediately, I knew what he meant. For more than seven years, I had been wandering aimlessly in a spiritual wilderness. He had come to rescue me from the hate and anger that had trapped me in the wasteland and to bring me back to the faith of my youth.
I have a plan for you, but you need to stop running.
“I was in awe of him and knew that whatever he said, whatever he asked, I would obey him completely. But my instant devotion was challenged by his next words. You’re going to marry Karen, and together you will have four children. You will be a doctor and practice medicine in rural Tennessee.
“His final words to me were: All I have told you will come to pass. All you have to do is trust in me and in my words.
Anderson did marry Karen, and they moved to Tennessee where he began to work as a surgeon in a hospital serving a rural community. Over time, they had four children. The remainder of Anderson’s book is about his experiences with dying patients.
Reggie Anderson, Appointments with Heaven: The True Story of a Country Doctor’s Healing Encounters with the Hereafter (Tyndale, 2013).
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