Surrounded by God

Hospice physician Pamela M. Kircher describes her own near-death experience as a six-year-old child, when a leaking abscess in her throat led to meningitis. After her mother told her she would either live or die, and then put her to bed, Kircher had what she would later describe as a near-death experience. As if telling the story of someone else, she writes:

“The next thing the little girl experienced was suddenly, inexplicably, being in the corner of the room near the ceiling, and looking down at a little girl in the bed. She was not surprised or frightened, even though nothing in her solid Midwest background had prepared her for an out-of-body experience. She was totally without pain and in perfect  peace.

“She had the strong sense that she was surrounded by God. She did not feel like a boy or a girl or a child or an adult. She experienced the essence of herself — the soul that had existed before she came into her body and that would exist when this life was over. She felt strong and peaceful and totally connected with God.

“Looking down at the little girl in the bed, she was aware of the girl’s pain and felt compassion for her. As she further contemplated the situation, she realized that she must be that girl, and then the experience ended. “That little girl was me,” Kircher writes, “and the experience influenced the path that my life would take. Partly as a result of that experience, I have come to understand how tiny the distance is between the world we think we inhabit and the world of the Spirit." 

Pamela M. Kircher, Love is the Link: A Hospice Doctor Shares Her Experience of Near-Death and Dying (Awakenings Press, 2013).