I Know What I Saw

I know what I saw-

I thought my understanding of God was like everybody’s else. If we are nice people, when we die, we go to heaven. That’s what I thought will happen and what most people believe, isn’t it? After all, it’s not like we can take a preliminary test, hit the mark, knowing we’ll be saved.

Here lies John Doe-Kind to the Dog and Neighbors' Cat

-SAVED.

I had my doubts. Simplistic thinking for an enormously complex question. Will we go to heaven? I began to search for answers. At first, I began watching movies about Jesus Christ. I must say I was hooked on the dramatic portrayal. Bearded, righteous, hemp drabbed actors pointing fingers and ultimately dying in the worse torturous manner possible. It makes for compulsive viewing. But the messages were very cool. Honestly believe in Him and you’ll be saved. I kept returning with fascination and the messages started me thinking. Am I missing something here? Is confirming your own belief, all that it takes?

I began to read the Bible and the Mormons version of the bible, the King James version, the forbidden bible, and analysis of the bible. Anything I could get my hands on. It wasn’t easy. I mean who normally reads more than 50 religious words in a day. Right?

But I read enough to learn almost all Jesus's disciples died by stoning, crucifixion, beheading or being flayed alive. That’s not reassuring to anyone who wants to pick up their cross and follow Him.

I even returned to church for a time. Unfortunately for me, a sense of connection was lacking. I felt the idea of God was superficial. I mean God’s universe is a very, very big place. Rocking up on Sunday, listening to a sermon, tossing in a couple of coins? Believing and participating? Is that all it takes?

Then I found a preacher online that made sense in my mind when I listened. His name was David Pawson. One observation he made, is that the Jews of old had over 1400 rituals every day to perform for God, at the time of the written bible and still these actions were not enough for even the Pharisees to enter the Kingdom of heaven!

So where does that leave us? Somewhere between MS-DOS and My Apple Cell phone, time is now shorter, much shorter today than two thousand years ago. David Pawson certainly gave full lessons, and his videos are online for anyone else to see and it is a full education he gives. But 1400 actions on any given day? Give me a break. This definitely didn’t allay my fears or answer any of my questions regarding the afterlife.

But I know what I saw.

Now I’m about to reverse up a bit and explain how I ever got to this point. I’m a Registered Nurse and have over 30 years of experience - most of that in Critical Care and Emergency departments and believe me, I have asked everyone who has ever come back from the dead after their heart has stopped beating. Not one of those people described a tunnel, not one experienced an out-of-body experience, and not one person floated above my bald head to describe a man helping or looking on. I’m sorry about this. Really sorry. I desperately wish I was wrong and I could say the opposite is true but I never found anyone who proclaimed the Kingdom of God is real after they’ve come back. This left me perplexed. My rationalization put it down to perhaps they were not dead long enough to see the light in the tunnel.

Although, I repeat. I know what I saw.

I was working in the Emergency Department one night and was mentoring a young new nurse. Her name was Margaret. She was very interested in all things medical and I was very keen to impart some knowledge to help her through her degree course. I was younger then, but still had a lot of experience. This included some psychiatry experience limited, I agree.

Interestingly a foreign woman was brought in by ambulance- her name was Devina. Unfortunately, she was unreachable. She, so completely confused and muttering in a foreign language no-one could understand her and she was obviously insane.

Emergency departments have great access to interpreters that can help in these cases and it wasn’t long before the interpreter arrived and calmly explained to me that the lady was speaking not in one language but using multiple languages, although none of it made much sense. There were phrases not connected which the interpreter described as “babble”. Poor Devina had no awareness of where she was, who she was with, and what was going on around her. No reaction to our voices of concern, requests or acknowledgment that we were even in the room. Babbling and mouth chewing Devina.

Margaret really wanted to help her, me too. We managed to get her into a hospital gown, perform some rudimentary observations such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, her oxygen saturation levels and they were all within normal limits. We took some blood for pathology and after I noticed something in her mouth - something glistening. I wasn’t sure what it was but it was something I needed to act on for she could be swallowing something dangerous.

Putting on gloves I tried to remove the object. Then I realized the object was spinning on her tongue. Or more so, her tongue was so dexterous that she was spinning it around in her mouth, balanced on the tip. As I tried to grab the object, she closed her mouth preventing me from reaching it. For someone with no awareness, this was very strange. Like the lights were off but a glow lamp burned deep inside her.

She still hadn’t recognized or acknowledged we were there. There was no lucid moment. No realization she had just had a large needle placed in her arm. No recognition she had been undressed and placed in a hospital gown. No reaction to the blood pressure cuff expanding and contracting around her arm. Her face a blank, in an acute psychotic state and she had no cognition. No interaction of any meaning at all.

I hid and waited behind her until she stopped the tongue twirling. Without warning, I reached over and grabbed the object. To my amazement I caught it. A piece of alfoil, torn from a cigarette packet. I paused over this and considered how or why someone could do this? A roll of alfoil used as a twirling object? I had no idea, but for the fact she was psychotic and psychotics are well known to do even weirder things, you’ll soon see, but I know what I saw.

Margaret, as a new nurse appeared very concerned. She expressed care in her eyes- somewhat like a freshly born Fawn - desperately wanting to help Devina. She held the lady’s hand and looked to me for answers. I started to explain about the brain and how the signals were mixed up, about the need for medication and the chance of improvement away from stress in a controlled facility. “What we are seeing here is an acute psychotic state of schizophrenia”, I said. “With the right medication, and time in an acute psychiatric unit she can completely recover.”

Margaret accepted this, and there was no reaction from Devina. But I couldn’t resist leaving it there. Regretfully, something I saw will haunt me forever, but I know what I saw. I just had to open my big, fat mouth.

“In the literature there is some evidence that these states of mind are not only biophysical but are a matter of evil, a haunting of the persons’ soul. A possession.”

At that moment something shifted inside of Devina. The words stirred something deep inside her. It was a complete turnabout to recognition so malevolent she could never have made it of her own accord.

Sharply she sat bolt upright at the recognition. A toothful, snickering grin overcame her appearance, wide and shocking, staring directly at me. It actually challenged me and pierced me completely. For the first time, her head turned, gawked and followed me around the bedside - discovered by my words. That thing inside sensed what I had said. The only cognition from Devina, was from another being, not of heaven, but of hell. I had just locked eyes with evil itself. I have no doubt of what I saw. The devil showed himself. It revealed who it was and I was in complete shock.

I immediately left, panicked. Outside the curtains I was short of breath, stunned and entirely overwhelmed. I had seen it- the face of hell. Ultimately this was all the proof I needed, - the anti-thesis of heaven. I am shaking as I write these words, so deep this penetration went. I never came back to her bedside, never followed up her condition or case. Devina, as far as I know went through the hospital system and recovered as best as I know.

If there is a negative and it is real, there must be a positive and it is very real as well. That is the foundation of which I had just been taught.

If there is a hell, keep looking- there must be a heaven.