Christian Stories and Poems

A Glimpse Of Eternity Inspirational Christian Story

One night while diving for lobster on the small Island of Mauritius, I was stung on my forearm by 5 Box-Jellyfish, which the local Creole fishermen called "Invisibles". A sting from a Box-Jellyfish often proves to be fatal - as exemplified in Australia where 70 people are known to have died from their stings. Many books quote this particular type of Jellyfish to be among the most venomous creatures in the world.

By the time an ambulance arrived my body was totally paralyzed and necrosis had begun to set into my bone marrow. On route to the hospital, I began to see my life flash before me. At this point of my life, I was an atheist - but I knew I was nearly dead and I didn't know if there was life after death or whether there was just nothing. As I lay there dying, I saw my mother in a vision praying for me, encouraging me to cry out to God from my heart and He would hear me and forgive me (my mother was the only Christian in our family.) I didn't know what to pray and cried out that if God was real, could He help me to pray. Immediately God showed me the Lord's Prayer, and for the first time in my life I prayed from my heart and gave my life to the Lord.

Death & Hell

The ambulance stopped and they placed me in a wheelchair and raced me into the hospital. The nurse took my blood pressure twice but could not find a pulse as my veins had collapsed. The doctors tried to save my life by injecting anti-toxins and dextrose into my body, but seemingly to no avail. Within a few minutes I seemed to slip away (apparently life ceased from my body for a period of approx. 15 minutes).

During this time I found myself in a very dark place, not realising where I was. So I tried to find a light switch, thinking I was still in the hospital - but as I reached out into the dark I couldn't touch anything. Reaching to touch my face I found my hand go straight through it. It seemed so bizarre, as I knew I was standing there but couldn't touch any part of my physical body.

As I stood there I began to sense that this wasn't just a physical darkness but that there was something else there. I could feel a cold eerie feeling as though something or someone was looking at me - a spiritual darkness. From the darkness, I began to hear men's voices screaming at me telling me to "shut up" - "that I deserved to be there" - "that I was in Hell". I couldn't believe it, but as I stood there a radiant beam of light shone through the darkness and immediately began to lift me upward. I found myself being translated up into an incredibly brilliant beam of pure white light - it seemed to be emanating from a circular opening far above me (I felt like a speck of dust being drawn up into a beam of sunlight).

The Journey

I entered this opening to find myself inside a long narrow passageway or tunnel - at the far end of the tunnel I could see the source of the light - it was so radiant that it looked to be the centre of the universe. As I continued to look towards this light it seemed to draw me towards it at an incredible speed - I wasn't walking but was being translated along this tunnel towards the source of this light. I watched as a wave of light broke off the source and moved up the tunnel towards me - as it passed through me I could feel a wave of warmth and comfort flood my soul ... it was incredible. This light wasn't just physical, but was giving off a living emotion ... Halfway down another wave of light - this time it gave off pure peace - followed by another wave - of pure joy. Coming out of the end of this tunnel I found myself standing in the presence of awesome light and power - it seemed as though even the constellations in the universe must find their energy source from this focal point.

As I stood there I wondered to myself if this was just an energy source in the universe or if perhaps there could be someone standing in the midst of this light!!!!! A voice immediately responded to my thought and asked me "Ian, do you wish to return?" Return, I thought!!! Where am I??? As I looked over my shoulder I could see the tunnel going back into darkness.