Waking Up in Heaven: A True Story of Brokenness, Heaven, and Life Again Read online

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  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  The Brightness

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  The Angels

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Being with God

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  The Question

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Child

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Acknowledgments

  Photographs

  Reading Group Guide

  About the Crystal McVea and Alex Tresniowski

  I would like to dedicate this book to God.

  You found me in my darkest moments and changed me forever.

  I look forward to the day I will be in Your presence again, this time forever.

  IN DECEMBER 2011, I OPENED A FACEBOOK MESSAGE from someone I didn’t know. “Laura, my name is Crystal,” it began, “and I was compelled to write you after seeing you on ‘The Dr. Phil Show.’ ” At the time I was promoting my new book, An Invisible Thread, which tells the story of my friendship with Maurice Mazyck—an eleven-year-old homeless panhandler when I met him in 1986, and still my good friend today. I was getting e-mails from many people who were moved by the book, but something about Crystal’s message was different. “I, too, was given a second chance on December 10 of 2009,” she explained. “That was the day I died.”

  It’s not often you read a sentence like that, so I kept reading. I soon learned that Crystal McVea was a schoolteacher and a mother of four living in southwest Oklahoma. In 2009 she went into the hospital with abdominal pain and suddenly stopped breathing. In the frantic minutes between when she died and when doctors were able to revive her, Crystal went to heaven and stood with God. Now, that by itself was intriguing to me, because I love hearing anything about heaven and what it would be like to stand face-to-face with God. But I was intrigued for another reason. Crystal’s story reminded me of what happened to my mother.

  When I was twenty-five my mother Marie’s long battle with uterine cancer neared its end. She’d bravely fought it off for several years, until she just couldn’t fight it anymore. Losing our mother was something none of us children could ever prepare for or even begin to comprehend.

  On the very day I turned twenty-five, my mother asked me not to leave her alone. She said she felt strange and scared. I assured her someone would be with her every minute and through the night. The next morning she was unresponsive, and we called for an ambulance. Before it arrived my mother woke up and started weeping inconsolably. She was petrified and filled with sorrow, and she knew her life was ending. I’d never seen her like that, and I tried desperately to console her. I even told her she was only going to the hospital for a checkup.

  “Promise me I will come home,” my mother said to me.

  Not knowing what else to say, I made that promise to her.

  When she arrived in the ER at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City, her oncologist examined her and suggested we have a priest come and give her last rites. My sister Annette and I said a prayer with the priest, while the doctor and a nurse waited just behind us. When the prayer was over, the doctor checked on my mother. He turned to us and said, “She is gone.”

  Annette and I hugged and cried and tried to find comfort in the belief that Mom was at peace, with God. That powerful belief sustains so many people in their darkest hours, and there in the ER it sustained us. Of course, we all yearn to know with certainty that our loved ones are in a better place, but that’s not a gift we can ever expect to get. Certainly it is not a gift I ever imagined I’d receive.

  But then, just a few minutes after the doctor declared my mother was dead, a nurse in the ER said something unimaginable: “Oh, my God, your mother is alive! Talk to her; talk to her!”

  The nurse had seen my mother start to breathe again and open her eyes. We stood there in absolute amazement, and we looked at the oncologist, who was as shocked and baffled as we were. My mother had only occasionally been lucid in the previous weeks, but suddenly she seemed free of pain and in control of her mind and her body. Most remarkably, she had a warm, peaceful smile on her face, something we hadn’t seen for the longest time. She was glowing, and she no longer seemed scared. Then she shocked us even more by speaking in a strong, clear voice. And what she said was this:

  “I can’t believe I’ve been given the time and the strength to tell you everything I always wanted to say to you but couldn’t.”

  The next six hours were nothing short of a miracle. My mother’s vital signs were inexplicably strong, and she was completely calm and in charge. She was moved to a private room, and one by one she spoke to all five of her children and her husband, my father, Nunzie, and gave us loving messages of hope and strength. “You have always been such a good daughter,” my mother told me. “Laurie, I am so proud of you. I love you very much.” Can you imagine what it feels like to have your mother tell you she loves you after you thought she was dead? Her doctors simply couldn’t explain what happened—only our mother could. “I saw the other side,” she told us. “It is far more beautiful and peaceful than we could ever imagine. I know now in my heart that I will be able to take care of all of you from there.”

  We asked the doctor if we could take my mother home. I’d made a promise to her, and, incredibly, I had a chance to keep it. The doctor didn’t know what would happen next, but he let us check her out. Then came the final shock.

  “I don’t want to go home,” my mother told us. “I want to stay here until it is time to go to my new home.”

  As much as we all wanted our mother to stay with us, God had a different plan for her. Still, He’d allowed her to come back and share a beautiful message with us—a message each of us would carry in our hearts for the rest of our lives.

  Not much later, my mother sat up and told us God was calling her back. She asked us to all hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer and then leave her in peace. A minute or two later, she was in a coma. A few days after that she passed away at the age of forty-seven.

  I immediately thought of my mother when I read Crystal’s note, and I was surprised to learn that, while she had seen me on Dr. Phil, she hadn’t actually read my book. She did not know my mother’s story. She wrote me, because, as she absently watched Dr. Phil while folding laundry, she suddenly felt a strong urge to contact me. She’d felt the urge before, and she knew just what it was. It was God putting someone in her path. “I am just a mommy and a teacher,” she explained, “but I know God is leading me to tell the whole story of what I experienced, and I would like your help.”

  I wrote back to Crystal, and eventually we spoke on the phone. She told me all about her time in heaven, and I was blown away. It is a beautiful story, not at all what I expected, and as soon as I heard it, I knew I wanted to help her in any w
ay I could. I put her in touch with my cowriter, Alex Tresniowski, and he was just as moved as I was. With our help, Crystal got a literary agent and a contract with Howard Books, the publisher of An Invisible Thread.

  Even today, I am amazed by the events that led to this book winding up in your hands. I am a retired advertising sales executive, and I was lucky enough to have some connections that helped me secure a publishing deal. But even with those connections I knew I was beating incredibly long odds by getting a book deal. So many people have inspiring life stories, but only a tiny fraction get the chance to share their stories with the world. I felt so blessed to have my book published, and even more blessed after it spent more than twenty weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. I have always known it was my mother in heaven who steered me toward Maurice on the corner of 56th Street and Broadway in Manhattan that fateful day in 1986, and I know she has had a hand in all the success that has followed for both Maurice and me. But I also know how very, very lucky I am.

  Crystal, on the other hand, had no such connections. She didn’t know a soul in the media, and she faced even longer odds than I did in getting her story published. In the months after she died, she spent a lot of time praying about the strange position she found herself in—while in heaven, God had instructed her to share her story with the world, but He didn’t seem to give her any way to do it. She was a teacher, not a writer, and she had no clear path to anyone in the publishing industry. For months she wondered when God would finally send someone to help her tell her story. And for two years nothing happened.

  Until, one afternoon, she saw Maurice and me on television. She was only half-watching it while folding sheets and towels, but even so, she felt what she calls a “nudge,” and she knew instantly she had to find a way to contact me. The idea seemed absurd to her—why would a complete stranger believe her far-fetched story, much less help her tell it? She prayed for days and tried to summon the nerve to message me. Finally, she brushed aside her fears and followed God’s orders and contacted me. I could have ignored her e-mail or sent a cursory reply, but I didn’t. My coauthor, Alex, could have been completely uninterested or busy with another project, but he wasn’t. And the great folks at Howard Books could have shrugged at the idea, but instead they jumped on it. A million things could have gone wrong; instead, everything went right.

  And that, I believe, was no accident.

  The title of my book comes from an old proverb: “An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle. But it will never break.” Just as Maurice and I are connected by an invisible thread, so, too, are Crystal and I. Our paths were meant to cross, and they did. Crystal hadn’t read my book or known about my mother’s experience, yet she could hardly have found someone more receptive to her story. This, I now know, is the way God works—He brings people who need each other together. I refer to the unlikely bond between Maurice and me as an invisible thread, but I could also call it God’s powerful hand at work. The long odds that Crystal beat in making this remarkable book happen are evidence of God’s glorious presence here on Earth. And Crystal’s story itself is evidence of the many gifts God bestows on us, if only we open our hearts to His many unplanned blessings.

  I am extremely proud of the small role I played in helping Crystal, and I can’t wait for you to turn this page and begin reading her story. I know you will be as moved and inspired as I was, and I believe Crystal’s story has the power to change lives. We live in difficult and treacherous times, and the world needs as many positive messages as it can get. The powerful message of this book—that God exists and heaven is beautiful and each of our lives is its own miracle—is one that you will carry in your heart for the rest of your life.

  Laura Schroff, author of An Invisible Thread

  SOMEDAY SOON, ONE OF MY PRECIOUS THREE-YEAR-OLD twins is going to ask me the question “Mommy, what happened to you when you died?”

  Someday they will overhear me telling my story to someone and want to know more about it. They will look at me with their big, innocent eyes and try to make sense of what they’re hearing. It isn’t always easy explaining what happened even to adults, so how am I going to explain it to my kids?

  There is so much I want to share with them, so much I want them to know. You see, my story is one of hope and forgiveness and salvation, and of the glorious healing power of God’s presence. It’s the story of what I saw and what I learned when, during a hospital stay, I left my body for nine minutes and went to heaven and stood before God. And it’s the story of how, when I came back to Earth, my life was profoundly and permanently changed—changed down to the very core of my being.

  But it is also a story that, for the longest time, I didn’t want to tell.

  I live in a wonderful town in southern Oklahoma, in a community of friendly and God-fearing people, a place where passion for Jesus runs deep. Still, I know how much damage a juicy piece of gossip can cause. I was a teacher—someone parents trust to teach and care for their children—and I was afraid that if people heard my story, I’d be shunned and ridiculed and maybe even fired.

  I was afraid people would think I was flat-out crazy.

  And even though God’s instructions to me could not have been any clearer—“Tell them what you can remember”—I struggled to understand why I had been chosen and what exactly He wanted me to do.

  I struggled, because I’m the least likely person to be telling anyone about God.

  Put simply, I’m not ever going to be on any short list for sainthood. Early in my life I was a sinner, and I’m pretty sure I broke every one of the Ten Commandments. That’s right, not just some—all ten.

  Even the big one—Thou shalt not kill. When I was younger, I committed a sin I believed to be so grievous and so unforgivable, I was sure God could never love me, if He even existed at all.

  And that was the other thing about me—when it came to God’s existence, I was a skeptic. I had grown up in the heart of the Bible Belt, been baptized not once but four times, gone to church regularly, and heard a million sermons about God. And yet, deep in my heart, I wasn’t convinced. Over and over I challenged God to prove He existed, and every time He did. I’d set up a new roadblock, a new challenge for Him to overcome.

  I saw the hardships in my life as evidence that God had no interest in protecting me from harm. I questioned Him, and I cursed Him. And at times I vowed to cut Him out my life.

  And still—and still!—God chased me and wooed me and loved me and chose me, and then He sent me back to this world to share a message.

  And so, eventually, I began to tell my story. I told strangers in restaurants, customers at Walmart, and patrons eating ice cream at Braum’s—anywhere and everywhere I felt God’s familiar nudge.

  “Excuse me,” I’d say. “My name is Crystal McVea, and in 2009 I died and went to heaven.”

  How’s that for an icebreaker?

  And what happened after I started telling the full story of my journey to heaven is a remarkable, miraculous tale all its own.

  Now I am sharing that story with you, in this book. Believe me, writing a book is not anything I ever thought I’d do. It’s not like it was on my bucket list (like taking my kids to see a Broadway show and going to the Grand Canyon), and every single day I worked on this book was a day I had to pinch myself to make sure it was really happening.

  But as soon as I got over my fears and started testifying, I knew that God’s plan for me was to share what happened with as many people as I could. And frankly I can only spend so many hours a day at Walmart accosting strangers in the checkout line. Writing a book will leave me lots more time to get dinner ready for the kids.

  Now, are there people out there who will think I’m a fraud, or a religious nut, or crazy? I’m sure there are. Maybe some people who pick up this book will toss it across the room midway through and write it off as fiction. Who is this mom from Oklahoma who says she stood with God? Wh
y should we believe anything she says? One response I sometimes get is, “Oh, Crystal, I believe that you believe you saw God. I just don’t know if I believe it.” That’s just a polite way of saying I’m either lying or crazy without actually having to say it.

  The truth is, I know my story is hard for some people to believe. I know what I went through is beyond the realm of what we can experience on Earth. Listen, if someone had come up to me before this happened and told me they had died and stood with God, I’m pretty sure I would have been skeptical, too.

  But I also know this book deals with the biggest and most important questions of them all: Does God exist? Is there a heaven? What is God’s plan for us? Why are we even here?

  I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, I still have plenty of questions. Nor am I claiming to be anyone special. I’m a run-of-the-mill American mom living in the heartland. I spend my days begging my twins to take their naps, driving my older kids around to practices, and trying hard to eat better and lose a little weight (and not always succeeding). Before this happened I loved my life as a mother and a wife and a teacher, and that life fulfilled me deeply.

  But what happened to me did happen, and now I know—after a lifetime of not knowing—that God does exist. He gloriously, beautifully, wonderfully exists.

  And since God told me to share my whole story, that is what I’m doing—even though much of my story is painful and not always pretty. You will learn as you get deeper into this book that for most of my life I lived with terrible shame and horrible secrets. For the longest time I hated myself and believed I was worthless, and as a result I made so many bad choices.

  But it’s important to realize who I was in order to understand who I have become.

  Some of what I describe about my time in heaven may be familiar to you from other accounts of people dying and coming back—the quality of the light, the shimmering entranceway, the presence of angels—but some of it probably isn’t. Everything I describe is absolutely, 100 percent how I remember it—that has always been my one and only rule for sharing my testimony. Nothing is embellished or exaggerated even the tiniest bit. I always tell people, “If I was going to make this up, I’d have made it a lot more dramatic.” What I describe is what I experienced, nothing more or less.