1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,400 From the time that they pronounced me deaf was a good 45 minutes. 2 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:13,440 They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. 3 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:18,120 And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my 4 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:21,320 physical body because I was somewhere else. 5 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:27,400 The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't 6 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:29,400 anything else to be felt. 7 00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:32,520 I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. 8 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:34,160 I'm back home again. 9 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:39,160 Incredibly safe and felt at home. 10 00:00:39,160 --> 00:00:41,880 Welcome, welcome to Round Trip Death, everybody. 11 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:44,960 And a warm welcome to our special guest, Mike McKenzie. 12 00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:45,960 How are you, Mike? 13 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:46,960 Hey, I'm doing good. 14 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:49,160 Thanks for having me, Eric. 15 00:00:49,160 --> 00:00:51,080 You are very welcome. 16 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:54,840 You're from the South, in the United States, from Georgia. 17 00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:56,520 Do you love it down there? 18 00:00:56,520 --> 00:01:00,080 I do when it's not so cold. 19 00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:02,200 I moved down here so that I could stay warm. 20 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:04,640 I'm originally from California. 21 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:10,040 And right now it's about 25 degrees outside, so we're expecting some snow. 22 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:13,920 So when the weather gets cold like this, I'm not a fan. 23 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:16,440 This California guy likes his sunshine. 24 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:17,680 Well, okay. 25 00:01:17,680 --> 00:01:20,680 I think you just said you moved there to be warmer. 26 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:24,200 I thought California was warm. 27 00:01:24,200 --> 00:01:26,600 It was actually a little too warm for me. 28 00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:27,880 We lived in the Central Valley. 29 00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:35,040 And my gosh, we'd have a month where it would just be over 100 degrees and it was just unbearable. 30 00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:39,680 So tell us a little bit about you, and then we're going to jump into your NDE. 31 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:45,280 Just to give our listeners an idea, you're going to love this. 32 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:51,360 This is not only a very unusual kind of death, but a really cool and beautiful story during 33 00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:52,640 the NDE. 34 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:54,240 Just tell us who's Mike. 35 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:57,160 So I was born and raised in California. 36 00:01:57,160 --> 00:02:01,960 We moved to Tennessee about seven years ago, I think. 37 00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:06,280 And I was in the construction trade for many years. 38 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:09,280 And right now I am retired. 39 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:11,640 We do some real estate investing now. 40 00:02:11,640 --> 00:02:16,920 We do, we find houses and flip them. 41 00:02:16,920 --> 00:02:19,280 And we've done a couple of those out here. 42 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:20,400 And then we found some property. 43 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:25,840 We were looking for another flip, another investor house. 44 00:02:25,840 --> 00:02:29,600 And we came across this property out in North Georgia that had 12 acres, had a couple of 45 00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:30,600 houses on it. 46 00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:33,080 The houses were just trashed. 47 00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:36,080 But we moved out here, fixed them up. 48 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:38,120 And now we're living country life. 49 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:40,000 And we love it. 50 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,240 We've got a big meadow out front and there's deer running around in turkeys. 51 00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:44,240 And it's great. 52 00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:49,000 Well, I assume that house flipping is a lot more difficult than it looks like on the 53 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:50,560 TV shows. 54 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:51,560 Yeah. 55 00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:52,560 Yeah. 56 00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:55,120 It's not a 30 minute episode. 57 00:02:55,120 --> 00:02:59,280 It's, you know, they always have fun with demo day. 58 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,640 And that just cracks me up because they'll say it's demo day. 59 00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:06,680 I'm like demo, it's more like demo month or demo quarter. 60 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:11,200 I mean, a lot of times these places that we get, we're demoing them for, you know, weeks 61 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:13,240 and weeks and weeks. 62 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:15,320 I've done a little remodeling. 63 00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:17,320 The demoing is not that fun. 64 00:03:17,320 --> 00:03:18,320 No. 65 00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:24,400 It's just like fun at first to swing a sledgehammer through a cabinet or a wall, but it's dirty, 66 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,600 messy, hard work. 67 00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:28,800 And there's a lot of trips to the dumpster. 68 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:29,800 Yeah. 69 00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:31,200 All right. 70 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:32,360 Enough about that stuff. 71 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:35,400 We're here to talk about near death experiences. 72 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:38,840 Let's go back a few years, about 20 years. 73 00:03:38,840 --> 00:03:40,840 You had a very unusual health scare. 74 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:42,240 Tell us what happened. 75 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:43,240 Yeah. 76 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:44,720 So I was at my son's wedding. 77 00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:48,200 We were like, we were away from home about five hours away from home. 78 00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:50,720 We got there four days before the wedding was going to happen. 79 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:52,800 We thought we'd take a little vacation. 80 00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:56,480 It was the last week in the summer before the kids went back to school, the younger 81 00:03:56,480 --> 00:03:58,880 kids and my oldest son was getting married. 82 00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:01,600 It was in Ventura, California. 83 00:04:01,600 --> 00:04:03,000 And so we drive down there. 84 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,120 We checked into the park and my younger kids were into baseball. 85 00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:09,880 So they said, hey, dad, we're going to go play some baseball at the park, you know, 86 00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:10,880 next door to the hotel. 87 00:04:10,880 --> 00:04:12,440 Why don't you come over and play with us? 88 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:13,440 So I did. 89 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:14,440 We got checked in. 90 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:15,440 Went over there. 91 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:19,680 We played baseball for a couple hours and, you know, here I'm swinging a bat. 92 00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:25,200 I wasn't into, I did a lot of coaching, but it really wasn't into swinging baseball bats 93 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:26,200 like that. 94 00:04:26,200 --> 00:04:29,240 You know, I'm trying to beat these young kids and give it my best. 95 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:33,480 And so my trunk was twisting quite a bit. 96 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:35,800 It was just an unusual thing for me. 97 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:39,760 So I started feeling sick that night, thinking I was getting the flu. 98 00:04:39,760 --> 00:04:43,000 Thursday night, I started getting, I was getting worse. 99 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:47,480 And of course, Friday night, we had the rehearsal dinner and I was feeling pretty miserable 100 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:48,480 by then. 101 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:50,160 I was running a fever. 102 00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:56,760 I took a trip down to the quick stop middle of the night, got some Tylenol and, you know, 103 00:04:56,760 --> 00:04:58,760 thinking that that would cut the pain. 104 00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:04,240 I was having some pain in my stomach, but nothing crazy, but my fever was getting pretty 105 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:05,240 bad. 106 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:09,040 So the day of the wedding, the night before, I didn't sleep at all. 107 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:11,760 I mean, not, not one bit. 108 00:05:11,760 --> 00:05:17,160 So the day of the wedding here, I'm, I'm walking in, I'm, I'm looking pale by now. 109 00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:19,920 I'm really tired, but is my son's big day. 110 00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:24,800 It was, it was the first wedding for our family, you know, his first kid to get married. 111 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:28,200 And so I just, I just thought, you know, I'm getting the flu. 112 00:05:28,200 --> 00:05:29,360 I don't want to be a distraction. 113 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:32,440 I just tried to play it off as no big deal. 114 00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:37,200 But then at the end of the night, the bride comes up to us and she says, Hey, we're going 115 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:38,200 to go to my parents' house. 116 00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:39,200 They lived in Ventura too. 117 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:42,080 They had a beautiful house overlook the ocean. 118 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:45,760 And she says, we're going to take the presence out there and open up presence. 119 00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:50,680 And you know, some of the guests are going to come and keep the party going kind of thing. 120 00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:53,840 And I said, guys, I got to get checked out. 121 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:55,720 You know, I need, I need to go find out what's going on. 122 00:05:55,720 --> 00:05:56,720 Cause here I am. 123 00:05:56,720 --> 00:05:58,560 This is no, no sleep for 24 hours. 124 00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:04,380 But now I'm sweating and I'm feeling miserable, but I still thought it had the flu. 125 00:06:04,380 --> 00:06:05,920 And so my son was in the medical field. 126 00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:08,200 He told me what hospital to go to. 127 00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:13,160 So we go there into the ER and of course, you know, Saturday night it's packed. 128 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:17,960 So I sat down and I'm just like, like, I don't know if I was falling asleep, waiting for 129 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:23,400 a, you know, to be seen or in and out of consciousness because I was miserable by then. 130 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:28,440 The nurse calls me back in and she kind of poked around and she asked, you know, what, 131 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:29,440 what's going on. 132 00:06:29,440 --> 00:06:33,240 And they took a little blood test, send it off to the lab. 133 00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:36,540 She says, I think it's your appendix. 134 00:06:36,540 --> 00:06:37,540 And I kind of laughed. 135 00:06:37,540 --> 00:06:39,400 I said, nah, it's the, you know, I just got the flu. 136 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:40,400 Just give me something. 137 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:41,400 I'll go home here. 138 00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:45,800 You know, there's me, stupid me telling her the nurse, what's going on with me. 139 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:46,800 Right. 140 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:48,360 She says, no, I think it's your appendix. 141 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:50,960 And she starts poking around in my abdomen. 142 00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:52,760 She asked me, does any of that hurt? 143 00:06:52,760 --> 00:06:56,440 And I said, no, it doesn't, you know, which was unusual. 144 00:06:56,440 --> 00:07:01,240 Cause usually, you know, if you have appendicitis, you're, you have that point tenderness that 145 00:07:01,240 --> 00:07:05,360 they always say, you know, you poke on a certain spot and it hurts. 146 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:10,640 So she takes out a little mallet that they check your reflexes with on your knee and 147 00:07:10,640 --> 00:07:11,640 she pokes it. 148 00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:16,480 She taps the bottom of my foot and she says, does that, does that hurt? 149 00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:20,360 And again, I laughed and I go, no, she tapped the other foot. 150 00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:23,280 I can't remember if it was right or left, but the, when she tapped the other side of 151 00:07:23,280 --> 00:07:29,120 my foot, I shot pain right into my abdomen and I screamed and she says, okay, that's 152 00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:30,120 your appendix. 153 00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:31,800 I'm going to call a surgeon. 154 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:35,560 You know, so now my wife and I are thinking, you know, what are we going to do with the 155 00:07:35,560 --> 00:07:36,560 kids? 156 00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:39,680 The kids got to go back to school on Tuesday and this is Saturday night. 157 00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:44,240 She says, if, if it's not ruptured, you'll be here for a day or two. 158 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:47,320 And if it has ruptured, you'll be here for three or four. 159 00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:50,760 So we're thinking, okay, well, we'll send the kids home with grandparents, you know, 160 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:56,920 worked out all the, all the logistics and surgeon comes in about probably a half an hour later. 161 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:01,160 He looks at the blood test and he goes, yeah, I think it's your, it's definitely your appendix. 162 00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:03,440 I, I think it's probably ruptured. 163 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:10,160 He says, did you do any, like physical activity, any unusual physical activity? 164 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:14,320 And I thought back to playing baseball and I said, yeah, played baseball Wednesday. 165 00:08:14,320 --> 00:08:20,000 And I mean, he looked at me like Wednesday and this is Saturday night, you know, that's 166 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:22,440 like three days, three and a half days. 167 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:25,640 And he goes, well, we need to get you into surgery pretty quick. 168 00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:27,720 So they start an IV. 169 00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:33,120 They, you know, wheel me down the hall as soon as they throw up in the doors to the 170 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:37,760 surgical room, they start pushing or pulling me over to the table. 171 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:39,240 I'm kind of squatting over there. 172 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:43,800 You know, it's freezing cold in there and that surgical table felt like it was like tiny, 173 00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:45,800 like I was going to fall off. 174 00:08:45,800 --> 00:08:51,920 And so I'm trying to find out what to do with my hands and I put my hands on my chest and 175 00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:56,880 I looked to my right and there's Jesus standing there. 176 00:08:56,880 --> 00:09:02,480 In a white robe and he holds out his hand and like now everything else just kind of 177 00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:04,320 disappeared. 178 00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:10,400 It was like, it was like the surgeon walking in to do my surgery, but it's Jesus and he 179 00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:14,440 holds out his hand and he says, I want to answer your prayer. 180 00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:18,120 And I thought, what is going on here? 181 00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:23,360 You know, my, what my prayer, you know, I just, it, it, I was so confused, didn't make sense. 182 00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:27,160 And I'm looking around the rest of the room trying to figure out where is everybody. 183 00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:30,000 Just all kind of turned white and fuzzy. 184 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:34,200 And so, you know, all these thoughts are going through my head like, like am I dead? 185 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:36,760 Like what, what the heck's going on? 186 00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:37,760 And what prayer? 187 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:38,880 It didn't make sense to me. 188 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:47,080 So I take his hand as soon as I touch his hand, we're instantly standing on what looks 189 00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:49,520 like to be a mountain or a hill. 190 00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:50,520 I look below me. 191 00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:53,080 There's, there's beautiful green grass. 192 00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:55,800 Just perfectly manicured grass. 193 00:09:55,800 --> 00:10:00,840 My senses were heightened to the point where I could count every single blade of grass 194 00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:02,880 touching the bottom of my feet. 195 00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:04,200 It was the weirdest thing. 196 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:08,760 Like I knew exactly how many blades of grass there were, but everything else around me 197 00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:10,480 was white in front of me. 198 00:10:10,480 --> 00:10:12,640 Everything was just super white. 199 00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:16,320 And so I'm trying to adjust my eyes and see because I can see the grass, but I can't see 200 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:17,320 anything else. 201 00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:18,680 I'm still holding Jesus hand. 202 00:10:18,680 --> 00:10:23,320 I, I noticed that I'm wearing the hospital gown, the same thing that I was wearing in 203 00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:26,480 surgery and I'm looking at my bare feet. 204 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:31,360 I'm looking at his bare feet, you know, standing on this grass, but everything else is white. 205 00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:36,360 And I'm kind of like rubbing my eyes like, like, why can't I see everything super white? 206 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:43,600 And then off to like my right, just a little bit to my right, there's this round light. 207 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:48,480 It looks like it's basketball shape, like size, you know, but it's way off in the 208 00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:52,520 distance and it's wider than the rest of the white. 209 00:10:52,520 --> 00:10:54,560 It's almost like shimmering. 210 00:10:54,560 --> 00:11:01,040 It's like a, it's like a light bulb, but it's just glowing and it's just, it's, it's amazing 211 00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:02,040 looking. 212 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:06,320 And then all of a sudden out of this, out of this round light, it starts shooting these 213 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:11,960 things that look like fluorescent light tubes, but they're about two feet long. 214 00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:15,280 They're a little bit fatter than a fluorescent tube. 215 00:11:15,280 --> 00:11:21,760 They're all smooth and they're kind of shimmering the same color as that, as that round light 216 00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:25,880 and they're coming, they start coming by me and I can see them going through the white 217 00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:29,560 and it almost looks like fog, like super thick fog. 218 00:11:29,560 --> 00:11:33,400 And I can see them one after another, after another, pretty soon they start coming a little 219 00:11:33,400 --> 00:11:34,400 bit faster. 220 00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:40,480 One of them starts coming at my head and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, well, you know, should 221 00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:41,480 I dock? 222 00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:45,160 And, you know, and while I'm thinking of that, it just hits me right here, right above my 223 00:11:45,160 --> 00:11:46,160 right eye. 224 00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:51,800 And as it goes through my head, it makes this like light buzzing sound and it warmed me 225 00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:53,560 all the way down to my toes. 226 00:11:53,560 --> 00:11:57,680 Like instantly, I just felt warmth. 227 00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:05,000 I look back at, at the basketball size light, the shimmering glowing light and now it's 228 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:10,040 like somebody took a curtain, like a giant curtain on a stage and pulls it from my right 229 00:12:10,040 --> 00:12:11,040 to my left. 230 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:17,480 And so this white is now replaced by a beautiful scenery. 231 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:22,960 And I look below me, now I can see the grass, below the grass down, down this hill. 232 00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:26,880 I'm, I realize I'm standing on a mountain, pretty good sized mountain. 233 00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:30,520 There are like these beautiful little flowers. 234 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:34,640 They look like sweet peas, but they're pastel colors. 235 00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:41,440 There's purples and blues and greens and, and, you know, some oranges and pinks. 236 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:42,440 They're just beautiful. 237 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:43,840 And they're kind of doing this. 238 00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:49,600 They're kind of like, like they're, they're being blown by a soft wind, but there's no 239 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:50,600 wind. 240 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:51,600 I don't, I don't feel any wind. 241 00:12:51,600 --> 00:12:57,160 So it was almost like they were dancing at the bottom of this, of the flower hill. 242 00:12:57,160 --> 00:12:59,720 There's a great big city. 243 00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:04,480 But the only thing I can see of the city because this curtain of fog that was pulled in front 244 00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:08,120 of me is now laying on top of the city. 245 00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:14,480 So I see these, these buildings, the roofs are sticking through the fog, but all I can 246 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:16,240 see is the roofs. 247 00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:19,920 So right about in the middle, there's this great big gold. 248 00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:22,920 It looks like a capital dome and it's huge. 249 00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:26,680 It's like, it's just huge way bigger than the rest of the buildings. 250 00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:29,760 There are some other capital looking buildings. 251 00:13:29,760 --> 00:13:30,760 They're smaller. 252 00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:31,760 Some of them are gold. 253 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:33,320 Some of them are white. 254 00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:38,440 And then there's also these, these, what looks like to be church steeples and most of them 255 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:44,800 are white and they're sticking through this, this, this cloud layer or this fog layer, 256 00:13:44,800 --> 00:13:46,600 something I thought that was a little unusual. 257 00:13:46,600 --> 00:13:49,440 I kind of looked into it later. 258 00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:53,800 But the top of those, you know, at the top of the church steeples that we see around 259 00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:56,160 here and I'm in the, I'm in the South. 260 00:13:56,160 --> 00:13:57,160 So they're everywhere. 261 00:13:57,160 --> 00:13:58,560 There's a lot of old churches. 262 00:13:58,560 --> 00:14:02,240 They all have crosses at the top, but there were no crosses on the top of these, which 263 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:04,480 I thought was kind of strange. 264 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:11,120 And then on the other side of the city, there's another great big mountain and it's covered 265 00:14:11,120 --> 00:14:15,960 in these pine trees, but the pine trees are perfect, perfect shape. 266 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:17,880 They're a beautiful green. 267 00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:21,840 They're like, they have these like dainty pine needles on them. 268 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:28,320 They're, they're sort of moving a little bit, but in that, not, not as much as the flowers 269 00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:29,920 are in front of me. 270 00:14:29,920 --> 00:14:35,200 And then above that there's, it looks like the most beautiful sunset that I've ever seen, 271 00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:36,800 but there was no sun. 272 00:14:36,800 --> 00:14:41,720 So above the trees, there's like reds and oranges and yellows. 273 00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:46,680 And then above that it's kind of blends into these greenish blue and then there's very 274 00:14:46,680 --> 00:14:48,720 bright blue at the top. 275 00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:55,480 And there's a few, it's some kind of like white clouds, but not billowy clouds or just 276 00:14:55,480 --> 00:14:57,480 sort of, I don't know. 277 00:14:57,480 --> 00:15:00,520 I think down here we call them cirrus clouds. 278 00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:03,760 They're sort of long and skinny and wispy looking. 279 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:11,400 Now these light beams that were coming at me are now going across the city and one of 280 00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:17,840 them hits the tip of a tree and it's like it had a diamond on the tip because when that 281 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:25,440 light beam hit that diamond on the tip, it burst into hundreds of tiny little, little 282 00:15:25,440 --> 00:15:27,160 white light beams. 283 00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:32,120 It was like fireworks, but they were all white, just this brilliant shimmering white. 284 00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:37,240 And pretty soon there's more of them hitting the tips of the trees and there's just like 285 00:15:37,240 --> 00:15:41,240 pops of these, this white going everywhere. 286 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:44,000 It's like there's a, there's a bright white fireworks show. 287 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:47,000 I mean, it's not, there's no popping or sound. 288 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:51,800 It's just like boom, boom, boom, you know, all over and the sky is just filled with this 289 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:53,400 light everywhere. 290 00:15:53,400 --> 00:16:00,840 I look back at the source where they were coming from that basketball shaped sized light, that 291 00:16:00,840 --> 00:16:06,840 shimmering light that's sending these beams and Jesus says to me, it's the glory of the 292 00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:07,840 Lord. 293 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:13,480 And when he said that, I was just overcome with emotion. 294 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:18,760 My knees got weak and I fell to the ground on my knees and the instant my knees hit the 295 00:16:18,760 --> 00:16:22,960 ground, they shocked me and they brought me back. 296 00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:28,840 So now instead of this beautiful scene, I see a doctor leaning over me wearing a mask 297 00:16:28,840 --> 00:16:31,720 and he says, do you know your name? 298 00:16:31,720 --> 00:16:37,840 And I answered him, Mike, but I answered in my head. 299 00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:40,040 I was, I didn't verbalize. 300 00:16:40,040 --> 00:16:42,520 And so he looks at me again, he's looking pretty concerned. 301 00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:44,760 He says, do you know your name? 302 00:16:44,760 --> 00:16:49,920 And I thought, oh, I didn't, I didn't move my mouth to talk. 303 00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:51,920 So my mouth was so dry. 304 00:16:51,920 --> 00:16:56,120 I was finally able to get the word out, Mike. 305 00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:58,440 And he says, good, do you know where you are? 306 00:16:58,440 --> 00:17:01,800 And now I'm thinking back, I think, man, I think I was just in heaven. 307 00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:02,800 Where's Jesus? 308 00:17:02,800 --> 00:17:06,880 You know, but I'm thinking, okay, we went through the wedding. 309 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:07,880 I'm in Ventura. 310 00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:10,640 So I was able to say Ventura. 311 00:17:10,640 --> 00:17:11,760 And he says, okay, good. 312 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:15,120 And he turns around and now I realize there's other people in the room. 313 00:17:15,120 --> 00:17:18,760 There's other people wearing some scrubs and blue scrubs. 314 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:20,480 And he says, he's back. 315 00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:24,680 And he says, let's get him up to intensive care. 316 00:17:24,680 --> 00:17:26,480 So they wheeled me back up. 317 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:31,880 After that, I spent four days in intensive care and I developed an abscess. 318 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:36,160 So we had some complications to deal with, but I spent 12 days in the hospital and I 319 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:37,160 got out. 320 00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:41,680 Now, the next morning, one other thing I want to tell you before you have a question for 321 00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:42,800 me here. 322 00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:47,560 The next morning, the surgeon comes in and he says, hey, I heard we had a little episode. 323 00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:48,640 How are you feeling? 324 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:50,120 And I said, I'm okay. 325 00:17:50,120 --> 00:17:51,120 I'm pretty weak. 326 00:17:51,120 --> 00:17:54,760 You know, I couldn't lift my hands off my chest as I'm laying there. 327 00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:58,160 And he says, yours was the worst case I've ever seen. 328 00:17:58,160 --> 00:17:59,160 And I said, what? 329 00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:00,160 You're kidding. 330 00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:02,160 And he says, no. 331 00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:04,680 And he gets done looking at the stitches and all that. 332 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:06,640 And he says, I'll be back in a little bit. 333 00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:10,840 And he turns around, he comes back in and he says, oh, yeah, what I said there, it wasn't 334 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:12,640 exactly true. 335 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:16,720 Yours was the worst case I've ever seen where the patient lived. 336 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:18,640 And I said, well, thank you for saving my life. 337 00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:20,200 And he says, you're welcome. 338 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:23,080 And then he said, God's not done with you yet. 339 00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:25,080 That's pretty amazing. 340 00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:26,580 Wow. 341 00:18:26,580 --> 00:18:30,440 I'm not sure where to start. 342 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:31,440 That's amazing. 343 00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:32,920 Thank you for sharing that. 344 00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:33,920 Okay. 345 00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:36,840 Let's start kind of from the beginning. 346 00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:42,760 So when you looked over and saw Jesus, it sounds like you had just gotten on the operating 347 00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:46,960 table and it doesn't matter if the timeline is perfect here. 348 00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:53,120 I'm just curious, if you have a feeling, was it the beginning of surgery or end of surgery 349 00:18:53,120 --> 00:18:57,720 where your heart actually stopped and they brought you back? 350 00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:00,760 That part I've never been clear on. 351 00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:06,120 I think that he showed up before anything happened, before surgery started. 352 00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:09,320 I've had people say, well, maybe it was the drugs. 353 00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:10,880 They didn't even give me any drugs. 354 00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:14,240 I don't remember them putting the mask on and counting down. 355 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:16,480 Before surgery, they usually do that. 356 00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:20,160 I just remembered there was Jesus. 357 00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:26,920 And it had to have been at least two hours because he showed up before surgery and then 358 00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:30,800 when they brought me back, I was done. 359 00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:35,480 I mean, they didn't wheel me back into surgery or say, hey, we need to stitch you up. 360 00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:36,480 It was done. 361 00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:37,720 And that doctor had gone home. 362 00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:39,480 The surgeon had gone home. 363 00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:41,280 I did ask about that later. 364 00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:45,400 You know, I said, where's the guy's name was Dr. Owaziek. 365 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:48,000 I said, where's Dr. I? 366 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:49,560 And they said, he's gone. 367 00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:50,560 He's home. 368 00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:54,120 So you felt like you were with Jesus for a long time? 369 00:19:54,120 --> 00:20:00,440 It was a long time, but to me, it just seemed like 15 minutes. 370 00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:02,240 It didn't seem like that long at all. 371 00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:04,080 How did you know it was him? 372 00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:06,400 You know, I get asked that a lot. 373 00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:08,920 There's a couple of ways I could answer that. 374 00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:13,560 The easiest way is, I always say, when the Savior of the world stands in front of you, 375 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:14,560 you'll know. 376 00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:16,400 I knew it was Jesus. 377 00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:21,680 But the way He said, I want to answer your prayer, you know, people have said, well, maybe 378 00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:27,280 it was your spirit leader or, you know, everybody has their different theories about it. 379 00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:31,080 But to me, Jesus answers prayers. 380 00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:37,600 And one of the things that I found out later that I found out, but I realized later was 381 00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:42,760 the prayer that He was answering was, as a kid, I used to pray that I could see heaven. 382 00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:45,720 Because my grandfather passed away when I was very young. 383 00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:49,160 And at his funeral, they were saying, you know, grandpa's in heaven. 384 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:50,160 He's no more pain. 385 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:51,760 He's, you know, there's no tears. 386 00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:54,040 You know, he's in a better place. 387 00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:57,080 And as a kid, I remember thinking, man, that sounds like a great place. 388 00:20:57,080 --> 00:20:58,200 I want to see this place. 389 00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:01,600 So, you know, I'm starting to learn about God and I started praying. 390 00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:02,600 Can you show me heaven? 391 00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:06,400 I mean, I don't really want to die, but can you show me heaven? 392 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:10,840 I think it's so cool that He took your hand and was holding your hand. 393 00:21:10,840 --> 00:21:11,840 Yeah. 394 00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:17,920 I've interviewed hundreds of people and some that have seen Jesus. 395 00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:23,640 And back to my first question, I don't think anybody's ever told me that they were introduced 396 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:24,640 to Him. 397 00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:28,200 They just automatically knew who it was, which makes sense to me. 398 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:31,280 It didn't need to be verbal communication of that. 399 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:32,280 Yeah. 400 00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:40,920 So, the white, round, shimmering light thing that you said is the glory of God. 401 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:42,760 Can you explain that any further? 402 00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:48,720 I actually think what He was talking about was, and this is, you know, this is something 403 00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:52,280 else that, okay, as a kid, I used to pray that I could see the glory of God because 404 00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:56,920 we used to watch this show, the Charlie Brown Christmas special. 405 00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:02,000 And I remember, you know, back in those days, you couldn't stream it. 406 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,840 You know, you had to gather around with the family at seven o'clock on Tuesday night. 407 00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:12,520 And I remember laying there on the floor one time watching that show and Linus comes out 408 00:22:12,520 --> 00:22:14,280 holding his blanket and everything's quiet. 409 00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:20,040 And he says, you know, he tells that story from Luke and he says the glory of the Lord 410 00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:21,560 showed all around them. 411 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:27,560 And he used to think, wow, God made heaven and earth and everything that I know and 412 00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:31,200 everything that I interact with, what must his glory look like? 413 00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:33,560 That had to be pretty special. 414 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:37,480 And I used to ask him, hey, can you show me heaven? and then later as a kid, I'd say, 415 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:39,320 can you show me the glory of the Lord? 416 00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:45,000 So one of the things that I found out later, I was reading the Bible a couple years after 417 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:50,640 my NDE and in Revelation, it says heaven doesn't need to be lit by the sun because it's lit 418 00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:52,040 by the glory of the Lord. 419 00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:56,320 And I was like, yeah, I saw it. 420 00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,760 So I think it was all that, you know, all those lights. 421 00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:03,800 Yeah, that's something I was going to ask next because you talked about this beautiful 422 00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:07,280 sunset without a sun. 423 00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:11,120 Tell me a little bit more about the colors of the sunset and then how does that tie in 424 00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:13,400 with the glory of the Lord? 425 00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:17,840 The colors are so hard to describe. 426 00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:22,720 One of the ways I try to describe it, and it kind of makes sense to me, maybe it will, 427 00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:24,520 to some people, maybe it won't. 428 00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:30,360 But if you take a picture with your iPhone and you go to the, you know, you want to adjust 429 00:23:30,360 --> 00:23:31,720 it and make it look really cool. 430 00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,280 You got all these filters and different things. 431 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:39,320 If you take the saturation and you move it all the way over till it's like 100 percent 432 00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:44,000 and everything gets kind of blurry, but the colors get really vivid. 433 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:47,680 That's what the sky looked like without getting weird looking. 434 00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:53,400 It was just, you know, I try to describe it like that, but it's still not doing it justice. 435 00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:54,600 It was just amazing. 436 00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:55,600 Yeah. 437 00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,080 What were you feeling this whole time? 438 00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:01,440 I had this warm and fuzzy feeling, right? 439 00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:06,000 Like I was just, I felt like I was comfortable. 440 00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:07,200 I was loved. 441 00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,280 I felt like I was home. 442 00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,040 That's something that as a human being walking around, I've never, I've always thought there's 443 00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:17,520 more to this life than what we're living. 444 00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:20,360 I've never felt like this was my home. 445 00:24:20,360 --> 00:24:24,760 I feel like walking around like an outer body experience or out of body experience. 446 00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:28,840 It's just, I've never thought that this was all there was. 447 00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,000 So that's the way I felt. 448 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,560 I would just say just comforted and loved. 449 00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:33,560 Yeah. 450 00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:34,560 Tell me more about the city. 451 00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,520 You talked about the tops of buildings standing up above the fog. 452 00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,240 Did you see any more than that? 453 00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:41,840 That was all I could see. 454 00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:45,320 You know, it was, it was all covered. 455 00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:49,680 And you know, it's funny because something inside of me just knew that that was just the, 456 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:51,640 that was the New York city of wherever I was. 457 00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:53,200 That was a bustling city. 458 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:58,440 I knew that there was just, you know, hundreds of thousands of people down there and, you 459 00:24:58,440 --> 00:24:59,600 know, maybe cars. 460 00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:00,600 Who knows? 461 00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:02,040 I, I, I don't know. 462 00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:09,280 But I think in looking back on it, I think that when I used to ask to, to see heaven, 463 00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:14,440 I didn't ask to see loved ones, past loved ones. 464 00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,280 So Jesus said, okay, I'm going to honor your prayer. 465 00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:17,280 You want to see heaven? 466 00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:19,640 I'm going to show you heaven, but I'm not going to show you all of it. 467 00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:23,160 That's for the, for future Mike. 468 00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:27,160 That's for the day that I bring you here and, and you don't go back. 469 00:25:27,160 --> 00:25:28,160 Yeah. 470 00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,800 That's for just death experience, Mike. 471 00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:31,920 Exactly. 472 00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:34,840 Not near death, but permanent death. 473 00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:36,640 What did Jesus look like? 474 00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:42,160 He, um, he looked very different than what I was shown as a kid. 475 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:46,100 You know, I was a, I'm, I'm a white kid growing up in America. 476 00:25:46,100 --> 00:25:48,480 So I was shown as, as a child. 477 00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:50,800 I was born in 1959. 478 00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:57,320 So I was shown a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus with white skin, you know, like me. 479 00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:01,120 So I never really thought about what Jesus looked like. 480 00:26:01,120 --> 00:26:04,960 I just was never that into, I guess, religion. 481 00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:10,000 I've been a Christian my, my whole life, but I wouldn't say that I was like a really religious 482 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:11,000 person. 483 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,840 So I didn't do studies and, you know, that kind of thing. 484 00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:16,440 But he, his skin was a lot darker than what I thought. 485 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:18,280 He looked like an Arab man. 486 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,840 He had beautiful, bluish green eyes. 487 00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:26,400 Like I'd say more green than blue, but like dark blue. 488 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:30,480 I've always said when his eyes looked into my eyes, he looked into my soul. 489 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:32,520 He had a short beard. 490 00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:38,600 He had wavy brown hair, dark brown hair, um, about shoulder length, a little bit past 491 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,720 shoulders and wearing a white robe. 492 00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,120 What does that feel like when he looks into your soul? 493 00:26:45,120 --> 00:26:47,000 Is there any guilt? 494 00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:48,000 No. 495 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,480 It was just, it was all love. 496 00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:55,000 You know, it was just, see, that's another thing that's really hard to explain. 497 00:26:55,000 --> 00:27:00,280 The feeling of love from Jesus was, was overwhelming. 498 00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:04,800 I mean, this, you know, to be honest, I've held it together pretty good on this interview, 499 00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:09,040 but usually I cry because it was so emotional. 500 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:13,360 You know, it was just so overwhelmingly emotional. 501 00:27:13,360 --> 00:27:15,920 If I, if I think about it, I'll start crying again. 502 00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:20,360 My wife came in to see me the next day after surgery and I, I said, I got to tell you what 503 00:27:20,360 --> 00:27:22,760 happened and she said, what? 504 00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:25,480 And I started to tell her and I start crying. 505 00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:26,920 I couldn't even tell her. 506 00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,200 This is my wife. 507 00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:30,200 Same thing happened the next day. 508 00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,560 It took three days before I was able to tell her without crying. 509 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,480 And then I was, you know, fighting back tears, telling her what happened. 510 00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:39,400 And she was just amazed. 511 00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:45,760 And then of course I get home after, after 12 days in the hospital and my best friend 512 00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:51,360 comes over and he sits down and I'd lost 35 pounds in 12 days because of the diet that 513 00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:52,360 they had me on. 514 00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:53,360 I couldn't eat anything. 515 00:27:53,360 --> 00:27:56,160 I was on liquid diet for about a week. 516 00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:01,080 He says, you know, my wife told him that something happened and he wanted to hear about it. 517 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,760 He comes over and I start crying and he's sitting next to me. 518 00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:06,040 He's a touchy feely guy. 519 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:10,360 He leans over and he's holding my hand and he goes, come on, you can tell me, you can 520 00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:11,360 tell me. 521 00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:12,360 And we're both crying. 522 00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:18,440 It was just that feeling from Jesus was really overwhelming. 523 00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:19,560 How did your wife react? 524 00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,000 Did she believe it? 525 00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:22,520 She believed me. 526 00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:23,520 She cried. 527 00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:28,960 There were some things going on in her life that kept her at a distance, I think from, 528 00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,960 that's probably a whole other story. 529 00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,520 But yeah, she believed me. 530 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:41,200 I've told some people, I've told some pastors of mine about that, the experience. 531 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:45,840 And I could just tell the look in their eye that they didn't believe me. 532 00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:49,200 One pastor just said, wow, that's amazing. 533 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,440 Everybody has a different empathy level. 534 00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:55,480 So I don't know, maybe he, maybe he believed me, maybe he didn't. 535 00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,360 It's tough because I can't change the experience. 536 00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:01,480 So no, you're just saying what happened to you. 537 00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:02,880 Yeah, exactly. 538 00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,320 And you're not trying to infer anything by it or say people should believe this or that 539 00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,480 because of it. 540 00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:10,640 I can tell. 541 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:11,640 They're just sincere. 542 00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:12,880 It's just very matter of fact. 543 00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:14,200 Here's what happened. 544 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,840 The whole thing with clergy fascinates me a little bit because I've heard a lot of people 545 00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:23,440 tell me either what you just did, like, I don't know if they believe me or not. 546 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:29,040 Some have actually been quite negative and said, oh, the devil was showing you something 547 00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:33,160 to deceive you in some way earlier today. 548 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:37,360 And I don't know if this episode is going to come out before or after yours, but earlier 549 00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:43,960 today I was interviewing a priest about his NDE and I asked him a question about this. 550 00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:50,880 And he said, he said his, his leaders, the bishops that he talked to were really good 551 00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:53,880 about it and believed him. 552 00:29:53,880 --> 00:30:01,480 And he actually apologized on behalf of all clergy who have made the mistake of not believing 553 00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,960 their parishioners who have had an experience like this. 554 00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:08,680 Just because they don't understand it well enough. 555 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:15,800 And he's, and he kind of put a call out to, you know, other clergy of, of whatever faith 556 00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:17,480 doesn't matter. 557 00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,740 If this is something that you don't understand, get a little more education. 558 00:30:21,740 --> 00:30:23,240 These people aren't crazy. 559 00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,400 This isn't something of the devil. 560 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:29,940 But above all, we're supposed to support each other, right? 561 00:30:29,940 --> 00:30:34,480 And that starts with, Mike, when you look me in the eye and you're this sincere and 562 00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:37,600 you tell me what happened, I believe you. 563 00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,240 You know, I've shared this story quite a bit. 564 00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:48,240 And the thing that, that I find that a lot of Christians do is, and I've always said 565 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,600 this should be what, what I call an in-house debate. 566 00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:55,080 Don't tear Christians down for something that, that they believe. 567 00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:57,800 Don't tell them, hey, educate yourself, read your Bible. 568 00:30:57,800 --> 00:30:58,880 What's wrong with you? 569 00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:00,800 Look, this happened to me. 570 00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:05,400 I believe that it was Jesus that, that took me and answered a childhood prayer, even though 571 00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,560 it took 40 years to answer. 572 00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:08,560 He still did. 573 00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:09,920 He honored that prayer. 574 00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:16,120 But what'll happen is a lot of times somebody will throw a Bible verse out at me and it's 575 00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,800 taken completely out of context. 576 00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:23,360 The one that I always hear is the Bible says no man has ever seen what God has prepared 577 00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:24,360 for him, something like that. 578 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:26,600 I don't even know the verse exactly. 579 00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:30,920 But it's, it's, it does, it's not even talking about a near death experience. 580 00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:38,160 I mean, Paul, the disciple had what he, what most people believe is a near death experience. 581 00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:44,680 You know, when Stephen was stoned to death, it says he looked up and he saw Jesus standing 582 00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:45,680 at the right hand of the father. 583 00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:47,320 He didn't say Jesus was floating. 584 00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,040 He said Jesus was standing there. 585 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:54,560 And so when I had my NDE, I thought, wow, Stephen is describing kind of what I saw too. 586 00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:59,240 It was a physical place and that was just fascinating to me. 587 00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,480 But you know, talk on it. 588 00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:06,120 Christians will throw out some Bible verse and say, I had one lady, when I first wrote 589 00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,640 my book about this, this came out, I don't know, it was 12 years ago. 590 00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:15,800 I think I was doing a book signing and this lady looks at me and she says, when Jesus held 591 00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,600 his hand, did you feel the nail hole in his hand? 592 00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:22,120 And I said, no. 593 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:24,280 I mean, nobody's ever asked me that. 594 00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,960 She says, well, I just don't even believe you then. 595 00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:27,960 And she walked away. 596 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:33,760 She was mad at me because it and I thought, okay, what's the deal with them? 597 00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:38,760 Well then I come, I do a little digging and I find out that they probably didn't put the 598 00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:40,560 nail in his hand. 599 00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:42,000 They put it in his wrist. 600 00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,960 And if you, if you dig into the Roman times, they had, it has to hold your weight. 601 00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,840 The hand would just rip apart in the way they describe their language. 602 00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:53,920 The hand goes up to here. 603 00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:54,920 It's not just the hand. 604 00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,720 This is what we call our hand, but in Roman times, their hand was, I think it ended right 605 00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:00,200 about there. 606 00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:04,360 So I thought, well, I guess that's the way it's going to be. 607 00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,240 Some people will believe and some people won't. 608 00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:08,480 I can't change that. 609 00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:09,760 No, you can't. 610 00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:11,720 And don't take it personally. 611 00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:16,840 Speaking of people in the Bible, and I'm not here to get into a big Bible talk, but the 612 00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:22,240 one person I want to get on this show so badly and I don't know how to do it is Lazarus. 613 00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:23,440 Oh wow. 614 00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,000 He was dead for three days. 615 00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,480 Imagine all the things that he saw and experienced. 616 00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:29,480 Yeah. 617 00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:30,480 Yeah. 618 00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:31,480 Yeah. 619 00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:32,480 No kidding. 620 00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:37,560 Anyway, maybe someday Lazarus, if you're listening, come on buddy. 621 00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,760 How much fear of death do you have now? 622 00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,600 I don't fear death. 623 00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:44,960 I've kind of described death this way. 624 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,080 It's the death is like moving. 625 00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:53,480 I'm not looking forward to the process, but I'm excited about the destination. 626 00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:55,280 It's a great way to put it. 627 00:33:55,280 --> 00:34:01,600 You know, hopefully my death will be quick and or, you know, pass when you're sleeping. 628 00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:02,880 That's the way to go, I think. 629 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:03,880 Yeah. 630 00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:05,280 I think that's a great way to put it. 631 00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:06,280 All right. 632 00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:10,720 We're going to wrap up, but I would love you to leave our listeners with a message of 633 00:34:10,720 --> 00:34:15,920 hope or anything that maybe you've left out that you just would like to share to lift 634 00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,560 somebody up today. 635 00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:23,400 You know, one of the things that happened, I was in the hospital for 12 days and I was 636 00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,960 in a beach town, Ventura's right on the beach. 637 00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:31,440 And the first day I had to get up and walk, you know, walking is huge in the hospital. 638 00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,880 They want you to walk as soon as you can, get everything working again. 639 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:39,600 So I had four different tubes coming out of me that were all hooked up to an IV stand 640 00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:43,240 and one day the nurse comes in and he says, okay, let's go. 641 00:34:43,240 --> 00:34:44,240 You're going to walk today. 642 00:34:44,240 --> 00:34:46,640 This is like the second day. 643 00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:52,440 And he starts walking me down the hall and there was these beautiful pictures of sunsets 644 00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,840 and ocean scenes, you know, it was a beach town. 645 00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,720 So it was oceans, a lot of ocean pictures. 646 00:34:58,720 --> 00:35:03,480 And I just walked by there and I remember thinking, man, what have I been missing? 647 00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:09,640 I had, at the time, I was a superintendent for a real estate development company and 648 00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:13,680 it was my job to go through 30 to 35 houses every day. 649 00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:17,680 I had to walk through every single house, make sure that the contractors were there, 650 00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:20,720 make sure that the guys that had just left did their job, did it right. 651 00:35:20,720 --> 00:35:23,680 It was a really stressful job. 652 00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,440 And I was so stressed out and I was busy with, you know, coaching kids after work. 653 00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:30,080 There was just no time. 654 00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:34,760 It was just one thing after another after another, just super stressful life. 655 00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:39,320 And I remember walking down the hall looking at those pictures and thinking, man, what 656 00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:40,680 have I been missing? 657 00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,480 I'm just racing through the graveyard. 658 00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:45,360 I've got to slow down. 659 00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:51,640 So if anybody, anybody listening is stressed out, take time. 660 00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:52,840 Stop and smell the roses. 661 00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:57,280 It's a stupid cliche, but you wouldn't believe how many times I'm walking through a park. 662 00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:02,600 I live surrounded by a national forest here and there's a trail, there's a creek half 663 00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:04,080 a mile from my house. 664 00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,640 I walk through there and I'll stop and smell every flower. 665 00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:09,520 I'll pick wild blueberries. 666 00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:15,120 I take so many pictures, my iPhone is full of sunset pictures. 667 00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:21,440 I just have to stop and just take in God's beautiful creation. 668 00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,880 Even though it's, you know, we're living under a curse of sin, but there's still so much 669 00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:27,400 beauty out there. 670 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:28,840 Just slow down. 671 00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:30,680 You have made my day better. 672 00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:33,720 Mike, thank you so much for being with me. 673 00:36:33,720 --> 00:36:34,720 Thank you for having me, Eric. 674 00:36:34,720 --> 00:36:38,160 I appreciate it. 675 00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:40,960 Thanks again for listening and sharing this podcast. 676 00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:47,040 Don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button and sign up for our newsletter at roundtriptest.com. 677 00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:51,320 If you want to share your near death experience, or if you have questions or comments about 678 00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:55,880 the show, send an email to eric at roundtriptest.com. 679 00:36:55,880 --> 00:37:24,880 Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.