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90 minutes in heaven

A true story of death and life

Out of this world?

90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN
A true story of death and life
By Don Piper (and Cecil Murphey)
Life Journey/Kingsway. 207 pages. £6.99
ISBN 1 84291 227 5

‘I felt that talking about my ninety minutes in heaven would defile those precious moments. I never doubted or questioned whether my trip to heaven had been real… No, the problem was, I didn’t want to share that powerful experience with anyone’.

Don Piper reminds me at this point of Paul’s wisdom in 2 Corinthians 12.1-5. But whereas Paul does not spill the beans, Don does; however the mere 15 pages he writes about his trip to heaven don’t tell us that much. We will be reunited with Christians who have gone there before us (though curiously they will all be the same age at which we last saw them on earth — though without wrinkles!), there is a lot of light and gold around and some unbelievably wonderful music (but singing, like speaking in heaven, is of course in English!). Don’s death is diagnosed on the absence of a pulse but, in my career, I have encountered several living patients without a pulse — all very ill — but one who was standing having a conversation with me at the time.

What is for certain is that Don had a miraculous recovery from a horrific car accident and that God is using his testimony to touch many lives. The book has some very moving accounts of his depression and psychological adjustment to repeated major surgery and continuing disability and for that it is well worth reading. I rather wish he and his publishers had left it there and called the book ‘105 Days In Intensive Care’ but then it would not sell as many copies, would it?

Dr. Trevor Stammers
is a GP in SW London