"I BELIEVE...I BELIEVE"

 WORLD-CLASS HEART ATTACK

AMENDED Aug 5, 2010:

My friend and I have had many conversations through the years about God (he had been "trying"!) Yesterday he did ask me why I thought he lived through this.

I told him, his story--if he chose to share it--could help many Peeps "Come to believe", or reinforce the faith of others, or be a special consolation to those who are confident in our knowledge of a "Power greater than ME".
-S

"...DO YOU BELIEVE???"

My friend I talked to this morning for the first time in over a year. He plays 'cello. I play violin. Together with a flautist, we have played many weddings, maybe hundreds. over a period of 25 years.

He is an Atheist, for all of his 87 years, until March 4, 2010 at 3 AM.

That afternoon of March 3, my friend felt his heart beating like a pile driver, but did nothing at that time. In bed for the night, he felt all the symptoms of a heart attack. 20 minutes later in Naples Community Hospital, he was being worked over by a nurse, who saw his Blood Pressure drop to 30 (I guess that's low!). She called for help. Four nurses were working on him. He could hear them mumbling to one another, "This guy is a goner", "He's not going to make it", "Should we stop now, or hold on for a while longer?"

All this time, my friend was in a tunnel, and the proverbial--NOT!--white light shown SO brightly, as to hurt his eyes. He did see at the far end lots of hands, human hands which were calling to him. They seemed to him as caring, loving, gentle, and VERY HAPPY Peeps, but only the hands did he see, and feel, as they pulled at him, kept pulling him forward.

This same time, the nurses behind were "pulling" him back...he said "No, no. I don't want to go back. I want to go to that peaceful, resting place up ahead."

The nurses won out, he revived, endured  surgeries, and that was March 4, 2010. He is now alive and eating, and exercising, and calling friends who did not even know what had occurred.

He told me--this Atheist of 87 years said, "Steve, from that moment, I knew, I KNEW there is a God running things, a Loving, Giving, Creator, who "knows" each of us. I became a believer, immediately from my experience. I have joined a congregation, and I'm an active participant (he is Jewish) and I have nothing left but gratitude for the God who let me live a while longer. I was SO close to death,and I "SAW" heaven right there up ahead...."

As we hung up the phones, goose bumps were still plying their invasiveness on my skin--all over. I shiver now, as I write this. Shiver in excitement of all that is, was, and will be--whatever that is. I shiver in the JOY of knowing that we are not automatically in that "hand-basket". And may that same God bless us all, all who are here, and elsewhere.
--steveroni