A glimpse of Eternity....

As I stood there........ questions began racing through my heart;
“Is this just a force, as the Buddhists say, or karma or Yin and Yang?

Is this just some innate power or energy source.... or could there actually be someone standing in there?”

I was still questioning it all.

As I thought these thoughts...... a voice spoke to me, from the centre of the light.

It was the same voice that I had heard earlier in the evening.

The voice said, “Ian, do you wish to return?”
I was shaken to learn that there was someone in the centre of the light......... and whoever it was knew my name.

It was as though the person could hear my inner thoughts as speech.

I then thought to myself “Return.......return – to where?

Where am I?”

Quickly looking behind me I could see the tunnel dissipating back into darkness.

I thought I must be in my hospital bed dreaming............. and I closed my eyes.

“Is this real?

Am I actually standing here......me.... Ian..... standing in real life.... here......is this real?”

Then the Lord spoke again. “Do you wish to return?”

I replied “If I am out of my body I don’t know where I am......I wish to return.”

The response was “If you wish to return Ian, you must see in a new light.”

The moment I heard the words “see in a new light,” something clicked.

I remembered being given a Christmas card, which said, “Jesus is the light of the world”, and

“God is light and there is no darkness in him.”

I had meditated upon those words at that time.

I’d just come from darkness, and there was certainly no darkness here. I realised then that the light could be coming from God, and if it was – then what was I doing here? I didn’t deserve to be here.
to be cont'd....
Bless you Yaddy

A glimspe of Eternity......

THE LIGHT

For God, who said,
“Let there be light in the darkness,”
has made us understand that this light
is the brightness of the glory of God
that is seen in the face of Jesus."
2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV)



As I looked up....... I could see I was being drawn into a large circular shaped opening far above me – a tunnel.

I didn’t want to look behind me in case I fell back into the darkness.

I was very happy to be out of that darkness.

As I entered the tunnel I could see that the source of the light was emanating from the very end of the tunnel.

It looked unspeakably bright, as if it was the centre of the universe.........the source of all light and power.

It was more brilliant than the sun more radiant than any diamond.... brighter than a laser beam light.

Yet you could look right into it.

As I looked...... I was literally drawn to it.....drawn like a moth into the presence of a flame.

I was being pulled through the air at an amazing speed towards the end of the tunnel – towards the source of the light.

As I was being translated through the air, I could see successive waves of thicker intensity light break off the source and start travelling up the tunnel towards me.

The first wave of light gave off an amazing warmth and comfort.

It was as though the light wasn’t just material in nature but was a ‘living light’ that transmitted an emotion.

The light passed into me and filled me with a sense of love and acceptance.
Half way down another wave of light passed into me......This light gave off total and complete peace.

I had looked for many years for ‘peace of mind’ but had only found fleeting moments of it.

At school I had read from Keats to Shakespeare to try and get peace of mind.

I had tried alcohol....I had tried education.....I had tried sport.....I had tried relationships with women....

I had tried drugs.....I tried everything I could think of, to find peace and contentment in my life, and I’d never found it.

Now from the top of my head..... to the base of my feet..... I found myself totally at peace.


My next thought was “I wonder what my body looks like?” In the darkness I hadn’t been able to see my hands in front of my face. I thought “I must be able to see clearly now that I’m in this light.”

As I looked to my right to my amazement there was my arm and hand but I could see straight through them.

I was transparent like a spirit....only, my body was full of the same light that was shining on me from the end of the tunnel. It was as if I was full of light.

The third wave near the end of the tunnel was total joy.

It was so exciting, that I knew, that, what I was about to see, would be the most awesome experience in all my life.


My mind couldn’t even conceive where I was going, and my words couldn’t communicate what I saw.
I came out of the end of the tunnel and seemed to be standing upright before the source of all the light and power.

My whole vision was taken up with this incredible light.

It looked like a white fire..... or a mountain of cut diamonds, sparkling with the most indescribable brilliance.

I immediately thought of it as aura, then as glory. I had seen pictures of Jesus with a little halo or small glow around his face yet this glory was all encompassing, overwhelming, awe inspiring.

Jesus died to rescue us from the place I’d just come from, He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and he is now seated at the right-hand of the Father, and is glorified, surrounded by light and in him there is no darkness.

He is the King of Glory, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords and the King of all the Kings.

I saw at that moment what I believe was the glory of the Lord.

In the Old Testament, Moses went up Mount Sinai for 30 days and he saw the glory of the Lord. He came down and his face shone. Moses face shone so much with the glory of the Lord that he had to put on a veil, so that the people wouldn’t be afraid. He had seen the light of God, the glory of God. Paul was blinded by a glorious light on the road to Damascus, the glory of Jesus. And I was now standing there seeing this incredible light and glory.
to be cont'd
Blessings...
Yaddy

Glimpse of Eternity......

There is no relationship to time in that place.

The people there can't tell what time it is.

They can't tell whether they’ve been there ten minutes, ten years or 10,000 years.

They had no relationship to time.

It was a frightening place.

The Bible says that there are two kingdoms,
the Kingdom of Darkness, which is ruled by Satan, and the Kingdom of Light.

The book of Jude says that the place of darkness was actually prepared for angels that disobeyed God, not for people..... ever.

And...... it was the scariest and the most frightening and the most terrifying place I have ever been in.

I would never wish or hope that even my worst enemy went to hell.

I had no idea how to get out of that place. How do you ever get out of hell?

But I had already prayed, and I was wondering why I'd gone there, because I'd prayed just before I died, and asked God to forgive me for my sins.

I was weeping by now and I literally cried out to God, "Why am I here, I've asked you for forgiveness, why am I here? I've turned my heart to you, why am I here?"

Then a brilliant light shone upon me and literally drew me out of the darkness.

The Bible says that "a great light has shone into darkness, on those walking in the shadow of death and darkness, and has guided their feet into the paths of peace and righteousness".

As I stood there an amazing beam of light pierced through the darkness from above me and shone on my face. This light began to encompass me and a sense of weightlessness overwhelmed me.

I lifted off the ground and begin to ascend up into this brilliant white light, like a speck of dust caught in a beam of sunlight.
to be cont'd
blessings
yaddy

"Love Crucified Arose" by Michael Card

A glimpse of eternity

THE DARKNESS

"Light has come into the world,
but men loved darkness instead of light
because their deeds were evil."
John 3:19 (NIV)

"Many… will be cast into outer darkness,
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 8:12 (NLT)

I knew there was a release..... the battle to stay alive.... seemed to be over.

No one told me what had happened.....no one said, "You just died son."

I didn't know that......
All I knew was, that the battle to try and keep my eyes open and stay alive was over.


I knew I'd gone somewhere.... it wasn't like closing your eyes, and going to sleep.....I knew I'd actually gone somewhere.

For the previous 20 minutes in the hospital I had been feeling like I was floating away......

and yet..... when I closed my eyes......I wasn't floating away - I was gone.


The Bible says in Ecclesiastes,
that when a man dies his spirit returns to God who gave it and his body returns to the dust from which it came.

Well, I knew my spirit had left....I had gone somewhere.....and yet, I didn't know I was dead.

I seemed to arrive in a huge, broad place.....like a cavernous hall of pitch-black darkness......

I was standing up.

It was as if I had woken up from a bad dream in someone else’s house, and was wondering where everyone had gone.

I was trying to find the light switch, and I couldn’t seem to find it.
I wondered why the doctor had turned the lights out.

I was trying to touch something.....reaching for the wall lamp, but I couldn’t find it.

Then I realised I couldn’t find my bed.
I was moving around, but I wasn’t bumping into anything.

I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

It was bitterly cold.....I strained to see where I was.....trying to orient myself to these new surroundings.


I lifted my hand up to find out how much I could see.

I lifted it to where my face was..... and it went straight through where my face should have been.

It was a terrifying experience.

I knew right there and then.....I was myself.... Ian McCormack, standing there, but without a physical body.

I had the sensation.... and the feeling.... that I had a body, but I couldn’t touch it.

I was a spiritual being, and my physical body had died, but I was very much alive.......and very much aware that I had arms and legs and a head......but I could no longer touch them.

(God is a spirit, an invisible spiritual being, and we are created in his image.)


“Where on earth am I?” I thought.

As I was standing there in the darkness......I sensed the most incredible coldness and dread come over me.

Maybe you’ve walked down a lonely street at night, or you’ve come home by yourself in the dark and you feel as though there is someone looking at you.

Ever felt that?

Well I began to sense evil encroaching on me in the darkness.

The darkness seemed invasive.

I knew I was being watched.

A cold encroaching evil seemed to pervade the air around me.

Slowly I became aware that there were other people moving around me.....in the same predicament as I was.

Without my saying a word out loud, they began to answer my thoughts.

From the darkness I heard a voice screaming at me: “Shut up!”

As I backed away from that one.... another yelled at me, “You deserve to be here!”

My arms came up to protect myself and I thought, “Where am I?” and a third voice shouted, “You’re in hell. Now shut up.”

I was terrified....afraid to move.... or breathe.... or speak.

I realised that maybe I did deserve this place.

People sometimes have this strange picture of hell being party time. I used to think that. I thought that in hell you would get to do all the things there that you're not supposed to do on earth.
That is so far from the reality of it. The place I was in was the most frightening place I’ve ever been.
The people there could not do anything that their wicked hearts wanted to do,
they couldn't do anything.

And there's no boasting.

Who could you boast to down there? “Oh yeah, I raped, murdered, plundered, pillaged.” There's nothing to talk about when you know that judgment is coming.
to be cont'd
blessings
Yaddy

A glimpse of Eternity....

A nurse behind me was filling a huge syringe......like a horse syringe.

She was squeezing the air out of it....She tried to stick it in my arm but no vein came up.

So she lifted my skin up, put the needle in and started pushing the liquid in.

It filled up my vein like a small balloon. I could see how nervous she was because the needle was inside the vein and it looked like it was shaking so much that it would tear my vein open.

She left that needle in and someone passed her another needle.

Again.........it blew the vein up.

The nurse looked at the doctor and asked him,.... “Another one?”........ The doctor nodded.

So she tried another one.
the nurse was now trying to massage it in...... but it was rolling..... the vein was actually rolling off her thumb.

She couldn’t get the anti-toxin into the blood, it was just not moving.

My heart was obviously not pumping around enough blood.

My veins were collapsing.

I'd done veterinary science in my degree so I had studied and understood basic physiology and anatomy.

I understood what was going on, but I couldn't do anything about it.

I understood that I was slipping into a comatose state.......I was totally paralysed......and my heart was barely pumping.

As I was watching the needles..........I felt myself slipping further and further away.

I couldn’t communicate any more......I couldn’t say a thing,

but I could still hear everything that was being said about and around me.

I had no idea that what I'd been stung by, was a box jellyfish or a Sea-wasp.

The box jellyfish exudes the second deadliest venom known to man.

Being stung only once has killed up to 60 people in Darwin alone over the last 20 years.

For six months of the year they put up a skull and cross bones sign on the beaches in Darwin to prevent bathers from going into the water to swim. I had enough toxins in me to kill me five times over.

Normally a person dies within fifteen minutes of the initial sting and I didn't have it just on a muscle, I had it right across my veins.

The doctor looked me in the eye and said, “Don't be afraid.” I thought, "Mate, you're more afraid than I am."

I could see the paranoia in his eyes. I was lifted up and put on a bed with my drip feed.

The doctor stood over me sponging my head. The drip feed they had put in my veins was bringing liquid back into my body and I was starting to perspire on my forehead.
The doctor was wiping it from my face, but then he walked off for a few minutes. As I lay there I could feel it dripping into my eyes and it started to blur my vision, it was like tears coming into my eyes.


“I've got to keep my eyes open.” ......I told myself.

I willed the doctor to come back and wipe my face but he didn't return.

I tried to speak, “Doctor come back” but my lips would not move.

I tried to tilt my head but my head wouldn't move.
So I flicked it out with my eyelids..... I squeezed a little out but it was still blurry. I kept squeezing my eyelids shut.

It worked a little, and then all of a sudden I sighed, like a sigh of relief and I knew something had happened.

to be cont'd...
Blessings
Yaddy

A glimpse of eternity.....

THE FINAL RELEASE

"You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate.
The highway to hell is broad and its gate is wide for the many.... who chose the easy way.
But the gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it."
Matthew 7:13,14 (NLT)

The ambulance turned off the road in to the hospital...... Finally I had made it!

The driver lifted me into a wheelchair and ran me through to the emergency area.
Someone took my blood pressure.

As I was sitting there watching the nurse..... she looked at the gauge and then she hit it!
I thought,“What kind of hospital is this?”

It was an old World War Two army hospital. The British had deserted it, and given it to the Creole people.
It still looked like it was built in 1945. It was filthy and decrepit..... and yet there I was.

The nurse hit the gauge again.

I began thinking,“There's nothing wrong with the machine, it's my heart - it’s not pumping.”
She ripped off the gauge and rummaged through the cupboard, trying to find another one that looked newer.

She pulled one out, slapped it on, opened it up and started pumping.

I could see that whatever it was doing it was not registering very much.
She looked at me, and then looked at the machine......My eyes were open, but I knew she was wondering why they were open.
With this kind of blood pressure your eyes shouldn't be open.

I was desperately hanging on......I was hanging on for all I was worth......

I was fighting with all my strength to stay alive.

So the ambulance driver, realising the situation was desperate, ripped the gauge off my arm and ran me through to the doctors.

Two Indian doctors were sitting there, both of them half-asleep, heads down.

"What's your name.... where do you live?" One asked in French,

"How old are you?” He was a young doctor and he didn’t even look at me.
I looked over to the older doctor......
He had a bit of gray hair and I thought, “He's been around for a few years, he might know how to help me.” So I waited.

The young doctor stopped talking and looked up. I didn't even bother looking at him but waited for the old man to lift his head up. He looked up......
I wasn’t sure if I had enough strength left to speak......I locked into his eyes and I gave him the heaviest look I could muster.
I whispered.... "I am about to die, I need anti-toxins right now".
He didn't move......I didn't take my eyes off him,...... he was just staring straight back into them.

The nurse came in with a piece of paper.
The older doctor looked at it.....looked at me......and jumped.

I could see him screw the bit of paper up in disgust, as if to say to the younger doctor, "You foolish idiot, why didn't you look at this young man?"

He jumped up.....pushed the ambulance driver out of the way.....grabbed the wheelchair himself..... and started racing me down the corridor.
I could hear a kind of muffled noise. I could hear him screaming out something but it was muffled to me.

The doctor ran into a room with bottles and medical equipment in it.

Next minute I was surrounded by nurses, doctors and orderlies.
At long last, something was happening.

A nurse turned my arm over and put in a drip feed.

The doctor was up near my face saying, "I don’t know if you can hear me son but we’re going to try and save your life.
Keep your eyes open…come on son, fight the poison. Try and keep awake, we're putting dextrose in for dehydration.”

A nurse jabbed a needle in one side and another nurse was on the other side, jabbing. I couldn’t feel them but I could see them doing it.

The doctor was saying, "Anti-toxins to counteract the poison." in his Oxford English. Another nurse knelt by my feet, slapping my hand as hard as she could. I was thinking, "What is she doing?" But I didn't care, just shove the needles in!
to be cont'd...
blessings...
Yaddy

A glimpse of Eternity....

Now of course her prayers couldn’t save my soul.......she couldn’t get me to heaven.......
but I knew at that moment.......

that I needed to pray.

Only I didn’t know what to pray..... or who to pray to.

Which god should I pray to?.....Buddha,...... Kali,...... Shiva?

There are thousands of them.

Yet...... I didn't see Buddha or Krishna or some other god or man standing there.......

I saw my mother.......and my mother follows Jesus Christ.

I thought, “I haven't prayed for years.......what should I pray?

What do you pray at this point?

What's the prayer if you're about to die?”

Then I remembered that, as a child my mother taught us the ‘Lord's prayer’.

“Our Father who is in heaven,
holy be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as it is in heaven....”

I knew it as a child......I used to race my siblings each night to say it the fastest!

That was the only prayer I knew.

I started to pray it......but I couldn't remember it.

It was as though the poison that had rushed to my head had inhibited my thinking ability.

It was closing my mind down......It was terrifying.......

I had relied so much on my mind and my intellect and now suddenly it was dying on me......Mental blank.....zero.

As I was lying there..... I remember my mother saying that "you don’t pray from your head, you pray from your heart."

So, I said “God I want to pray.....help me.”

As I said that, this prayer literally came up from my inner man.....from my spirit.

I prayed, “Forgive us our sins.” Then I went on..... “God, I ask you to forgive my sins, but I have done so many things wrong. I know they're wrong, my conscience tells me they're wrong. If you can forgive me all my sins, and I don't know how you can do it - I've got no idea how you can forgive them - please forgive me of my sins”.

And I meant it.....I wanted to wipe the slate clean, start again. “God forgive me.”

As I prayed that, I got another part of the prayer. “Forgive those who have sinned against you.”

I understood that that meant I had to forgive those who had hurt me.

I thought, “Well I don't hold grudges. There are heaps of people that have ripped me off and back-stabbed me and said bad things against me and done terrible things to me......I forgive them.”

Then I heard the voice of God say, “Will you forgive the Indian that pushed you out of the car and the Chinese men that wouldn't take you to the hospital?”

I thought, “You must be joking! I had other plans for them!”

But no more of the prayer would come. I knew I was in a catch 22 position. I thought, “Okay, I'll forgive them. If you can forgive me, I can forgive them. I will forgive them. I’ll never lay a hand on them.”

The next part of the prayer came to me, “Your will be done.”

I had done my own thing for the last 20 years.

I said, “God, I don't even know what your will is - I know it's not to do evil things, but I've got no idea what your will is. If I come through this, I will find out your will for my life and I'll do it. I'll make a point of following you whole-heartedly if I come through this”.

I didn't understand it at the time, but that was my prayer for salvation.
Not from my head, but from my heart, asking “God forgive me for my wickedness and evil-doing.

God cleanse me.

I forgive all those that have hurt me.

And Jesus Christ, I'll do your will - Your will be done. I will follow you.” I had prayed the sinner’s prayer, the repentant prayer to God, and praying that prayer was pivotal to everything else that happened to me.

An incredible peace came over my heart. It seemed as though fear fell off me, the fear of what was coming.

I was still dying, I knew that, but I was at peace about it.
I'd made my peace with my Maker.
I knew it, I knew for the first time that I'd touched God and I was actually hearing him.

I'd never heard him before but now I was hearing him speaking to me. No one else could have told me the Lord's Prayer.
to be cont'd
Blessings
yaddy