Spiritual Experience and Encounter with Jesus

And then I thought to myself, "Did I die?"

Then I thought, "You know, I've heard of people when they die,

they see

themselves floating up above their body." And I thought, "Well, I didn't do that,

so I must not be dead. But what's going on?"

It wasn't like it was a dream. It was like heightened

reality,

and it started right when Jesus stood there.

Everything was different.

His skin was much darker than I'd seen as a kid.

He almost looked like an Arab man.

He was wearing a white robe.

He had, like, wavy brown hair,

and he had these dark

greenish blue eyes.

And

when those eyes looked into my eyes, he looked into my soul.

I could just feel this love emanating from this

man.

That was what convinced me that it was Jesus.

Everything about him just radiated love.

He holds out his hand and he says, "I wanna answer your prayer."

And I'm thinking, "My prayer? What the heck?"

I didn't make the connection right away, but I

thought, "I used to pray as a kid that Jesus would show

me heaven."

I remember when my grandfather passed away, and he was a Catholic,

so we went to his funeral, and there was a priest up there, and he

was holding this

ball on a chain, and it had holes in it, and there was smoke coming out of it.

And the smoke's going up, and the priest says, "The

smoke represents our prayers going up to heaven."

They were talking about, "Grandpa's in heaven now. He's--

There's no more pain.

There's no sadness. There's no tears."

And I remember thinking as a kid-