Heaven is for Real

the good
Probably my favorite part of this book was the story of Colton’s ordeal with appendicitis. As soon as the discussion of his condition began that’s where my mind went, and I was still astonished they didn’t question the doctors about the diagnosis more, but that’s a different story.

The telling of this event was heartbreaking. I cried, sitting in the foyer of my church, as I read and experienced the turmoil, heartbreak, and fear the Burpo’s were experiencing as their son lay, essentially dying, in the hospital and they had little clue what was going on, and were completely unable to help or do anything to help their son.

The author(s) also make a good point about childlike humility. They discuss briefly the importance of following Christ with a faith that isn’t unintelligent, but isn’t afraid to ask the questions we want answered. To blurt things out without any tact. To live in that time before we’ve been taught about pride and caring what others think about us. That’s the childlike faith we should all have.

the bad
Unfortunately, that’s about the only thing I liked about the book. The rest of it was poorly written with far more details that necessary. I’m reading a book about your son’s trip to heaven. Don’t tell me about all the bugs in the museum thing you went to. I don’t need to know exactly how big a town is or what it’s claim to fame is. I understand you needed to fill space, but maybe you should have made the stories from Colton lengthier than your own. It is a book about him after all, is it not?

For a book about a young boy’s journey to heaven, very little is about that. I ended up skipping over half the book because it just seemed irrelevant to me. And even the parts that were about Colton’s journey to heaven were portrayed in a Q&A format where Todd would ask Colton a question and then Colton would answer. I wanted to hear a narrative about his trip to heaven, not just get sporadic questions answered throughout the book.

Also, minor note, why do you need someone else to help you write a book about your story and your son? I feel uncomfortable about the fact that someone outside the family contributed to this book. What’s more, there’s no indication of what parts this person helped with so they could have completely made up parts of it to make it a better story (spoiler- it’s still not very good.)

final thoughts
I’ll be honest, I bought this book only because it was on sale for like $2. Otherwise I would have passed it up entirely. I then saw an article on Facebook about a boy who’s book recalling his journey to heaven had recanted. I was very intrigued to read the book. I wanted to read this book before I dug into the details of the child recanting his statement.

Well, as it turns out, there was another book entirely about a child going to heaven that is made up, and Colton is standing by his trip and book. I, however, do not believe it. In the articles I’ve read about these very types of books they keep saying one thing- all the stories are too different. If all these people are visiting heaven, then why won’t their stories match up? Further, why don’t they match up with what we know in the Scriptures about heaven?

The biggest contention I have with Colton’s story is that he said Christ still had his scars. I firmly believe that this is completely impossible. God is restoring and redeeming everything. That includes Christ. Christ, who is the first fruit of the redeemed, cannot be fully redeemed if he still has physical scars from his resurrection. I’ve talked about this before. Had I been Colton’s father I would have discredited his story at that very moment.

So what do I think happened? I believe that Colton had a dream about visiting heaven. This accounts for the things that fit and things that don’t fit with what we know of heaven. Our dreams can be crazy places where we’re trying to make sense of everything we’ve taken in.