What Happens When We Die?

[This is part 1 of a vision described in lessons 6 to 12]

I want to preface what I am about to share with a bit of a disclaimer. The Lord gave me a very unusual vision about dieing and Heaven. That had been a very private and cherished thing for me, and I was surprised when God asked me to share it in this teaching. This vision is not your "typical" vision, and some things in here may press your theology a little. (I know it pressed mine when I received the vision.) Quite frankly, I am not sure if I would have accepted all of what God showed me if I was reading someone else's write-up of their vision. So if there are parts of this that press your theology, I totally understand. Please do not think of this as a prophetic word, because it is not. I am just sharing with you a personal experience that the Lord gave personally to me. This is not intended as any sort of prophecy about dieing or Heaven.

As I said in lesson 1, I had been asking God what it was like to die and to go to Heaven to be with Him. I think I either expected Him to discuss it with me academically or perhaps to send an angel to tell me a bit about what Heaven was like. But God had other plans.

One morning I was praying and I asked God what it will be like to die. He said, "Here, Teresa, let me show you."

When He said that, I got scared. Had I pestered Him one time too many and He finally got tired of it? Was He really going to kill me off right then? Suddenly I was not all that interested in experiencing Heaven, not if it required that I literally die right then. I did not think that all my work on earth was done and I really did not want to die (for real) at that moment. I tried to explain all that to the Lord. Of course, He already knew my thoughts...He knows everything.

I think God had a good chuckle at my expense. Then He told me to relax. He said, "Teresa, I am going to give you a vision of what it would be like to die, but it is only a vision and not the real thing for you."

That was a big relief! God continued, "There are many different scenarios that a believer can die under. I am going to give you one that is not how you will really die when your time comes. This scenario will be what it is like to die in the hospital of a terminal disease."

(Yes, I know, that sounds weird. I thought it sounded weird too.)

"You mean, God, that we are going to pretend that I died?"

"Not exactly. I am not going to pretend that you died, I very much know you are still alive because I hold your life in the palm of My hand. But I am going to allow you to experience what it would be like to die, and what will happen to you afterwards."

The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital room laying in a bed. All sorts of medical equipment was hooked up to me, making funny little bleeping sounds. I felt physically uncomfortable but not in any real physical pain. I felt very groggy and was having trouble focusing on my surroundings, so I asked God about it.

"Teresa, that is pain medication making you groggy. In this scenario, you have brain cancer and you are being treated for it in the hospital."

[I want you to know that I had a theological problem with this, so much so that I began to wonder whether or not what I was experiencing was really from God. Was I going off the deep end? Could I be opening myself up to demonic influence, or was this really God?]

I felt afraid and I tried to do my best to block out all of my surroundings, and I started to pray fervently to God to come and help me with this. I told Him that I had to know it was really from Him before I opened myself up to this. I told Him that I did not want to fall into error or open myself up to the enemy's influence. I asked God to either confirm that it was Him or to correct me if I was doing something He wasn't doing. I was praying pretty frantically and repeating a few sentence to God over and over again.

God was merciful to take me momentarily out of the vision and speak to me. I became aware that I was once again sitting on my sofa in the living room, where I had been praying when the vision started. I still had my eyes closed. You know how you can sort of see a bright light through your eyelids even when they are closed? That was happening with me. I did not know if the light was just a natural light on in the room or if it was some sort of angelic presence. I did not really want to find out, because I was feeling very uncomfortable about what was happening. So I kept my eyes closed.

Right then, this thought came strongly into my mind, "Peace, Daughter."

As soon as I heard that thought, His peace began to pour over me and I was aware of His presence. It was that same wonderful presence that I have experienced so many times in prayer and worship. It took two or three minutes for me to be able to relax into it.

God did not say anything else to me until I was in that place of peace and all of the franticness had left me. Then He reminded me of the covenant that I have with God the Father. The covenant goes something like this: God's part is to lovingly and faithfully correct me any time I wander off the path, and to steer me back to the center of His will. My part is to trust Him to do that and to step out in faith and obey Him however I believe He is leading me.

"Do you know what you are telling Me right now, Teresa? You are telling Me that you don't trust Me, that you don't think I would be faithful to correct you if this vision was not really Me. That hurts My feelings."

I felt terrible when He said that. I knew He was right. I apologized to Him. I knew it was a pattern I feel into over and over again of wanting to double-check and triple-check my hearing at times when I really should be trusting God to correct me if I was going the wrong direction.

But this was still too weird for me, and I was still struggling with it. I wanted to just have faith, but a part of me was pretty sure that God would not do something like this. "So where do we go from here, Lord?"

"Ok, Teresa, I want you to pray to all three members of the Trinity. Tell each of Us what is going on and how you feel about it and ask Us to stop you if this is not really Us taking you into this vision. If you get any clear direction from those prayers, then obey it. Otherwise, I want you to choose to trust Me and go with this. Can you do that Teresa?"

Yes, I could. I spent a good long time praying--first to the Father, then to the Holy Spirit and finally to Jesus. I told them how I wanted to trust God and I also did not want to fall into any error and I did not know how to find the right balance of those two things in this very unusual vision. I asked God to please come and show me if it wasn't really Him. I won't go into all the specific details of the prayer, but by the end of the time I spent praying to God about this, I felt this inner certainty that this unusual vision really was from God. I decided to trust Him and go with it.

God made one more comment to me before taking me back into the vision. He said, "Good choice Teresa. I would not force you into this but you would have seriously missed out if you had refused to go here with Me."

You know, that is a very God-type of thing to say. Most of the time He does not force us to do His will, He merely lays choices before us and hopes we will trust Him and choose His will. His saying that to me really helped me not to feel so "weirded out" by the idea of "dieing" in a vision.