Book Review: To Heaven and Back

Mary C. Neal, MD, is an orthopaedic surgeon who writes of her experience dying, going to heaven and then being sent back to her body to resume her life's purpose here on earth.  In 1999, while kayaking on a river in South America, Neal's kayak became wedged under a waterfall where she was submerged beneath the water for at least 15 minutes.  Eventually, her legs broke (bending her knees in the opposite direction) in order to allow her body to exit the kayak.  When she appeared bobbing in the water, her fellow boaters pulled her from the water and began to attempt to revive her.  Their efforts resulted in sporadic breaths and further silence, until eventually she regained normal breathing and returned to them.  At that point, two individuals (who were later unable to be identified or located) led the rescuers out of the terrain and to a road where an ambulance happened to be standing.

Dr. Neal recognizes her experience as miraculous and credits God with determining that she still had unfinished business on earth to attend to.  Her tale bears similarities to the stories given by Colton Burpo in Heaven is for Real and Don Piper in 90 Minutes in Heaven.  Like Colton's experience, heaven is dazzling beyond comprehension.  Like Piper's experience, Dr. Neal went through a period of depression upon returning to this physical plane and would have preferred to remain in heaven instead of being required to continue living.  Moreover, she doesn't really provide more than a brief glimpse of heaven.

I don't know why I've been drawn to these kinds of books lately, but I did enjoy reading of her experience. I agreed with her assertion that God is interested in our maintaining joy despite our circumstances and that His presence in our lives is more important than any other thing we experience or encounter.  It was a very well-written book (perhaps better written than the other two mentioned books).

Once again, though, I feel it necessary to indicate that I don't really require evidence from someone else to affirm my belief in an afterlife with Jesus in heaven or in the existence of angels who assist God by intervening in our lives at certain moments in time.  So, while I enjoyed reading of Dr. Neal's experience and her interpretation of what occurred in her life, my beliefs are firm with or without her testimony.  Many of the naysayers to books affirming the existence of heaven, likewise, start out with their own firm beliefs and will not be persuaded to alter their perspective based on the story of an individual who sees the miraculous in a common life.  Still, this book would be a comfort to any believing Christian who has recently lost a loved or is facing a terminal illness.