"My name is Crystal McVea, and in 2009 I died and went to heaven.
"How is that for an icebreaker?
"I am sharing that story with you, in this book. I knew God's plan for me was to share what happened with as many people as I could. Now, are there people out there who will think I'm a fraud, or a religious nut, or crazy? I'm sure there are. The truth is, I know my story is hard for some people to believe. I know what I went through is beyond the realm of what we can experience on Earth. But I also know that this book deals with the biggest and most important question of them all: Does God exist? Is there a heaven? What is God's plan for us? Why are we even here?
"I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers. In fact, I still have plenty of questions. Nor am I claiming to be anyone special. But what happened to me did happen, and now I know - after a lifetime of not knowing - that God does exist. He gloriously, beautifully, wonderfully does exist.
"And since God told me to share my whole story, that is what I'm doing - even though much of my story is painful and not always pretty. You will learn as you get deeper into this book that for most of my life I lived with terrible shame and horrible secrets. For the longest time I hated myself and believed I was worthless, and as a result made so many bad choices.
"But it's important to realize who I was in order to understand who I became. Some of what I describe about my time in heaven may be familiar to you from other accounts of people dying and coming back - the quality of the light, the shimmering entranceway, the presence of angels - but some of it probably isn't. Everything I describe is absolutely, 100 percent how I remember it - that has always been my one and only rule for sharing my testimony. Nothing is embellished or exaggerated even the tiniest bit. What I describe is what I experienced, nothing more or less.
"What I can say is that the things God showed me were simply astonishing in their power and impact, and now the reality of God's presence bursts forth from my heart every day. The truth is, I was more alive in those nine minutes than I have ever been in all my years on this Earth. I can only hope that through my descriptions, however inadequate they may be, you will feel even a fraction of the power and the impact and the absolute glory of what I experienced." (pg 4-5).
In the book, Waking Up In Heaven, author Crystal McVea shares her experience not only of her incredible nine minutes in heaven standing alongside God, but also the testimony of her entire life before and after that moment. It is painful to know and read how her childhood was and how often times, these things go on right next door and we never know it's going on. The people we may interact with may have stories similar to Crystals but we can never know unless we are willing to get to know them more and have them peel back the layers of shame and pain to reveal the person they really are on the inside. The book toggles back and forth between the moments of Crystal's experience in Heaven with chronologically walking with her from her childhood to the present through the chapters.
I received Waking Up In Heaven by Crystal McVea and Alex Tresniowski compliments of Howard Books, a division of Simon and Schuster Publisher for my honest review and received no monetary compensation for a favorable review. I was excited to read this book because it's not just another book about a person's experience of dealing with a life after death encounter, but also incorporates a memoir of Crystal's life. It's not always easy to hear stories that aren't the happily ever after fairy tales, but then again, most our us have stories in our own closets we aren't willing to let anyone see. I applaud Crystal for taking the step to share her life story as well as her after life story with readers. The time she shares of her heavenly experience is one I have always imagined it would be. Difficult to capture in words that pale in their description in human terms and one is which I look forward to sharing in one day. I rate this book a 5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it to anyone who questions if God exists and what Heaven will be like!
For more information about Waking Up In Heaven, Crystal McVea or where to pick up a copy of this book today, please click on the links below:
Video clip of Crystal McVea's testimony.
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