From What You Take To Heaven:

A “jolt” is often required to set us straight, while still on this earth.

There is the famous account of the dentist from Bogota, Colombia, named Dr. Gloria Polo, who met death after she was struck by lightning on May 5, 1995.

At first, upon rising from her horribly scarred body, she was allowed to glimpse Heaven.

But soon after, she saw purgatory and hell and went through her “judgment”:  shown how arrogant she had been, how attached to money, how lustful, how critical, how obsessed with her physique, how mesmerized by astrology, how errant in having an abortion and even funding the abortions of younger women.

“I saw the reality of my life, and felt much sadness,” wrote Gloria, in Struck By Lightning.

“I had left my home determined to conquer the world, but at what a price! I put my home and my children in second place. I always used to say: if I have beautiful breasts, it is to show them; why hide them? I said the same thing about my legs because I knew I had spectacular legs and nice abdominal muscles. But in an instant, I saw with horror how my whole life had been only a continual and useless care of the body. This was the center of my life: love for my body.

“And now I no longer had one! The Lord said to me: ‘What did you do with the talents I gave you?’ Talents? [Treasures?]

“I came into the world with a mission: that of defending the reign of love. We all have a mission in this world. I saw how the devil is very worried, because the talents that God has placed in us are at the service of the Lord. All of us are worth very much to God. He loves all of us, and each one in a particular way. We all have a mission in this world. But I forgot that I had a soul. I forgot even more to be in the merciful Hands of God. I did not even know that all the good that I had neglected to do had caused much sorrow to Our Lord.”

After the beatific vision—after seeing the crystal lakes of Heaven, the structures, the sparkling purity—Dr. Polo found herself in that hideous netherworld of tunnels. She was shown people she had encountered and then quickly had ignored, people she had been meant to help. She was shown how she had analyzed everything from the aspect of money.

Now, her “pockets” had nothing in them. “Spiritual treasures?” she lamented. “My hands were empty!” It was just her with the Lord and the Book of Life. 

When a Baptist army veteran from Michigan named Marvin J. Besteman went to the threshold of eternity after pancreatic surgery, it was literally that: an entrance, past which were likewise the volumes of life. As Besteman, a banker, pointed out, the New Testament mentions the “Book of Life” seven times in the Book of Revelation, which, like near-death visions depicts streets of “pure gold, as it were, transparent glass” (21:18) and light (“the glory of God”) infusing and emanating from all things. The dead are judged, says Revelation 20:11-12, “according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”

To hear him tell it: 

“When I got inside the massive doorway into Heaven, there was an area I can best describe as an inner gate. It was like the ones we read about in Scripture, like the ancient gates that still exist in some parts of the world that have been inhabited for many centuries.

“As my eyes swept from the left to the right, I saw a long shelf that extended about ten to twelve feet in either direction before sort of fading away in a kind of haze or mist. Piled on top of this shelf or table made of stones were books upon books upon books, stacked up three to four books high, all along the surface both left and right.

“The books stacked on top were about as thick as the Grand Rapids phone book, about two and a half inches. They were bound in what appeared to be ancient black cowhide, worn and antiqued, yet not falling apart at the seams. Like the stones, the books had the patina of ancient day, yet I knew somehow they were stronger and longer-wearing than any books on earth. I can’t tell you what language the book was written in, whether it was English, Aramaic, or some celestial language only written and read in Heaven.”

Eye has not seen!

Oh, upon passing: the realities we will now fully appreciate and the endless wonders of a wonderful God.

[resources: What You Take To Heaven]