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Love is the Link – Dr Pamela Kircher

The year was 1950. A six-year-old girl dressed for a Halloween party in her small middle-class home in Missouri. As she put on her costume, her throat was beginning to hurt. She hurried on to the party anyway, expecting much fun.

As she began bobbing for apples at the party, her throat was hurting so much that it was difficult to open her mouth. She stayed until the party was over, but felt worse with each passing moment.

During the night, she began developing a headache. By the next morning, she could barely swallow because of the pain.

At church that morning, she developed new symptoms. She stood to say the Lord's Prayer with her eyes shut, and found herself unsteady on her feet. She could no longer keep her balance. As the day wore on, the headache extended into a neck ache as well and her neck became quite stiff.

Throughout the night, the pain was so intense that sleep was impossible. The little girl and her mother both stayed up all night, waiting for the morning when she would be taken to the doctor. As her hair was brushed that morning, the slightest movement of her neck was excruciatingly painful. The hair was very tangled after a night of tossing and turning, and the task of brushing it was difficult.

As soon as the doctor saw her, he was very alarmed: A leaking abscess around the tonsils had led to meningitis. He gave her an injection of penicillin and told her mother that she would either live or die, but that nothing more could be done-except to be very careful that she didn't jolt the abscess and cause it to leak more.

The frightened young mother carried her daughter into the house, with great care not to jar the abscess, and put her to bed.

The next thing the little girl experienced was suddenly, inexplicably, being in the corner of the room near the ceiling and looking down at a little girl in the bed. She was not surprised or frightened, even though nothing in her solid Midwest background had prepared her for an out-of-body experience.

She was totally without pain and in perfect peace. She had the strong sense that she was surrounded by God. She did not feel like a boy or a girl or a child or an adult. She experienced the essence of herself-the soul that had existed before she came into her body and that would exist when this life was over. She felt strong and peaceful and totally connected with God.

Looking down at the little girl in the bed, she was aware of the girl's pain and felt compassion for her. As she further contemplated the situation, she realized that she must be that girl, and then the experience ended.