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Suddenly an amazing thing began. The light at the end of the bed began to grow brighter and brighter. I first thought it was the little night light until I realized it was coming from beside the white bedside table at the head of the bed. It continued to increase in intensity until it seemed to be equal to a million welders' lights. I knew if I had been seeing through my human eyes instead of those of my spiritual body I would have been blinded.

Then three things happened instantaneously. Something deep inside of my spiritual being said, “STAND UP. YOU ARE IN THE PRESENCE OF THE SON OF GOD."

I was suddenly propelled up and off the bed. Out of the brilliant light at the head of the bed stepped the most magnificent Being I have ever known.

The hospital walls disappeared and in the place of them was a living panorama of my entire life where I saw in detail everything I had ever experienced, from my own caesarean birth through my present death.

I still carried the concept that when one died, he/she slept until judgment day when he/she would be judged and then sent to heaven or hell. The experience I was having now had never been mentioned…………….

I had never seen such a being. He was powerfully built even in His spiritual transfigured body, which radiated a brilliant white light.

I thought, "No wonder He could walk through a mob and no one would attack Him, if His physical body was anything like His magnificent spiritual body." In fact He did not look like any of the paintings I had seen of Him in the stained glass windows of the churches where I had been. This was no sweet gentle Jesus, meek, weak or mild. Here stood a robust male who radiated strength.

Due to the brilliant light emitting from this Being it was difficult to make out the color of His hair or eyes but I sensed, more than saw, that He had blue eyes with chestnut-brown hair parted in the middle. He was slightly taller than I, which would place His height at over six feet, two inches. Though He was dressed in a magnificent white robe, his powerful, muscular frame shone through.

He was ageless and yet appeared about thirty-five years of age.

All of the above description is not sufficient to describe the most outstanding thing about Him. Here stood a Being that knew everything I had ever done in my life, for the panorama of my life surrounded us, and yet He totally accepted and loved me. I have never felt such love or compassion. Before He entered the room, I was desperately alone and frightened and could only think about how I could return to my body so I might be able to continue my life on earth. After being in His presence and feeling His love, I never wanted to leave Him again for any reason. Nothing I had, no one I had ever known on earth, could make me want to leave Someone who loved and accepted me like this One.

When He spoke, I heard Him in a way different from anyone else. I heard Him from deep within my own mind - my mind, not my brain - for my human brain, as far as I could understand, was in my head and body lying on the bed, and it still looked just as dead as when I had first come back into the room. The first thought He transferred into my mind was:

"What have you done with your life?"

He asked this question in a Socratic sort of way. Certainly not for information for Himself, since He and I both could see my total life here on this earth. It seemed to me He wanted me to see and review my life. Not as I had seen or thought the circumstances surrounding it to have been but as they actually were.

I could see my birth and the death of my own mother a month later. I could see that I was so tiny my father brought me home in a shoebox he had gotten from my maternal grandfather. A short time later, I could see my sister, Mary Jane, who was almost three years older than I, along with Miss Williams, and my grandparents and father, looking at me in the crib.

As I turned, I could see myself growing through the different stages of my early childhood, learning different things from my family, the kids with whom I played, my teachers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Now the scene was changed and I saw a beautiful young lady about twenty-eight years old coming more often into the picture. She visited weekend after weekend in my grandparents' home. She was a friend of Mary Dabney Coleman, my own mother's sister, who had married my favorite uncle-in-law, Dr. John A. Coleman. It was he and my grandfather's suffering from arthritis that motivated my decision to study medicine. My father was rarely at home because he was always traveling for the C & O Railroad. When he was at home, although he had dated several other ladies, it was evident he was spending more time with this Iady whose name was Mary Skeen. Then I could see their return from Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where they had been married and I was told Mary Skeen was going to be my new mother.

I felt my stepmother was growing to love me until she had her first child, Henry, my half-brother. Then I saw something different from the way I had recalled it. I had been certain Mother was the one who had changed the most, particularly after the birth of my half-sister, Bruce. The picture of my life showed I had grown jealous of my younger siblings and had become sullen. Then Mother had begun to change in her attitude.

I had led a pretty normal teenage life. Sure, I had gone through the usual sexual explorations of childhood and teenage years and these embarrassed me as they flashed into view but they did not shock or surprise my Lord a bit.

I also saw the pictures of my joining the church but this did not carry any more weight in a good direction than the sexual pictures had carried in a bad direction.

Now my attention was called back to Him when He repeated the question. What have you done with your life? I was hoping to divert His attention to what I thought were the outstanding things so He would not notice the times I had done things that I did not want Him to see, like my losing my temper or blaming others for my failures.

In answer to his question I thought, "I was an Eagle Scout." I suddenly made a shocking discovery; He was immediately aware of what I thought and that made it impossible to say one thing and think another as most of us do on this plane of our existence. This new discovery showed me that hypocrisy was impossible.

"That glorified you. What have you done with your life?" He asked for the second time.

"I was president of my college fraternity," I mentally responded.

"What have you done with your life to show Me?"

He was too kind to call to my attention I had been voted president after a lot of my fraternity brothers had been called into service. I knew what He meant, for the question He was really throwing at me was, "What have you done in your life to show the love I taught you to live?"

I hedged again. Had He been at all condemning in His attitude, I would have been petrified with fear. As it was I knew I not only failed if I answered that question truthfully, but my real confusion was that since I had never known this type of love before I met Him, how could I possibly know how to give it out?

"I am too young to die," I thought.

"No one is too young to die, for physical death is only of the body and a temporary doorway to another realm through which you have just passed."

He brought this to a close by shutting off the panorama of my life.