Congratulations, Dale,
I thought.
You’ve got yourself a real winner this time.
I wondered whether I would have to put up with this all night.
Then, unexpectedly, the gentlest of thoughts came into my mind. I began to wonder about this man, his life, where he was spiritually. I wondered why he was so angry. An overwhelming love for him came over me and I felt compelled to speak to him. I prayed silently for him. Then I maneuvered myself out of bed, let go of the railing, and hopped across the room. I grabbed the curtain that separated us and wiggled it.
“Hello, sir,” I said. “What’s your name?”
The pause stretched for what seemed an eternity. Then he spoke, his words bristling with irritation.
“Name’s Green. Joel Green.”
“Well, my name is Dale Black, Mr. Green. I guess we’ll be sharing the same room. Nice to meet you.”
He pulled back the curtain. A leathery, saddlebag of a face glared at me. “What are you in the hospital for? You’re just a kid.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t know if you remember a plane crash back in July . . .”
I went on to give him the short version of the story. He did, in fact, recall hearing about it on the news. And he recalled one of the headlines in the newspaper: “Fate? Coincidence? or Cruel Irony?” We talked about the aircraft, about the monument, and about the miracle of my surviving. And then I just blurted it out . . .
“Mr. Green, do you know Jesus Christ? He’s the reason I’m alive. He has given me joy like I never knew before. I have purpose in my life now, Mr. Green. Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”
He looked away. No answer.
“Mr. Green, do you know about the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ?”
Silence. Then a softening of the face. Then tears. Lots and lots of tears. At last he spoke.
“I’m a minister’s son.” His voice trembled. “I’m seventy-seven years old, and I’ve been running from God all my life.” He sniffed in the emotion and said with sadness in his voice, “It’s too late for me now, Dale.”
“It’s never too late, Mr. Green. It’s never too late to allow God to take your life and turn it into something beautiful. God’s time is now. Let’s get forgiveness for the past mistakes. God says in His Word that when you ask Him to forgive you, your sins are thrown away, as far as the east is from the west. In other words, He forgets them! It’s great, Mr. Green. Give God your life now and you’ll forever be glad you did.”
Again, silence. I wondered about his reaction, wondered if I had been too bold, too brash. But the love I had for him was overwhelming, just like the love I had for people the first week after the crash. A lot was at stake, I thought.
Everything
was at stake.
At last, I spoke again: “Mr. Green, would you like to pray to God now and ask Him to forgive you?”
Again, silence. Then softly, “I, eh . . . I’d like that.”
Mr. Green didn’t quite know what to say, I sensed that. I also sensed that the walls of bitterness were coming down. I wasn’t quite sure what to do next, what to say, or how to say it. I wasn’t experienced at things like this.
“Just repeat after me, Mr. Green.”
He nodded, and I just relaxed and tried not to get in the way of what God wanted to do.
“Dear God.” He repeated after me. “I’m sorry I’ve been running away from You.” And he repeated that too. “I should have been running
to
You.” He continued, word for word. “Lord, I’m a sinner, and I’m tired of running.”
As soon as those words came from his mouth, he broke down and wept, then sobbed. I waited until the tears ran their course.
“Father,” I said.
“Father,” he said.
“Thank You for Your unending love.”
“Thank You for Your unending love.”
“And for sending Your Son to die on the cross for me.”
“And for sending Your Son to die on the cross for me.”
“I invite Jesus into my life right now.”
“I invite Jesus into my life right now.”
“Take over the controls of my life.”
“Take over the controls of my life.”
“Thank You, God. Amen.”
“Thank You, God. Amen.”
He dried his tears, thanked me, and we talked awhile until the nurse came to check on him. I could tell by how he treated her that he was a changed man. The nurse could tell too. He was polite and gentle with her. And with me. After she left, he told me to call him by his first name. “Joel,” he reminded me. We talked into the night and became friends. More than friends . . . buddies.
Bright and early in the morning I was prepped for surgery. Joel’s side of the room was quiet, and I didn’t disturb him. I was wheeled away. The last thing I remember is the nurse giving me a needle in the hip, and my words, which this nurse was used to hearing from me: “Carol, did I tell you that this is my last surgery?” She smiled. The smiled blurred. And I was out.
“Wake up, Dale! Dale, wake up!” Dr. Graham was patting me firmly on the face. When at last I opened my eyes, he was smiling down at me. “Dale, listen! I can hardly believe it! There was no deterioration in your shoulder muscles at all. I had little to do but shorten the muscles. They were healthier than I could ever have imagined.” The doctor was so excited he couldn’t contain himself. “I think you may eventually have up to 45 degrees mobility out of that shoulder. I can hardly believe it!”
“No, Doc,” I managed to say in my groggy state. “My . . . God . . . is a God . . . of completeness. . . . He
will
. . . restore my shoulder. I’ll be able to lift my arm over my head someday. You watch. You’ll see.”
When I was finally wheeled back to my room, I added my shoulder to the list of wonders that God had performed in my life.
A nurse came in to fluff my pillow and pull a blanket over me. I glanced over to say hello to Joel. His bed was empty.
“Hey, where’s my buddy?” I asked, motioning to the other side of the room.
The nurse shook her head. “Joel’s gone, Dale. I’m sorry. He died early this morning.”
I was stunned. My breath left me. My thoughts left me. Then it hit me. Joel was in heaven. And I wasn’t sad. I vowed then and there never to be timid about sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ again.
Suddenly I realized another reason why I was in the hospital. I thought of how intricate and complete God’s love truly is.
It wasn’t just for me and my shoulder.
It was also for Joel.
13
FROM HORRIFIC TO HEAVENLY
In March 1970, I re-enrolled
at Pasadena College, attending classes during the day. It was there in the dorm, around 2 a.m. on the sixteenth that I awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. The dream was so vivid that for several seconds I thought it was real. I was in the cockpit of the Navajo just as it slammed into the monument at an incredible speed. I was hurled through the air, falling several stories to the ground. My arms whirled violently in circles, trying to keep my balance so I would land on my feet. Before hitting the ground, I woke up.
I had had this dream before—probably a hundred times. This time it was different. This time I felt it. I heard it, I smelled it, and I tasted it. The noise of the crash hurt my ears. The smell of burning oil filled my nostrils. The heat from the engines burned my flesh, and the taste of concrete filled my mouth. It was all so real. I was actually trying to spit pieces of concrete and marble from my mouth as I woke up. The smell lingered in my nose.
I lay in my bed, terrified. I sat up and looked across the room at my roommate to see if the sound of the crash had wakened him, but he was fast asleep. I had to get up. I had to get out of there. It was too intense.
I put on a heavy jacket, got my crutches, and maneuvered myself to the nearby football field. When I reached the 50-yard line, I put down my crutches and eased onto my back. Looking up at the stars, I paused to catch my breath. The starry sky seemed so immense, the glittering wonder of it all blinking down on me. This time, though, was different from the other times I had gone there to process my life. This time it felt as if God were reaching down to me, trying to speak through the silence.
I had prayed so long for God to restore my memory. Was He at last beginning to answer that prayer? It felt like He was. And part of it felt reassuring. Another part felt unsettling. The crash had been horrific. And every cell within me, every space between the cells, had experienced the trauma. My body had become a projectile, traveling at 135 mph, and then stopping suddenly. Abruptly. Violently. And after the initial impact there was another—the seventy-foot free fall to the ground.
Nothing more came that night.
The next night, though, in the very same bed, more of my memory came back to me. I had been asleep and woke up with a start. Sitting up, I remembered some of the names of the people who had come by the hospital, names I had forgotten. My memory was coming back in fragments. I couldn’t control when they came, how many came, or in what order they came.
The third night I remembered loading the plane the day of the crash. I recalled that we had performed two engine run-ups that day. I remembered the sound of the engines screaming at high rpms with the propellers out of sync. I remembered Chuck yelling at the last moment while trying to correct the erratic pitch of the plane.
When the memories started coming back, they came back with a heightened sense of awareness. I felt the bumps in the ambulance ride, for instance. I heard the desperate wail of the siren. I smelled aviation fuel everywhere. In the ambulance, the smell of fuel was almost suffocating.
I saw myself inside the ambulance. Then suddenly, I was outside the ambulance, chasing it. Chasing it for what seemed forever. I remember the stark terror I felt on that ride. It was too much for me. It was just too much.
The fourth night I couldn’t sleep for fear of what I would remember. I called my parents, telling them I needed to talk. I was so overwhelmed by the horror of the memories that I didn’t know what to do. We arranged to meet at a restaurant near the college, but during the time it took for them to make the drive, I had second thoughts. The memories were too raw, I was too fragile to recount them, and I wasn’t sure they could help anyway. By the time they arrived, I decided not to share any of it.
On the fifth night the memories returned. This time they were stronger. This time I was leaving my body and floating just below the ceiling in the emergency room. I hadn’t remembered it at the time it happened. I remembered it now. And in vivid detail.
Now it was clear these were not dreams, because they were now coming to me while I was wide awake.
During the following week I remembered something so amazing it took my breath away. Images of heaven started coming back. Images and sounds. Sounds and feelings. In the order that they happened. And in intricate detail.
Before the crash I had thought of myself as a realist and a pragmatist, much like my father. I loved science and statistics and things you could touch, hold, quantify, and contain. So my initial reaction to my journey to heaven was one of questioning. But in my heart there was no doubt about it. Whether I liked it or not, the memories were real, and they continued to pour back.
Finally everything started making sense. So many questions were answered. Although my mind had been unable to remember the experiences of leaving my body and visiting the entrance of heaven, my heart had remembered everything, storing it deep within me for the right time to reveal it.
Now was the time.
Gradually the rapid recall slowed. Within a few weeks it was down to a trickle. The picture became clear as each piece of the puzzle was turned over and put into place.
My experiences in heaven, as I have come to understand them, were embedded in me, almost like a memory chip. I say that because they have become so much more than memories. They have become permanent, life-changing events that have reprogrammed my values, my beliefs, the very way I live my life.
Just as it was time for the memories to come back to me, now is the time for them to be shared with you.
14
JOURNEY TO HEAVEN
I kept waking up.
And I kept coming back to midfield. If ever there was a field of dreams, that football field in the middle of the night was it. It was the place where my most wonderful and horrible memories collided at the 50-yard line.
My last memories were when I had been in the hospital, seeing myself in the operating room from a vantage point near the ceiling. I remember feeling lighter and lighter, being drawn down the hallway and swept out the door of the hospital, and then suddenly I was gone.
The first memory of where I had gone when I was in a coma made no sense to me. It was a looping memory that replayed itself over and over again. The memory was of this stunningly beautiful light that permeated everything, going out in every direction but not expanding.