Jesus said we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Colton Burpo, a four year-old boy, lost consciousness on the operating table and caught a glimpse of heaven.

January 12, 2011

Heaven is for Real, Part 2 w/Rev. Todd Burpo

A four year old boy in a small Nebraska town undergoing emergency surgery and slipping from consciousness to a better place. Many months later he begins to talk about his journey.
Welcome to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris sharing the great story that’s all about Jesus and part 2 of a program called “Heaven is for Real”. In the next few minutes we’re going to be joined by a pastor from Imperial, Nebraska and Todd Burpo will be telling us this most amazing story of what happened to his little boy Colton when he was 4 years old. Stick with us later in the week and you’ll actually get to meet Colton and hear him tell a little of the story. If you missed our first day’s program of “Heaven is for Real” you can go to our website, haventoday.org and there you can listen to it. Or you can send it on to a friend just by emailing them. Look for the little box on our homepage, haventoday.org, type in your friend’s email address and a little comment from yourself and it’ll be on its way. And while you’re there at haventoday.org, you can get your own copy of the book “Heaven is for Real” or the audio version as our thank you for your gift to Haven Today.

Song:
Performed by:

Welcome again to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris and we are going to Imperial, Nebraska one more time, part 2 of a program we’re calling “Heaven is for Real”. We’re going to the parsonage next to the Wesleyan Church and Reverend Todd Burpo is with me again, Todd my brother in Christ, welcome back to this program.
TB: Thanks for having me Charles.
CM: As I said, we’re calling the program “Heaven is for Real” and we’re calling it that because it is the title of your book and the subtitle is, “A little boy’s astounding story of his trip to Heaven and back”. Now if anybody missed our first program when you told us about almost losing your son when his appendix ruptured and all that meant to you and your family, we’ve still got that up at our website, haventoday.org. Let’s talk today about once Colton came back and life came back to normal after this ruptured appendix, after he almost died and after having repeated surgeries to clean out his insides from all that infection, what happened in the next few months that was so surprising? Would you tell us about that Todd?
TB: Well, you know as a parent I think I’ve struggled, and maybe other parents struggled with this too, listening to our kids. And we have sure learned a lot through this about being better listeners
CM: Yes
TB: But as we were travelling back through North Platte we were taking our next vacation. Remember what happened on our last journey when we left town?
CM: The kids got sick and Colton almost died.
TB: Exactly, so leaving town wasn’t high on our to-do list again.
CM: Sure
TB: So it took us about another 4 months to venture out again. And we were going to go up to my brother-in-law’s, his firstborn had just arrived and we wanted to kind of congratulate him and his birthday is right around the 4th of July time of year, so I remember what time of year it was, it was right before 4th of July. We were headed to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and North Platte’s kind of like our first stop on the way heading in that direction. And it’s late in the evening, we’re planning to drive at nighttime because little kid’s they’ll sleep and that kind of helps us, as parents get a lot of miles burned up. So we stopped at North Platte to get some gas and get some food and kind of get ready on the road and we start kind of harassing Colton, “Hey Colton, you want to go back to the hospital?” And he’s like, “What do you mean?” “Well this is where the hospital is.” And he’s like, “Oh, no Dad. I don’t want to go back there. Send Cassie, not me.” You know. Cassie’s his older sister. They start pointing fingers at each other and they’re in the back seat.
CM: right
TB: And then all of a sudden, Colton takes over the conversation. He says, “But you know Dad, the angels, they sang to me while I was there though.”
CM: What?
TB: Yeah. And all of a sudden, I remember looking at my wife and she looked at me and I’m like, “Has he talked to you about angels before?” And she’s just, eyes probably as big as baseballs looking back at me going, shaking her head.
Cm: Now let’s remind everybody at this time Colton has turned 4 so he’s a 4 year old boy.
TB: yeah, and he’s just now said the angels sang to him while he was at the hospital and now, he had made several comments about Jesus telling him he had to be nice and other things before this but we kind of dismissed it as, man the Sunday School teachers are doing a good job or something, you know?
CM: right
TB: But now he’s specifically talks about angels singing to him while he was at the hospital. And it grabbed out attention. And I didn’t know what to say next but I was kind of like, “Well Colton, what did they sing?” and he shared with me the songs. “What did they look like?” and he started describing them. And he said, “Well Dad, you know Jesus had the angels sing to me because I was so scared and when they sang to me it made me feel better.” And then all of a sudden I’m like, “Wait a minute, Jesus was there?” He goes, “Yeah Dad, Jesus was there too.” And all of a sudden, OK, I have to get off the road to continue this conversation so-
Cm: You’re looking at Sonia, she’s looking back at her and
TB: Well, I’m trying to drive and you have one of these, you know, child rear-view, kind of safety mirrors so you can see
CM: right
TB: your kid in the car seat behind you and Colton’s positioned right behind me. And I’m like, OK, and so I pull over at an Arby’s, we get in the parking lot and we keep talking and it’s like, “OK.”
CM: OK. Before we go on here, you’ve got an amazing little boy who’s now 11 years old, you know, he doesn’t mince words, does he?
TB: No, in that same way he talks today, very short answers. I said, “You said Jesus was there?” He’s like, “Yeah Dad, Jesus was there.” And I asked him, I said, “Well, where was Jesus?” And he said, “Well Dad, I was sitting on his lap.” And while you’re in the hospital, angels…and I’m processing all this information
CM: right
TB: And so finally I had to try and verify it. I questioned it, I mean, I wasn’t ready for this. I mean, “OK, you said you were in the hospital, where in the hospital?” And he says, “Well Dad, when Dr. O’Holleran was working on me, that’s when Jesus was there and the angels sang to me.” And you see, Dr. O’Holleran had had 3 kind of procedures on Colton. He’d had 2 surgeries in the hospital, 2 clean outs and then he’d also done a different procedure on him in his clinic across the street from the hospital. So I tried to start asking for information. I was trying to narrow down when this visitation had happened, you know. He says, “Well Dad, I had left my body and I was up above and I could look down and I could see Dr. O’Holleran working on me. But I could see you. You were in a room praying and Mom was in another room talking on her phone.” And then all of a sudden, just like we talked about yesterday, he started to describe to me where I was and where his mom was, giving me exact information. And I’m like, “How do you know that?”
CM: His body was not there. How in the world did he know?
TB: He was in surgery, yes, and he’s telling me where I was exactly. And I’m like, he’s not only telling me what was happening to him but he’s telling me where I was and what I was doing while I know he was away from me in the operating room. And it just stunned me.
CM: Now Todd, let’s stop here for a second because the skeptic alarms are going off everywhere. Is there a chance that you and your wife told him what you were doing after the surgery, afterwards?
TB: Oh, we didn’t have that conversation with him. You know after 17 days, you name it, we were trying to, when we were with Colton we were trying to encourage him, we were trying to play with him, we were trying to – and you know, even after he got better, you have to remember we wanted to forget that.
CM: Sure.
TB: Right now it’s hard for me to go back and revisit those memories now. At 4 months after that was so raw. No, we hadn’t talked about it. We weren’t, we weren’t able to.
CM: So that conversation, that you had in the car, heading up north and then pulling off at the Arby’s, this was the beginning of many conversations since then?
TB: Yes, and gradually he starts sharing more information and he just kind of takes over conversations. I remember I tried to re-engage the next time we came back. I said, “Colton, remember when you talked about the angels singing to you and you sitting on Jesus’ lap at the hospital?” He’s like, “Yeah, yeah Dad, I remember that.” “Well, what was Jesus like?” You know, I really wanted to know, you know! And that was what I wanted to get to, but I started talking to him about it and all of a sudden he just takes over the conversation again, “Well, Dad Jesus told me his cousin baptized him. Did you know that?” He goes, “Yeah, he’s really nice.” Oh, OK…And then all of a sudden he talks about, “You know Jesus has a horse? He showed me his horse.” And then he starts just taking over the conversation again and I’m not really even having a chance to interrupt or even say anything. He’s just starting to describe things. And finally when he takes a break from the horse and describing that I said, “Well, what did Jesus look like?” because that’s what I wanted to know. And I remember him looking at me and looks up, he’s playing with these little guys that he plays with, action figures and he goes, “Well Dad, Jesus has markers.” I didn’t know what, what do to with that.
CM: What a marker is, sure.
TB: yeah, “What’s a marker?” “You know Jesus has markers Dad.” And so then I tried to ask him, “Well, what does his hair look like or what did his head look like?” and he kind of goes, “Well,” he starts about how Jesus has a crown, he talked about that. He didn’t know what to call it. He said he has this ring around his head you know, and his hair, he talks about the color of his hair and he says he’s got hair on his face. But he’s like, “Dad his eyes. His eyes, they’re so pretty, Dad. His eyes.” And then I said, “Well, what about his clothes?” And he says, “Well Dad, they’re white but from here to here,” and he puts his arm on his left shoulder and then kind of goes down to his right hip. He doesn’t know what a sash is, “from here to here it’s purple Dad. Jesus is the only one with purple Dad.” And I go, “Really?” And he talks about that. And again he goes, “And Dad, Jesus has markers.” I don’t know what to say. I go up and I actually give my wife a phone call. We talk and then I go back down and I go, “Colton, do you mean like colors?” “Like yeah, Dad, like colors.” And then I finally asked him, I said, “Well, what color are Jesus’ markers?” And he says, “Dad, they’re red.” And then finally I started to clue in with what he’s trying to tell me so I finally ask maybe a smart question and I go, “Well, Colton where are Jesus’ markers?” And immediately he drops the toys in his hands, opens up one palm, points to the middle of his left hand and takes his left hand and points to the middle of his right hand, bends over and touches the tops of his feet and says, “This is where Jesus’ markers are Dad.”
CM: Wow. Todd, you’re trying to process this of course. You’ve got a Bible degree but this was not covered in Systematic Theology or Biblical Theology. This is your now 4 year old son telling you what he saw and now where he went when he was having surgery for that ruptured appendix. A little hard to process, wasn’t it?
TB: Yeah and well then he goes on and of course I said, “Well Colton, before you told us you were in the hospital now you’re saying you were in Heaven?” And he goes, “Yeah, Dad. I was in Heaven too.” And later he told us that you know, the angels carried him to Heaven. I don’t think we wrote about that part in the book. It’s one of the many details that kind of got left out in kind of the story selecting process. But he also kind of talked about some of the things that he liked to do in Heaven. I say, “Well, while you were in Heaven Colton, what did you like to do?” And he talked about how there were so many kids and one of the things we wish we’d written down at the time was he could talk about the kids. He could tell us some of the kid’s names. And some of those memories have faded. He can’t do that anymore and we didn’t write them down. And I kind of asked him questions, “Well, what did you like the most about Heaven?” Now this was an answer I never expected. He says, “You know Dad how Cassie has homework? I had homework in Heaven.” I’m like, “What?” He goes, “Yeah, but Dad Jesus was my teacher and that was the best thing.” And you’re kind of like, oh wow, you know. And so he talked about what he did in Heaven and things there. I remember after having that conversation he went back to his room and I think I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to ask him because before he’d also kind of talked to me how Jesus was sending him back, how Jesus came to tell him he was sending him back. And I had to ask him, I said, “Colton, when Jesus came to get you to send you back did you want to come?” And I remember him looking at me saying, “No Dad. I wanted to stay.” And again then, he runs off with the conversation and he says, “Dad, remember when I was yelling for you in the hospital?” and I said, “Yes son, I’ll never forget that.” He says, “Well Dad, the reason why I was yelling for you is when Jesus came to get me he told me he was sending me back because he was answering your prayer.”
CM: Wow, wow. Todd Burpo, I should just mention if someone just joined us, yes this is Haven Today. The program is called “Heaven is for Real” and that’s the name of the book by Reverend Todd Burpo coming to us again today from Imperial, Nebraska. Todd, you talk about your son Colton when he was three having this experience. He mentioned meeting kids. He doesn’t remember all their names but there was a little girl that he met and this affected you and Sonia in a very profound way. Tell us about that.
TB: One morning, we were in the front room and my son comes, kind of comes bouncing into the room. And he just walks up to his mom, she’s working on paperwork. I’m over at the kitchen table but the rooms are right next to each other and we’ve got kind of a small front room so you can hear all the conversation. He walks up to his mom and says, “Mom, I have two sisters.” And she has no idea what he’s trying to say, “Are you talking about your cousin, your friend? We know about Cassie, you know.” And he’s standing right in front of his mom “I have two sisters.” And she’s like, who do you mean? And he just looks at her and says, “Mom, you had a baby die in your tummy, didn’t you?” Now I don’t know how you explain to a 3 year old, 4 year old about miscarriage. It was a very painful experience for us when we miscarried a child. We were 2 months along, it was the night before Father’s Day and our plans were to announce to the congregation that we were going to have another child. And that night, right before that announcement we knew we’d lost that second child. And part of our grieving process was when we were blessed with Colton. All our attention and focus kind of went to raising our next child. And it was just something that we hadn’t, I guess you don’t want to scare a little child, you know that babies can die in mommies’ tummies and things like that and so we hadn’t talked to him about that. Maybe for a whole bunch of reasons, maybe we should have but we never did. And here he’s saying, “You had a baby die in your tummy didn’t you Mom?” And she’s like, “Who told you that?” And then his answer, “Well, she told me she died in your tummy.” And he turns around to walk away. Now his mom’s got her undivided attention, she stands up, “You don’t tell me something like that and walk away young man. You come back here right now.” And I remember him looking at me like, “Dad help!” and I’m like, “You’re on your own. I can’t help you at all, you know.” And he tip toes back to his mommy this time saying, “It’s OK Mommy. It’s OK Mommy. She’s OK. God adopted her.”
Cm: Wow
TB: And I remember my wife saying, “You mean Jesus adopted her?” And he’s like, “No, his dad did.” And he talks about his sister, describes her. “Well, she looks a lot like Cassie but she’s got brown hair instead of blonde hair and she’s almost as big as Cassie but not quite.” And talks about how, “She just hugged me in Heaven all the time. She just would not stop hugging me Dad. And she just wouldn’t quit. She was so happy that someone in her family was in Heaven with her.” And here’s my son who doesn’t like to have even his mother hug him to this day and we’re like, well, that’s true, you know? But then he looks at me, “But Dad, she just can’t wait for you and Mom to get there. She just can’t wait to see you.” And talk about time stopping again.
CM: Yeah
TB: That was another one of those moments where both of us didn’t know what to say, either of us. How do you, how do, what do you say after that? And that was another person he really surprised us with. My grandfather was another one. On a different occasion, I had a grandfather I was really close to who was killed in a car wreck before I turned 7. One day we’re driving somewhere he says, “Dad you had a grandpa named Pop, didn’t you?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” Was that your mom’s dad or your dad’s dad?” And I go, “Well, he was my mom’s.” And he goes, “He’s really nice. You spent a lot of time with him as a kid, didn’t you?” And again he started talking about Pop and how he stayed with Pop and how he met Pop. I have a picture of Pop and we put this in the book. I knew Pop he was 61 and Colton would look at his picture, “Well Dad, no one is old in Heaven and no one has glasses.” And he wouldn’t say much outside of that except he would talk about his clothing but he just wouldn’t really talk about, he’d look at that picture and he, he couldn’t recognize Pop in that picture. So we put that picture in the book. This might have been a couple of years later I finally asked my mom, I said, “Mom do you happen to have a picture of Pop as a young man?” She says, “You know I think I’ve got one.” And she’d buried a picture in her closet before Colton was even born. There’s no way he’d ever seen this picture, pulls it out, sends me a copy of it in the mail and I call Colton into the room this time. I say, “Colton, take a look at this.” And I hand him this picture without even saying anything to him. In this picture my mother’s a baby, my grandmother who’s still alive is in the picture but she’s 93. And my uncle’s there and then Pop’s on one side. It was an early family picture. He looks at it then he looks right back at me without hesitating he’s like, “Hey, how did you get a picture of Pop?”
Cm: Wow
TB: And this was taken back in the 1940s and he could recognize Pop. Now how does a kid make that up? You know a lot of those skeptics sit there and say, “Well, how do you know he’s not making all this up?” I haven’t come up with an explanation as to how a kid can make that up.
CM: Todd, Colton sharing all these details with you, I know from reading and enjoying your book, you take it to scripture after every one of these little nuggets of what he saw in Heaven. You’ve never seen any contradiction with scripture, have you?
TB: Well, he’s said a few things that I can’t prove in scripture but everything that you can test against scripture he’s always right, the details match, yeah.
Cm: You know yesterday on our program I prayed for listeners that were going to hear your story. I’d like to ask you to pray for listeners that are hearing this story. Now I know there are going to be some skeptics out there but there are some people who are going to be attracted by this story and some people that even want to know Jesus and see him face to face someday. Would you lead us in prayer right now?
TB: I’d love to.
Dear Heavenly Father, we just come before you so grateful for the chance to have your son prepare the way to Heaven. And God so many of us are confused, maybe we don’t have a clear picture of what Heaven is but God I just pray that everyone here listening even right now can know that you have a great plan and a great reward ready for them, prepared ahead. And God I just pray that we would somehow see beyond this earth and live with eternity in mind, to put your priorities first and most importantly, for each one of us just to have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ, just to experience the blessing of knowing him now. And God, as we look forward to Heaven, I just pray that you would increase our hope and give strength to our faith. In your son’s name we pray, amen.

Song: God of Wonders
Performed by: Haven

Haven Today, part 2 of a program called, “Heaven is for Real”. Special thanks to Todd Burpo, pastor in Imperial, Nebraska for joining us on the program today. Well, I must tell you that I am cynical about books on Heaven. It took me a couple of years before we put Don Piper on, who wrote the book “90 Minutes in Heaven”. But I’ve also got to say, like Don Piper that this is a story that’s so amazing, a childlike account of a little boy who’s been to Heaven. It is compelling, it is convincing. If you’d like to get a copy of the book or the audio version of the book just go to haventoday.org. If you’d like you can call us, please let us know how you’re listening. Our toll free number is 1-800-654-2836. We ask for your gift to this listener supported ministry and then we’ll be happy to send you a copy of the book “Heaven is for Real” or the audio version on 4 CDs of “Heaven is for Real”. And as we continue to talk about Heaven this week would you continue to join me in prayer for those in Tucson, Arizona. Why don’t you pray for that young man who stands charged with all those shootings at a Safeway shopping center? I’m Charles Morris. Would you join me again tomorrow when again we’ll be sharing the great story together? It is all about Jesus here on Haven Today.