Some years ago I returned to the parish where I had been pastor for ten years to do a wedding. As I was at the altar a half hour before the wedding, a man came up to me who I casually knew when I was pastor of the parish.

After we greeted one another, I asked him what I thought was a simple question, “So what’s been going on your life since I last saw you six years ago?”

He casually responded, “I died!”  “I beg your pardon,” I blurted out. “I died!” he responded again. “Please, tell me what happened,” I said.

He proceeded to tell me that he was in the operating room at Northwest Community Hospital when everything in his body shut down – his heart stopped beating, there were no brain waves, and his stopped breathing. All of this took place for at least 15 minutes. By all the outward signs, he had died. “What was it like…while you were dead?” I asked.

He said it is impossible to put into words to describe it. You don’t have a body, you don’t have eyes to see with. He said it is an overwhelming feeling that you have of wonder, joy, love and peace. I asked if he felt the Lord’s presence. “Absolutely,” he said, like something you could never feel or experience in this world. “Did you see loved ones who had died?” “Yes,” he replied.

But when I asked what it was like, again he said was impossible to put into words to adequately describe it. “It’s an unbelievable presence of others you feel that it is unlike anything we have experienced with people in this world. So it is really hard to describe when you have no body in the next world and you are a pure spirit.”

The wedding I had come to do was going to start soon. “May I ask you one more question,”  I said, “and feel free to not answer it? You have a wonderful wife and family. When you awoke on the operating table, you went home and resumed your normal life again for years. Do you ever wish that you had stayed where you were, and never came back into this world?”

“Father, I wouldn’t tell my wife or my family this,” he said, “but what I experienced and felt when I died was so overwhelming compared to anything I’ve felt in this world, I really felt cheated when I awoke and came back to life in this world. Now that I have been to the other side, life in this world is often very difficult.”   It was time to start the wedding…..

I couple of weeks ago I read this article that brought back so much of what this man told me about his own near-death experience and what he was going through…..

What Happens After Near-Death Experiences: Study Reveals A Dark Aftermath From Seeing The Light

 Sarah’s heart stopped for three minutes during surgery. When she came back, everything felt different, just not in the way anyone expected.

She returned from what felt like unconditional love, only to find she could not connect with her own husband. The trivial concerns of daily life felt meaningless. Her marriage ended within two years.

Sarah isn’t alone. A new University of Virginia study finds that near-death experiences often bring deep spiritual shifts and can reduce fear of death. They can also strain the closest relationships and leave experiencers feeling isolated in a world that suddenly feels hard to relate to.

Published in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, the research surveyed 167 people who had near-death experiences. These are episodes reported by people close to death that can include leaving the body, meeting deceased loved ones, or feeling overwhelming peace. Prior work suggests that roughly one in six critically ill patients report such experiences, so they are not rare.

Having a near-death experience can completely change a person’s views of life and death afterwards.

Researchers describe the period after a Near-Death Experience as “reentry problems,” a kind of culture shock. Imagine tasting perfect peace and love, then waking to traffic, bills, and petty arguments.

“I just feel awake to reality, but alone in that knowledge,” one participant wrote. The study reveals how near-death experiences heal the soul yet fracture relationships with loved ones. Integration can take years. For many, it is a long process of holding two realities at once: the love and meaning felt near death and the ordinary world that rarely measures up.

As one participant wrote, the experience can offer deep insight into consciousness, death, and meaning, but at a cost many don’t expect: feeling like a stranger in your own life, even to those who love you most.

Publication Information
Pehlivanova, M., McNally, K. C., Funk, S., & Greyson, B. (2025). Support needs after a near-death experience: “A quantitative study with experiencers,” published in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice.

There are also Near-Death Experiences that include experiences of hell. People describe terrifying and torturous realms with common themes of black fire, decaying beings, extreme cold and heat, and overwhelming despair. 

These experiences often follow a life review, leading to feelings of regret and the belief that the torment is deserved. While these are some of the least common NDEs, individuals often return with a changed life perspective and a new sense of purpose, sometimes described as a “turnaround” response.

How does today’s message impact YOUR life here on earth? Do these Near-Death Experiences change YOUR ideas of what eternity will be like? Do share today’s message with a family member or a friend and discuss it with them.

We like to talk about upcoming vacations, but do we ever want to talk about our upcoming eternal life that will go on and on and on forever?

If YOU had a Near-Death Experience, how important would YOUR material possessions be to YOU?

TRYING TO BE HAPPY WITHOUT A SENSE OF GOD’S PRESENCE IS LIKE TRYING TO HAVE A BRIGHT DAY WITHOUT THE SUN!