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I also wanted to add a story from my own life.
A close friend who is a mother went to a small park in my city near her house for her small children to play. She sat next to another mother. She was very ordinary looking and there was nothing about her looks or way that would draw attention to her in any way. (Unlike my friend who is very pretty). They talked in an ordinary way, commenting on the day, their children, etc. My friend is a very engaging listener, and the conversation took a turn that my friend encouraged with her questions and listening. (I am remembering the best I can. I sometimes ask my friend about the conversation - my friend has a very good memory and she remembers it all).
This woman speaks to Jesus and angels constantly, and goes on “trips” to Heaven regularly! It has been this way her whole life, as long as she can remember. Until she was older - high school or beyond - she thought that everyone else experienced this too. She didn’t know she was different. Although much of school was unhappy for her, as she did not fit in (and I can imagine her getting “lost” in some of the inner city schools here).
She came from a
very abusive home, and one of the earliest things she remembered was her parents having a horrible loud fight - yelling, throwing, hitting - and she was in her room upstairs and her angel came and played a board game with her the whole time. Her angel would do things with her all the time.
This all rang true to me because I remember reading about an abused child who was tied like a dog in the back yard and neglected. The child experienced heavenly comfort of angels and mystical transportations.
Jesus she described as beautiful, all love, dressed in white, light, but a real person and loving friend and Lord. She would go to Heaven a lot when growing up and it was like “vacations” to her, playing with the animals, riding them is one of the things she did - I think I remember giraffes and lions. What they did there was all joy and all beauty and all love. Then angels played with the children - there were other children there. She now goes back now sometimes for “vacation-trips” with her young children (or was it young grandchild or niece/nephew - I don’t remember). Jesus lets her share this experience with her children because they are young.
She married a man who turned out to be highly abusive. It got worse and worse, to the point of being absolutely unbearable. Then one day while she was in great agony over it, a clear thought came into her mind. It was instruction that if she would just “go into” this one certain section of her husband’s mind/brain (I can only guess this is a spiritual thing of the will - clearly it is the black arts) and “touch” this place, he (her abusive husband) would immediately go crazy/mental for the rest of his life and they would put him away and he would never bother her again. She was feeling so oppressed and so afraid that she was relieved for a solution and entertained this thought for just a moment. As
soon as she did, Jesus came and He was very very angry with her. He took her to a cliff, over the edge of a cliff where there was very little to hang onto, and it was pouring rain, windy, freezing cold and she had thin clothes, no blanket, and left her there. For a long time, like three days, I think, and she knew she was being punished. Jesus was angry with her because The Father was angry with her because she had been given so much and she should know better than to allow that evil thought/idea to influence her - (something like that!). Then it was over and Jesus came an comforted and warned her never to do that again.
There were more things that my friend told me about her conversation but those are the parts I remembered the most. I had thought about meeting the woman because my friend and she exchanged phone numbers. My first reaction to this story was that the woman ought to be in the news, or write a book! And at first I wanted to meet her, too. But I don’t know why that waned, even though we could contact her. I think both my friend and I have a lot of faith and felt that hearing this woman’s testimony was rare blessing enough and we have not felt compelled to "get’ anything more from her nor do we know what we can offer her. We are just thankful to know of this.
So, based on this, I believe there are probably lots of people on earth who see Heaven, regularly, who will never write a book. They are humble people who go unnoticed by the rest of the world. God graces people in the ways they need grace. I did not grow up in severe abuse, so I do not feel Jesus gave her an unfairly special Grace, because I can see how her unfairly terrible life situation merited special help and graces that the rest of us don’t need. It also builds my faith to know of these things - that if unbearable circumstances were to happen in my life, heavenly help would be there for me, too.
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