Heaven Is For Real

One of my book groups chose Heaven Is For Real for our May meeting.  It was an excellent pick.  I can't take any credit for it, however, since I had not been at the last meeting!  I was glad that they had chosen this book, as I had been hearing quite a bit about it from people on my Cursillo team, and I was curious to read it and see what all it was about.

Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo is "A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back".   Todd Burpo is young Colton's father and he is also a minister.  When Colton was four years old, he became ill and after a few days it was found that he had a ruptured appendix.  Following surgery, over the next couple of years, Colton began describing his experiences during the surgery, including watching the doctor operate on him and describing his dad's actions while surgery was going on.  Over time, Colton began sharing other interesting items, such as meeting his sister in heaven, a sister that he had no prior knowledge (his mother had miscarried the baby), and then began talking about Pop, his great grandfather, who had died thirty years before Colton was born.  Colton shared a lot about his experience in heaven with Jesus and how Jesus loves children.

The book invites very interesting discussion.  Of course, it is easy to be skeptical of Colton's experiences, wondering if they are influenced by his father's vocation.  I found the book to be very interesting and I found myself wondering over parts of it for several days after reading it.

The book is an easy, quick read and I thought made for good thinking!