Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back

I was a voracious reader at a very young age. By age 10, I was reading books like David Copperfield, reading hours and hours every day....devouring hundreds of books like a person who was starving for food. Sadly, in later years, I have not read as much, but fortunately, the benefits of my early endeavors were never lost. I have no doubt that those efforts early on have helped me in so many ways through the years; in my understanding of life, the way things work, my appreciation of knowledge, my communication skills. This book, "Heaven is for Real" is the first book I have read cover to cover in one sitting in decades. It is an easy read, but a powerful book as well. In my teens, I was very scientifically minded, and a self-professed atheist. If it didn't make scientific, logical sense...if I couldn't see it in mathematical black and white, it wasn't for me and I had no use for it. I went to Sunday School (forced), but my many questions and apprehensions could not be answered intelligently or proven (and hence the very definition of "Faith"). I simply could not take what were to me essentially fairy tales as Truth on Faith. Various personal experiences along the way in the path of life gave me pause and reason to rethink and redefine my own personal understanding of God, Energy, Mother Nature, Universe, All That Is...whatever you want to call it that we come to find out exists, but can not be explained rationally, scientifically or with absolute logic within our own limited, physical, Human abilities and limitations. In short, I evolved from a steadfast atheist, to a believer in something I called "God, Goddess, All That Is"...to a now more "religious" acceptance in God with the help of reading this book. Maybe from being a non-believer, to a believer with reservations, to now being personally comfortable with being in greater harmony with this higher power we call God. I highly recommend reading this book. I could not put it down. My eyes were teary often, not with sadness but perhaps with deep empathy for the Burpo Family's trials and also with the joy of revelation and understanding...also, I love happy endings :-) The story rang true to me(I am quite adept at smelling out BS). It was completely unacceptable for me to believe a 4 year old child could invent a NDE out of body experience, the meeting of a deceased great grandfather and a miscarried sister without any prior knowledge. Not to mention Angels, God, Jesus, Gabriel...with numerous detail and matter of fact relaying of the experience. A 3 minute experience of a 4 year old child in death's grip relayed to his parents over the course of weeks, months, years with such vivid recollection. It did not bother me that this was in the context of a Minister's family nor did I discount Colton's experience for that reason. If anything, it just made the story more perfect as Todd's interpretation as a Minister was quite natural and believable in view of Colton's relaying of his experience. It appears very obvious to me that perhaps the Minister himself learned definitively more about God from his 4 year old son than perhaps years of religious training, a humbling thought. This book put together for me events in my personal experience I can now understand with child-like beauty and understanding and acceptance without the need to rationalize. I'm also now very comfortable with the power of prayer and without compunction to use it often, daily in fact. Apprehensions regarding eventual and inexorable Death and the great beyond have vanished as well. Although I read this book in a few hours, it took me a week to digest it. Perhaps I'm digesting it still... If you read this book, you will come away making one of two choices. You either believe this story is a complete fraud, a fiction, a fabrication...or you simply recognize the simple truth and beauty that "Heaven is for Real"... I choose the latter with no qualms or second thoughts. Thank you Burpo Family for sharing your story!!!!! With Peace and Love..... :-)

Here a minister co-authors a book about what happened to his four year old son when the boy was laying on the operating table. This minister leads a small Nebraska Methodist church located in a town that is 60 miles from the nearest Walmart store. He supports himself and his family by installing garage doors and earning a meager salary from his church congregation. As I read this book, I began to see the same pattern of issues that is present in the book PROOF OF HEAVEN. Here we see a minister whose personal life and relationships with others is convincing proof that what he writes is the absolute truth. His wife, a good Christian woman, who is for all practical purposes as important to his congregation as he is, was a full party to the events reported in this book. Whatever their son Colton told his farther, he simultaneously told his mother. And occasionally, he also made comments about what happened to him in the presence of others whose reputability cannot reasonably be questioned. And this minister's close friends include more than a few other ministers who are also leading Christian churches in western Nebraska and other nearby states. So as I read about these events, I was assured that they actually had happened, but I also observed that they seemed to be somewhat ridiculous. For example, Colton's great grandfather, who resided in heaven, had wings - wings much larger than Colton's wings. But, many of the things that he told his parents were, besides being, at times, ridiculous, also were often amazing. Colton clearly knew things he could not reasonably be expected to know. Things his mother and father had never told him: for example, they had once lost a child to a miscarriage; a little girl. Colton knew this fact and met her in heaven. Another example is that he could recognize his great grandfather by being shown a picture of him when he was in his late twenties; but he could not recognize his great grandfather when he was shown a picture of him as an elderly person. Colton met God and the Holy Spirit. They were two separate beings. He had no trouble getting personal time with God. Colton said Satan was still alive and well and would someday have one last fight with the souls of heaven. Now if I were to spend enough time I could list dozens of things said in this book that do not agree with my own spiritual beliefs. I will cite only a couple of them. I believe in original sin, therefore, children have sin, but Colton was easily able to enter into heaven. In my opinion, no one can enter into heaven who has any sins in his soul. Even Jesus remains outside of heaven, until the end of this age (in my opinion), because He is carrying sins of the cross. And the book I mentioned above, PROOF OF HEAVEN, presents a full-grown man who enters heaven numerous times. Again, I envision him as not able to enter into the real heaven until the end of this age when his soul will be sinless. But are we to question his honesty? Are we to question Colton's honesty, or his minster father's honesty, or his Christian mother's honesty? And there are other accounts like these, although not always so well known to the public. They are recounted in magazine articles and books that often don't make the best sellers list. There are so many of them that it is hard for us to reject them all as bogus. Quite the contrary, we are looking, in my analysis, at a phenomena of a psychic nature that is somehow often connected with our own human spiritual evolution, and our own spiritual faith. HEAVEN IS FOR REAL is heartwarming. I do not take every word literally, but I would say that we can see clearly in the case of this book that psychic things have taken place inside of the realms of a Christian family that are below the level of absolute spiritual revelation but are far above the level of day dreams, or night dreams. Something happened to this young boy; something that was good. He knew things he should not have known. Hopefully, as millions of Christians read books like this one and as the years pass we will have men/women arise among us who will be able to make sense out of this increasingly common thing, which I think of as spiritual/ psychic phenomena. I will also mention that I recently downloaded (free) a book that is pure interpretation of New Testament Bible scriptures. The author points out such obvious facts as that no one can go to heaven before Jesus goes to heaven and that will only happen when the end of this age arrives. We all want to think that we will be in heaven in the next few years while those behind us are still struggling with the challenges of life. Not so according to this book. Thus it contradicts HEAVEN IS FOR REAL. The circular I received gives Sunday Sept 22 and Sunday Sept 29 as the next two days that it can be downloaded free. Otherwise it is expensive. I would balance a book like HEAVEN IS FOR REAL by reading this book, it is called HEAVEN IS IN YOUR FUTURE, author David Arthur DuRocher. It will make you feel good. You will come away convinced that everybody goes to heaven (in the end). That message is not found in HEAVEN IS FOR REAL. According to the beliefs of Colton's father, many will go to hell. I am now reading THE ZEALOT by Reza Aslan. It is a New York Times best seller. The author is a gifted writer and historian. He gives us a Jesus who is a historical figure, not a spiritual figure. Before you read this book, I strongly suggest building your spiritual fortress by reading HEAVEN IS IN YOUR FUTURE, and possibly some other books written by strong believers in the divine nature of Jesus. But, does that mean I don't like THE ZEALOT? No! I think it is going to turn out to be the best book I have ever read about the history of the middle east in the years when the New Testament was written. I will write a review about it when I am finished reading it. God speed.....

This book is incredible and will certainly change your thinking about Heaven in realistic terms. It won't change your beliefs if you believe in God and Heaven, but it will set a little more reality into your thinking. Heaven is so often treated as a fairy tale place where everyone goes when they die, which many console themselves with at a time of grief, but never think of in terms of reality the rest of the time. Colton Burpo will tell you differently! At age three he was whisked away temporarily to that blessed home of God when his life hung in the balance on an operating table in Nebraska, dying from a ruptured appendix and at least a week of deadly infection coursing through his body as doctors failed to accurately diagnose his condition. Following a miraculous immeditate healing after Dr's had given up any hope for his survival, Colton began sharing his experience with his parents, a Wesleyan Pastor and his wife who were at first a little shocked and slightly skeptical of what they were hearing from their now four year old son. Things he couldn't have known before such as a baby sister he met in heaven who died in their mothers womb and had never been mentioned in front of Colton. As well as the Great Grandfather who died twenty five years before his birth, but whom he visited in heaven and described in full detail. Many more stark revelations would follow from the lips of this child over the course of the next four years or so as his memory of his trip to heaven was triggered by topics of conversation on earth. Very easy to read, I read this book in two nights and couldn't put it down. Very well written, packed full of interesting revelation from the heart of a child who wasn't old enough to read in the bible of the things he began to share with accurate detail. I bought two copies, and I'm here to buy more to give away to friends. Every Christian should read this book which has sold well over 8 million copies. Written in 2010 by Colton's dad, Todd Burpo, who very nicely relays a great collection of revelation shared by Colton over the span of 7 years. You will be challenged and awe struck with the biblical detail and the childlike perspective with which it was shared. Paperback, 162 pages and now a new major motion picture based on the book, available separately. Whether or not you realize it, HEAVEN IS FOR REAL! Don't wait until your dead to make this discovery, or you won't go there. There is also another very real place waiting for those who didn't give their life completely to Christ in this life! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!

Overall the book is just so wonderful and uplifting--a first-hand account of Heaven that just eases some of the "unknown" factor. As a Christian, through faith I know about Heaven from what the Bible teaches but without seeing pictures or having someone who has experienced it be able to really share some details, it's hard to know and there are always unanswered questions. Colton's experience fills that gap to just praise God even more for what lays ahead and give comfort knowing those who are there are whole again. The story is just so genuine--I don't doubt its validity. The style was first hand told by Colton's father yet you could tell the "ghost author" did some work in some areas as no one I know would actually describe scenes using some of the forced words chosen but that is not a detraction from the story itself. It was hard to get past the frustration of getting Colton the proper care when he became ill that led to this trip to Heaven. First the delay by the parents in deciding to take him to a Dr, and then the total non-diagnosis by the small-town Dr were just infuriating, but maybe it was God's way of providing a situation where He would be glorified. And the only thing that kind of made me wonder in the description of Heaven was Colton describing the nail marks in the palm of Jesus' hand rather than his wrist. All the pictures of Jesus we see show the nail prints in the palm, but there's also research that if the nails were actually placed in the palm of the hand, the physical weight of his body on the cross would have ripped through the skin and that the nails were most likely placed in the wrist at the point where the 2 forearm bones come together to hold the weight while on the cross. The wrist is considered part of the hand in keeping with Biblical prophecy and accounts of people seeing Him after He rose from the grave. But this is just human research on the topic that is consistent with the marks of blood found on the image on the Shroud of Turin. While we don't know if the Shroud of Turin is actually Jesus' image, it was definitely someone crucified in the same manner and the nail marks were on the wrist. But we do not know for sure--anything is possible with Jesus and maybe the nail prints are in the center of the palm of his hand and not the wrist. I guess I'll find out when I go to Heaven. :) In summary, this book is a must read!!

Todd Burpo is an excellent writer. His heartfelt explanations of his son's illness were extremely touching and had me close to tears. I could completely understand the family's anguish as they try to save their son Colton as he is close to death. In fact even though his father claims he didn't die during the operation, Colton must have left his body and entered heaven. I believe this because he has quite the story to tell. This story is about an innocent child who has to have an emergency operation and somehow knows about everything that went on while he was in the operating room. He sees his dad in a separate room from his mother and this proves that he had an out-of-body experience. How else would he have known this small detail? Also I was amazed at the clarity of the descriptions of heaven. While Colton claims he was only in heaven for three minutes it seems more like he was there for an hour. It is easy to believe most of the story. The only thing I was skeptical about was the description of everyone having wings. Do I really want wings for all eternity? I've never heard anyone else describe this in a near-death experience and I've read quite a few books on the subject. Besides that one detail, I think this book is important because I've read so few descriptions of heaven from a child's perspective. When Colton talks about heaven it is from a very innocent place in his heart, not something he was taught at Sunday school. In this book you will learn what heaven looks like, what Jesus looks like, what God looks like and what the Holy Spirit looks like. There are also descriptions of heavenly gates, thrones, crowns and apparel. Even when Colton's dad tries to trick Colton by asking him what happens when heaven gets dark, Colton is quick to reveal that heaven never gets dark. How would he know all this unless he really went to heaven? This is one of the most amazing stories I've ever read about heaven. I can highly recommend it to you. If you have a Kindle download it as fast as you can. This is a book you will not want to wait for in the mail. It only takes a few hours to read but it will change your view of heaven forever. Since Colton's dad is a pastor he was easily able to verify the information and included biblical references as well. Completely fascinating! ~The Rebecca Review

Title: Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back ***** Author: Todd Burpo Published: Thomas Nelson, 2010 Version read: Kindle 3.1 Through the Eyes of a Child Todd Burpo is a Wesleyan pastor and business owner who wears several other hats, not the least of which is the one he wears in this story as the father of Cassie and Colton Burpo (Colby came along later). The story is primarily about Colton's illness due to a ruptured appendix; about his out-of-body experience, which he confirmed by stating where in the hospital he saw his dad, where in the hospital he saw his mom, and what each of them was doing--all while he was in surgery; and about his time in heaven. Colton did not come out of surgery talking about heaven, but over a period of at least a couple of years, as he remembered things, he mentioned them to his parents. Keep in mind that Colton was not yet four years old, when his appendix ruptured and continuing spreading poison into his body for five days, before his parents could get a good diagnosis. By that time, Colton had the look of death about him, a look his pastor-dad had seen on many elderly people, as their lives on this earth were coming to an end. Doctors had to operate twice to get him cleaned out. Later, when Colton began talking about sitting on Jesus' lap and began describing Jesus and his clothes (or, for King James readers, raiment), his dad thought, Wow. Our Sunday School teachers are really doing a good job! But as Colton's revelations of his time in heaven began to include other people he met--Jesus' cousin (John, of course), a great-grandfather who had died long before Colton was born, and a sister who had died in utero (also before Colton was born)--his parents knew they were receiving a gift of monumental proportions. Other descriptions included angels and what they wore; seeing the Holy Spirit ("He's kinda blue"); seeing angels wielding their swords--yes, swords, in heaven--in the ongoing battle with Satan and all his fallen angels; and seeing the very throne of God. Much that not-yet 4-year-old Colton described we can read in scripture, which the author cited in Notes at the back of the book. I found real comfort--not pablum, not an opiate, but comfort in much of what Colton experienced, with one exception: Satan--the fact that he continues to fight to dominate heaven, and Colton's reaction when his dad asked what Satan looked like. Heaven Is for Real moved me, deeply moved me. For at least two weeks, if I wasn't concentrating on something else, I was thinking about Colton's trip to heaven. But--having been cautioned (albeit unnecessarily) by a wonderful and loving friend--I will point out that Heaven . . . tells of one little boy's experience. I think it gives us some insights, but it comes with no claim to being the Complete Traveler's Guide . . . or The Idiot's Guide to Heaven, or Heaven for Dummies. The fact that Colton was a little kid at the time of his illness and experience in heaven does not, in my mind, render his revelations suspect. Some readers might say, "He was only a little boy!" "Kids are fanciful, and his dad's a pastor; he probably knew more than most kids would know about heaven!" No. Read the book. And while you're into reading, check out what Jesus said about children, including the need for all of us to "become like little children" (Matthew 18:1-6). In the Revelation of the apostle John we read the descriptions of heaven, of animals, of swords and dragons, of angels and their apparel, of the King of Kings and His white horse, and scholars great and mediocre scratch their heads and look for deeper meaning, for symbolism, for whatever they can make of such things. We tend to think John was being metaphoric or hyperbolic, or maybe he was hallucinating. Or we believe, but we try to make sense of it, rather than take it at face value. Two thousand years later, we have a little book about heaven as seen through the eyes of a little boy, while he was there. And, gee golly whiz, it tells of the same things, describing some of the same colors, animals, and other beings as we read in scripture. Accept it on its face and take whatever comfort and insights the story holds for you, or reject it on whatever grounds you choose.

Rev. Todd Burpo has joined with professional writer Lynn Vincent to tell the the story of his four year old son's near death, out-of-body experience in 2003. This New York Times best seller, "Heaven is for Real," begins with son, Colton, who was first thought to have the flu. His situation improved slightly then worsened before Todd, and his wife, Sonja, had Colton admitted to a hospital. Colton was diagnosed with a ruptured appendix, had emergency surgery, and fell into the grip of death...but miraculously survived. Four months later, Colton began talking about his near-death experience. "I went up out of my body and I was looking down and I could see the doctor working on my body. And I saw you in a little room by yourself, praying; and Mommy was in a different room, she was praying and talking." Over time he shared his experiences of "sitting on Jesus' lap," Jesus' love of children, meeting relatives who had died before Colton arrived, including a sister who died during a miscarriage. "Heaven is for Real" raises, for many, the question of "are near death experiences real?" or "are they hallucinations that occur when one's body begins to shut down?" I am in the camp that these experiences are real and my interest in near-death experiences began in the late 1970s when my father who was near-death shared with me his story of "traveling to the light," seeing his parents, and being told by them that his time had not yet come. My father's story haunted me so I began to read everything I could on the subject - pro and con. Then in 1979, I attended Columbia University's Executive Marketing Management program and met Roger Blackwell, PhD, one of the top consumer behavior experts in the world and a member of the program's faculty. Blackwell and I talked well into the night after he told me that he was on a national team studying "near death experiences." He traveled with others across the U.S. to interview those who had an out-of-body experience while surviving death. Being with my mother at her death fueled my interest. Just before her death, my mother had been in a coma, then awoke minutes before death, and told us (all of her children and grandchildren gathered around her bed) that she was in good hands and we should not worry. It was clear that she had seen or experienced something, and was ready to move on. She showed everyone in the room, including doctors and nurses, that death is not to be feared. Another just released book that may be of interest to those interested in "Heaven is for Real" is Dr. Eben Alexander's "Proof of Heaven." Eben, a neurosurgeon, did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. He grew up in a scientific world becoming an academic neurosurgeon at Harvard Medical School. He had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death. That is, until the fall of 2008, when after seven days in a coma during which the human part of his brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, he experienced something so profound that it gave him a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death. This is a fascinating subject and Burpo's book adds to the discussion, particularly since the story is about a four year old who, after his near-death experience, has knowledge of events and people that he had never been exposed to. For more on this subject, I also recommend University of Connecticut Professor Emeritus of psychology Kenneth Ring's Kenneth Ring (born 1936) official web [...]. Ring is an internationally known expert within the field of near-death experiences (NDE). Ring definitely concluded that NDEs are not hallucinations because hallucinations are rambling, unconnected, often unintelligible and vary widely, whereas NDEs tend to have similar elements of a clear, connected pattern.

Todd is a bi-vocational Wesleyan pastor in Nebraska with a wife and three kids. He began by sharing the story of his painful kidney stones, his rare case of male breast cancer, and having to work three jobs (including the pastorate) to make ends meet. While this was all going on, his son, Colton, got sick. It turns out he had an undiagnosed case of appendicitis. His appendix eventually burst, the infection spread into the abdominal cavity, and he had to have life-saving surgery. While this was happening, Colton's dad was in the hospital men's room railing at God for allowing this to happen. But God answered prayer on behalf of Colton and he was healed. Four months later, four year old Colton was riding with his dad past the South Dakota hospital where he had his surgery. It was in that conversation in which Colton told his dad that he went up out of his body to heaven, spoke with angels, and sat on Jesus' lap. He saw his dad in a little room praying and his mom talking on the phone (Burpo 2010, '61-62). Later conversations revealed that Colton met John the Baptist, and that "he was nice" (Burpo 2010, 63). Burpo thought to himself "John the Baptist is nice" (Burpo 2010, 63). Colton also revealed that he met his unborn sister he never knew he had (only his parents knew), and his great-grandfather (who looked like he did when he was young). He said that there were a lot of colors in heaven and that Jesus has a rainbow horse. He said that Jesus wore white clothing "and purple from here to here," which his father interpreted as a sash (Burpo 2010, 64). Colton also said that Jesus has red "markers" on his hands and feet (Burpo 2010, 67-68). Colton told his dad that Jesus "really, really loves the children" (Burpo 2010, 105). Later, he and his father visited a dying man in the hospital who had devoted his life to ministry. He took hold of the man's hand, and said "It's going to be okay. The first person you're going to see is Jesus" (Burpo 2010, 118). The researcher has read similar books before, but this was the most encouraging. Colton's testimony is not inconsistent with Scripture; 2 Corinthians 12 speaks of Paul's trip to the third heaven where he saw inexpressible and glorious things (2 Cor 12:4) that he wasn't permitted to share, and John the Revelator saw similar things in heaven that he was permitted to share (Rev 1:19-20). Some of the details of heaven Colton describes are not mentioned in the Bible (great-grandparents looking young again), but the bulk of his testimony seems credible. The story of Colton at the dying man's bedside will definitely get used in a sermon someday, as well as Colton's testimony. The researcher wants to remind people that heaven is for real.

This book is old. I read it many many moons ago and have since then bought it many times as gifts. Great story. Help keep faith. Definitely worth the read.

美しい本で読みやすいです,この本をお勧めします.どうもありがとうございます。

Onthullende waarheden over de hemel. Lees 't!

My book didn't have the photos in the middle. Would highly recommend as a true story.

Es un libro sorprendente. Te cambia el concepto de la muerte y hace que uno tenga más fe de la que tenía antes de leer el libro.