Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, Lynn Vincent, Colton Burpo

that? And how did I deserve his mercy?

    FIFTEEN CONFESSION

    The first weeks of July burned into the plains, nurturing the cornfields with all the heat of a giant greenhouse. Wedgewood blue skies arced over Imperial almost every day, the air buzzing with mosquitoes in the sunshine and singing with crickets by starlight. Around the middle of July, I drove over to Greeley, Colorado, for the church district conference. The gathering of about 150 pastors, pastors wives, and delegates from Nebraska and Colorado was meeting at the church pastored by Steve Wilsonthe same church Id visited back in March while Sonja stayed back at the Harrises home, nursing Colton when we all thought he had a stomach flu.

    Roman Catholics practice confession as a sacrament, sharing their sins and shortcomings with a priest. Protestants practice confession, too, though a little less formally, often confiding in God without an intermediary. But Coltons recent revelation that my raging prayers had ascended directly to heavenand had received an equally direct responsemade me feel like I had some additional confessing to do.

    I didnt feel good about having been so angry with God. When I was so upset, burning with righteous anger that he was about to take my child, guess who was holding my child? Guess who was loving my child, unseen? As a pastor, I felt accountable to other pastors for my own lack of faith. So at Greeley Wesleyan during the conference, I asked Phil Harris, our district superintendent, if I could have a few minutes to share.

    He agreed, and when the time came, I stood up before my peers in the sanctuary that on Sunday mornings held around a thousand people in its pews. After delivering a brief update on Coltons health, I thanked these men and women for their prayers on behalf of our family. Then I began my confession.

    Most of you know that before everything happened with Colton, I had broken my leg and gone through the kidney stone operation, then the mastectomy. I had had such a bad year that some people had started calling me Pastor Job.

    The sanctuary echoed with gentle laughter.

    But none of that stuff hurt like watching what Colton was going through, and I got really mad at God, I continued. Im a guy. Guys do something. And all I felt like I could do was yell at God.

    I described briefly my attitude in that little room in the hospital, blasting God, blaming him for Coltons condition, whining about how he had chosen to treat one of his pastors, as though I should somehow be exempt from troubles because I was doing his work.

    At that time, when I was so upset and so outraged, can you believe that God chose to answer that prayer? I said. Can you believe that I could pray a prayer like that, and God would still answer it yes?

    What had I learned? I was reminded yet again that I could be real with God, I told my fellow pastors. I learned that I didnt have to offer some kind of churchy, holy-sounding prayer in order to be heard in heaven. You might as well tell God what you think, I said. He already knows it anyway.

    Most importantly of all, I learned that I am heard. We all are. I had been a Christian since childhood and a pastor for half my life, so I believed that before. But now I knew it. How? As the nurses wheeled my son away screaming, Daddy, Daddy, dont let them take me! . . . when I was angry at God because I couldnt go to my son, hold him, and comfort him, Gods son was holding my son in his lap.

    SIXTEEN POP

    On a sun-drenched day in August, four-year-old Colton hopped into the passenger seat of my red pickup, and the two of us headed off to Benkelman. I had to drive out there to bid a job and decided to take Colton with me. He wasnt particularly interested in the installation of industrial-sized garage doors. But he loved riding in my little Chevy diesel because, unlike the Expedition where he had a limited view from the backseat, his car seat rode high in the Chevy, and he could see everything.

    Benkelman is a small