Is heaven for real?

Known as New York Times number one seller, Heaven is for Real, the Burpo family will take you on a very amusing expedition. Written by Todd Burpo, it’s about a little boy’s astounding story of his three minute trip to heaven and back. Thomas Nelson Company published the book; the Nashville publisher says it broke all sales records for the company with 3.4 million copies just in print. Colton, a four year old boy suffered from excruciating pain of a ruptured appendix. Told in flashback by Todd Burpo, the father of Colton, then it’s brought back to his real life then and there.


I read this book, and my thoughts of heaven entirely changed. I have never seen Heaven, I can only understand what the bible tells us. But, when you read the back of this book, who couldn’t help but think this kid is full of it? Personally, ever since my Grandpa passed last December the reality of heaven kicked in one bit more than it ever had before. This is one of those books that sits on the edge of just okay, and bad. For some people it was a horrible book. A family just comes out of nowhere saying that their son went to heaven? The economy is bad; why not just create a story about this to pull in money? Others that thought this book was good or just okay might have liked it because it gave you a little pick me up.


During Colton’s surgery, he experienced a three minute trip to heaven. About four months after the surgery he nonchalantly began to talk about his three minute trip to heaven a and all the different things he had seen. When he first started talking about heaven, his parents thought he had learned all this from Sunday School. Only until they had this conversation: “Do you remember the hospital, Colton?” Sonja said (Colton’s mom) “Yes, Mommy, I remember,” he said. “That’s where the angels sang to me.” From that point on, I’m sure his parents were in shock.


Many people would have made hasty generalizations about this book, along with the fallacy of ignorance. I would recommend this book to people who claim themselves as Catholics or Christians, maybe if you are looking for a good way to understand what heaven is like, this would be a great book for you.