Hope From Heaven

Photo by Vianka Merano

The following is an excerpt from Hope From Heaven: A True Story Of Divine Intervention And The Girl Who Came Back As God's Messenger. In the book Elissa Hope tells the story of her near death experience at 14 and how it's shaped her life.

CHAPTER THREE
At Heaven’s Door

Three figures were floating toward me – beautiful beings in long white gowns, with blue eyes and porcelain skin and soft waves of long golden hair. Though I was standing on what felt like solid ground, they floated above it, and I saw that on their backs they had delicate white wings. I had no doubt that I was looking at my very own guardian angels!

Each of them came to me and embraced me with great tenderness. “We’re happy to see you,” they said, and their voices were sweet and gentle. “We have been expecting you.” I noticed that they all looked very much alike – the same beautiful hair and eyes and the same fluid way of moving. Maybe they were identical triplet angels, I thought, you never know.

They confirmed what I already knew, that there had been an accident at the dentist’s and I had died there. They told me that they had been sent to wait for me and welcome me, and they assured me that I was safe with them in heaven. I knew I could believe them, because I felt their warmth and love all around me. Wow, I said to myself, when I woke up this morning I thought it was going to be an ordinary day. And now here I was in heaven with the angels!

My angels started leading me away from the place where I’d landed. In the distance I saw a large gate looming up. The pearly gates ? It must be! “We will take good care of you here,” they said.” If you choose to stay.”

Wait a minute I thought. I get a choice?

“Yes” one of the angels said, as if they could hear inside my mind. “If you want to go back to your life you can. But, if you stay here, you’ll have greater happiness than you can imagine. If you go back your life will be very challenging.”

Photo by Camille Minouflet

The thing I had to worry about was my mother. I knew how devastated she would be if I never came back to my life. I was her only daughter, I couldn’t leave her alone. “ I think I have to go back”, I said to the angels. “My mom really needs me .”

“She will be hurt”, one of the angels replied , “but she’ll recover in time. And you’ll be so much happier here. If you go back you’ll have to go through something so painful that you won’t think you can survive it. You will survive, because we’ll be watching over you. But if you stay here with us, you won’t have to go through it at all”

“We wish we could stop it from happening” a second angel said. “But we can’t. Everything is already written in the book.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. “What book?”

Then they explained that every second of our lives is predestined, mapped out for us before we are born, not one thing about it can be changed.

We had passed through the gate by now and were crossing a meadow where all kinds of flowers in all different colors were blowing in a gentle breeze. Ahead of us there was a wall that extended as far as I could see in either direction, and in the wall there was a white door. Just a plain door, like you might have in your house. The angels stopped me with a gentle touch. “If you pass through this door, there is no turning back,” one of them said. “You will have to stay here.”

“You’ll be amazed at what is behind the door – so much more of glorious heaven!” said another. “And we can’t wait to introduce you to everyone who is on the other side of it.”

Part of me did want to stay in heaven with the angels, where they were promising me peace and absolute joy. But part of me knew I just couldn’t put my mother through that kind of grief. The woman who I knew would sacrifice her own life for me. How could I be selfish enough to leave her behind without so much as a “Thank you, I love you?”

The angels gathered around me. “There’s something we want to show you before you make your choice,” they said. Suddenly it was like I was looking through a window into a room I had never seen before. There were chairs in rows and people milling around, and a lot of flowers arranged around a closed casket of dark wood at the front of the room. I realized with a shock that the angels were showing me my funeral - the way it would be if I decided to stay in heaven. My body was in that casket. I was only fourteen years old. I had never been to anyone’s funeral before, let alone my own!

Photo by Cristofer Maximilian

My mother was in agony, “Please come back baby" she cried, almost as if she knew I had the choice. 
“See” I said to the angels. “She really needs me. I have to go back.”

“Think carefully,” they said. I would only get this one chance to stay in heaven.

I felt so torn it’s almost impossible to describe. There were two places I felt I had to be, and I could only be in one. If only it were as easy as living six months of the year in New York and the other six months in Florida or California, like some people do – but this wasn’t about being a snowbird, and bi-coastal living wasn’t an option! Every time the angels promised me the light and love of heaven, I inched closer to the door in the wall, and every time I looked back at my mother I inched away from it. I knew I had to make a decision somehow.

“Your mother will be okay,” the angels said. Hearing that, and at the same time feeling the light and love around me in heaven that I knew would be just about impossible to find on earth, I felt I had made my decision. “Okay, I think I’ll stay,” I told the angels.

As the words were leaving my mouth, my mother flung herself onto the casket with a wail of pure anguish. All she was screaming now was my name.

I started to cry. I felt so helpless. I said to the angels as they put their comforting arms around me, “I don’t know what to do!”

Then suddenly the angels stepped back a little. I heard footsteps coming from somewhere. I knew it wasn’t another angel, because these angels seemed to float, not walk.

I heard a new voice deep and strong, “What’s the matter, my child?” the voice said. “Why are you upset? Why are you crying?” And I turned around-and God was standing there.

Hope From Heaven: A True Story Of Divine Intervention And The Girl Who Came Back As God's Messenger is available from Amazon for pre-order now.

Elissa Hope

When Elissa Hope was fourteen she had an extraordinary near death experience. Now, forty years later, she is ready to share it with the world. Elissa has been a model, makeup artist and aerobics instructor, studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and worked as a flight attendant. Today, Elissa lives on the Gold Coast of Long Island, not far from the town of Oceanside where she grew up. You can visit her website ElissaHope.com.