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

· Sold by Thomas Nelson
4.4
3.21K reviews
Ebook
192
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

#1 New York Times bestseller with more than 11 million copies sold! When 4-year-old Colton Burpo emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven, his family doesn’t know what to believe. Heaven is For Real details what Colton saw and his family’s journey towards accepting their young son had visited the afterlife.

“Do you remember the hospital, Colton?” Sonja said. “Yes, mommy, I remember,” he said. “That’s where the angels sang to me.”

Colton told his parents he left his body during an emergency surgery–and proved that claim by describing exactly what his parents were doing in another part of the hospital during his operation. He talked of visiting heaven and described events that happened before he was born and how he spoke with family members he’d never met. Colton also astonished his parents with descriptions and obscure details about heaven that matched the Bible exactly, even though he had not yet learned to read.

With disarming innocence and the plainspoken boldness of a child, Colton recounts his visit to heaven, describing:

  • Meeting long-departed family members
  • Jesus, the angels, how “really, really big” God is, and how much God loves us
  • How Jesus called Todd, Colton’s father, to be a pastor
  • The Battle of Armageddon

Retold by his father, but using Colton’s uniquely simple words, Heaven Is for Real offers a glimpse of the world that awaits us, where as Colton says, “Nobody is old and nobody wears glasses.”

Heaven Is for Real will forever change the way you think of eternity, offering the chance to see, and believe, like a child.

Praise for Heaven is for Real:

“A beautifully written glimpse into heaven that will encourage those who doubt and thrill those who believe.” —Ron Hall, coauthor of Same Kind of Different as Me

Ratings and reviews

4.4
3.21K reviews
A Google user
May 28, 2011
When it comes to 'Heaven Visitation' book, I might be considered a bit of a skeptic. While I am one who believes the Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus Christ is His Son, the only way through this life into that eternal reward, the seemingly glut of these type of books puts me off. This is not state all of the books are false, written by people with selfish motives. I cannot claim any special advanced knowledge to hold a position one way or the other. No one can prove God's existence outside of the faith of the people who believe in Him - and how on earth does one ever prove faith? Perhaps one needs to be invited on a trip to heaven. This particular book, I took notice of long before I read it; and I ignored it for the reasons stated above. However, one day I ventured into my local coffee shop to order my simple cup of small coffee, only to be accosted by a friend who worked their as the barista with accolade after accolade on the virtues of this book. Her rabid excitement convinced me I had to give this one a try. First off, it is more a book of the family than any story of what awaits people in heaven. If one begins reading with the desire to jump right to the 'heaven' parts, prepare to be disappointed. A little prologue gives the big reveal (that the little boy Colton made a trip to heaven) up front; but then the actual story begins with the Burpo family and the severe crisis they face - one right after the next. The culmination of this is Colton, in the hospital, fighting for his life. It was a touching sequence of events to witness the struggles this family went through to retain hold of their faith. I was particular moved by Todd's exposition at one point in the story, talking about the friends who were praying for them. He recounted a story from the Bible in which the friends of a paralytic brought him to Jesus to be healed from his infirmities. It was the faith of the friends, and not the man himself, which Jesus saw and set the man free. Everyone goes through great struggles in their lives, where the weight of that struggle threatens to strip every last vestige of belief from their person. It is the friends whose faith steps in to fill that void, the very same type of friends who supported the Burpo family in this intense time. Such is one of the true blessings of this book, the commonsense teaching he shares from his own experience. When the books enters the visitation to heaven segment, the revelations come from Colton as a simple matter-of-fact. He tells his family what he has seen, what he has experienced, almost as if they should already have known that. His childlike voice comes through; his impetuous nature is clear. It is a joy to behold. With obvious mid-western ambiance, this is one of those rare books everyone will tell their friends and family to read. While I did experience moments of doubt that this could be nothing more than a child's whimsical imagination recounting a fantastic dream, reading the same wonder confessed of Colton's mother and father, and hearing Colton talk of things he could never have known (his sister in heaven from a miscarriage), leaves a reader, at the last page, seeing faith restored and hope ablaze.
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A Google user
December 27, 2011
Over 40 years ago I heard a very similar report from my dad's cousin, a 35 year old man, who had died on the operating table and was not revived for 10 minutes. This was long before any books I know of were written about after death experiences. He told of seeing the doctors in the next room and floating out of his body, of the music of heaven making all music here sound off key, of talking to his mother and aunt (my dad's mother) and that both appeared to be young women even though both died in their 80's. I was a teen so I missed many of the details (too boring at the time) but do recall his description of the colors being almost overwhelming. Great read, am now sharing it with my kids.
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A Google user
Heaven is for Real is a profound and amazing book that gives such detailed descriptions of what heaven may truly be like. The father, Todd, who writes the book, has been through such a long journey of health-related problems. Only a short while after he gets over his own, his toddler son, Colton, also begins to turn for the worse. I can’t imagine being their family during this tragic time; paying all of the doctor bills for both father and son, traveling the many miles to the different doctors’ offices (good thing it occurred before gas prices went up, but still not good for what went on), and then the stress of life that goes along in good and bad circumstances. My, how patient the Burpo family must be. In the book, we also find out the Mrs. Burpo lost one of her children to a miscarriage before Colton was born and the child is one of the many people who Colton mentions that he sees in Heaven, along with his great-grandfather that died many years before Colton was born. He also says that he sees many kids there. According to Colton’s discoveries, everyone is young and God intensely loves children. For much of the older generation on Earth, that is such an indescribable concept to think about, just to be young again. He convinces us that Heaven is a perfect place and that it is never dark. I don’t want to give away the whole story, but I would like to say that this is one book I couldn’t put down, and there are many that I have read that I could very easily have set down and forgotten about forever. Even if it is not true or only partially, I recommend it for anyone and everyone looking for something great to read or who wants to know how Heaven may be someday!
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About the author

Todd Burpo is pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan and a volunteer fireman. He and his wife, Sonja, have four children: Colton is an active teenager; he has an older sister, Cassie; a younger brother, Colby; and a very special sister he met in heaven. Sonja Burpo is a busy mom and pastor's wife. A certified elementary teacher, Sonja is passionate about children's ministry and helping women work through the difficulty of miscarriage.

Lynn Vincent is the New York Times best-selling writer ofHeaven Is for Real and Same Kind of Different As Me. The author or coauthor of ten books, Lynn has sold 12 million copies since 2006. She worked for eleven years as a writer and editor at the national news biweekly WORLD magazine and is a U.S. Navy veteran.

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