Heaven Is For Real is a sleeper best seller. You won’t find a movie on it. Very few in the media are mentioning it. For such a little book, it crept out of nowhere to make the list of the non-fiction best sellers for the New York Times.
The story is about a little boy who is suffering from appendicitis. In a type of horror that any parent dreads when their child goes to the hospital, the boy is misdiagnosed. After five days, the doctors finally find the cause. At some point during the surgery, the little boy dies and sees the inside of heaven.
In the book, the boy’s experiences about heaven are revealed as well as some of the family secrets — some things that the boy was never told of. The boy survives his illness and shares his experiences with his father who wrote the book.
In the interest of disclosure, the father is a pastor who uses scripture alongside the boy’s experiences to explain some of the things that the boy saw. Some would say that he used the scriptures to justify his son’s experiences in the matter of heaven and reevaluate his own beliefs about heaven.
The book really isn’t preachy. Rather it is an accounting of the struggles of a father who is suddenly confronted with a dying son. It is more about the struggle rather than argument about whether heaven exists.
It is a very inspirational story with a very happy ending. For this fact alone, it is worth reading. It is a sleeper hit that you should consider adding.
The book itself is less than 200 pages in total. So, it is rather short and is a good book for a quick read.
You probably won’t like this book if you aren’t into Christianity or don’t believe in heaven. It is a little heavy on Christian beliefs and the perception of what heaven is like from the perspective of a 4-year-old. But it shouldn’t be taken as the ultimate authority on heaven either. It doesn’t delve very deeply into Christian theology or even the Bible.
The only thing that would detract is that the price is still a little high for the book. You might want to wait a little until the price drops or pick it up at the library.
