As a young man I began my career working in a hospital setting doing everything that needed to be done. During this time I have seen countless deaths. Of these deaths of course children are the hardest to take. When your holding an infant that is dying or has just died, you ask yourself-WHY.......... there is no answer forthcoming.................bare with me..... these memories have been locked away so I could sleep at night but I thought they might help someone here in this thread...........the only way you can keep your sanity is to believe that a higher power has a purpose in all of this. I have seen bad people die. While they were dying most of them simply stared ahead with a look of horror in their eyes as if they knew ....... there were others that were fighting death. There was fear in their eyes as the final countdown progressed but just as the very last beats of their heart were at hand, a sort of an amazed look appeared and then the hollow look of death. Something you don't forget, ever...and something you begin to watch for in others as they leave this world behind. Of course there were others, that believed and had no fear but rather a smile on their lips and the look of peace in their eyes as they too took their leave of mankind.
I know the Atheist will say : then why did he let that child die? Someone who had done no harm to anyone! To answer truthfully, I don't know why but again to keep my sanity even to this day and especially right now, I have to believe that there is a God up there with a plan for everyone. While I have never looked for an Atheist that work directly with the patients in a medical facility, I will assume there are very few. WHY? It has to be hard to be compassionate and tell a dying person not to worry, they are going to come back as a bug or something. Or maybe tell them to forget any ideas of heaven or any afterlife.......... you have already had all there is and there is no more.................excuse me ........... but rather tell them that God loves them, that they are going to a better place.... ......... How can you hold any ones hand much less a loved ones hand and tell them you will never see them again, there is no heaven, no hell, no nothing..................So as an Athiest might do: YOU LIE?......No, I could not do that thus I can not be an Athiest. You see in those that truly believe, it is not what is written in the bible, nor is it what is heard from a preacher or surmised by scientist in their endeavor to prove their Atheism is real but rather the belief comes from somewhere down deep........so deep in your soul that you know it is true. There is a God who created all, who loves each and every ones of us, who has a plan for our futures, a God that only asks us to hold him in our hearts and love him. Only then can you have that peace I saw in death so many times.
Of course, there was another category of death that came to us more often than not and it was caused by violence; accidents, murders by all kinds of weapons including those that were simply beaten to death. Of all the violent deaths, some of those that were murdered or beaten to death probably had time to ask for his forgiveness. For those in an accident where death was instant, unless they were a young child or someone who was ignorant of the word of God, all is lost and yes, as someone once said and I paraphrase; 'Be very careful what you ask for'.
There are many people who have seen the other side and returned to tell others. Are these scams? the skeptic and of course the athiest would say yes, but when a 3 year child dies and comes back with stories of seeing a grandfather whom he had never meet, yet he knew him instantly, well...
In an earlier post, I wrote about the experience I had in a dream one night about 6 years ago now. Yes, I still see it as vivid as it was the morning after. Not running over old ground, the person I spoke with in the dream gave me a Gold watch. For two years, I wondered two things, when was the appropriate time to tell my ailing father "not to worry that it was wonderful on the other side" and why had he given me the Gold watch. In all the time that we (my father and I) had worked with these Doctors none of them had given either me nor my father a gold watch. Shortly after my fathers passing, I told the doctor son and his wife about the dream without mentioning the Gold watch. While the son tried hard to believe me; his wife, you could tell, thought I had lost it. I then stated that I just could not understand why he gave me a Gold watch in the dream. He had never given me nor my father one during his lifetime on earth. Both the son and his wife look at me in disbelief and............excuse me...........both came to tears.................After a minute or two, the son told me that his father had given him a gold watch not nine months before his death some 2-3 years before my fathers death. His wife had seen the transaction since it was a birthday gift from a father to the son.............. Finally, all the pieces fit together. The vision had been real, for I only had contact with the son occasionally and had not known he had received a gold watch. I was supposed to tell him where his father was!
In short, Brian to answer your question about where we are going to after death is a place that in the doctors words is "wonderful". Yes, they knew me and I could see them, they had the same faces although they were without a body form. It makes me wonder about our soul and that little electrical spark that is generated about every second or so in order to coerce our hearts into beating one more time or that little spark that courses through our brain 24/7. Could they be the same! you decide
And all you other Atheist out there. you can spew out facts and figures all you want but for those that truly believe, they do not matter. We are not really looking to find anything, we already know he is there, deep down in our soul he is there.
Good night to all