After life encounters, or what most people commonly refer to as near-death experiences (NDEs) are reported by an estimated 200,000 Americans a year, and numerous studies confirm that NDEs are in fact common. Five percent of the nation’s population have experienced an NDE according to a 1992 Gallup poll.

Dr. Jeffrey Long, a recognized world expert on NDEs and founder of the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation (www.nderf.org) that provided Gallup with the data that led to Gallup’s conclusion, said: “NDEs are reported by about 17% of those who nearly die.” Dr. Long concluded in his exhaustive study that “the combination of all of the presented lines of evidence provides powerful evidence that NDEs are, in a word, real.”

Another survey of 2,000 people in Germany published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies in 2011 found that four percent had experienced an NDE. About nine percent reported the “classic out-of-body experience,” 11 percent said they entered another dimension, and eight percent encountered spiritual beings. Findings were published in the book “Adventures in Immortality,” by pollsters George Gallup Jr. and William Proctor.

In a 2005 survey of doctors in the United States, it was shown that 59 percent believe in some form of afterlife. The most notable finding was that doctors, those closest to dying or recently deceased patients, believed in NDEs more than almost all other professions where dying was not an observable part of the job. Hence, those trained clinicians who were most discerning of whether NDEs are real or not deemed NDEs as a valid experiential outcome.

Randy Kay clinically died for almost 30 minutes during which he experienced the afterlife in heaven. This profound experience changed his life after recovering from cardiac arrest caused by multiple blood clots compounded by septic shock from a rare and deadly form of bacterial infection that was resistant to antibiotics.

“My life changed,’ he said, ‘because I could no longer question whether God was real or not, or even how he viewed my life, because I had met him following my greatest desperation that was immediately thereafter turned into the most spectacular experience of my life.”

He wrote about his experience following almost 14 years after keeping it silent from all but a handful of close loved ones. Randy’s change of heart happened after a former pastor asked him to share his story on a television episode about his recently published book about thriving in life. “I had no intention of talking about my NDE,’ says Randy. ‘I was invited to talk about my research firm’s study about the foundational skills needed to thrive in life, but my former pastor who was the show host asked me to share my NDE, and on the return flight while writing a book about brokenness I sensed that God’s Spirit wanted me to share our special time together.

Since the proverbial ‘cat was out of the bag,’ meaning that my story had already been made public, I decided to write about my experience in heaven. I had kept journals during and after my discharge from the hospital, and I had been a writer all of my adult life, so I thought I could at least try to express the incredible experience of meeting Jesus in heaven. All the while I kept thinking that my career would be jeopardized by sharing my story.

Prior to this, I was considered as a very logical and practical business professional not prone to any fanciful thinking. I knew that would all change, and in fact my life has been dramatically altered as a result. However, my financial sacrifices have far outweighed my blessings in being able to share the hope of heaven and Jesus Christ to people. No amount of money can surpass the joy of giving someone hope by helping them to realize that God and heaven are absolutely, positively real.”

Now Randy would like to share some of his insights of what you might expect for your next life (after this life), with the hope that each person’s God-given purpose in this world might be fulfilled before encountering Jesus Christ in heaven.