It's That Simple: Part 1
An interview with Krista Gorman:
How a Near Death Experience informed her concept of God.
Krista Gorman’s life was a typically normal one, until it wasn’t. Her happy memories of her early family life with her mom, dad and two brothers include being a princess and a girl scout, camping, kayaking and water sports. Krista said when she was four, she would feel at times a loving, supportive, archangel presence in the room with her as she was playing: watching “me dance to the music of Sesame Street or at night as I whispered made-up stories to myself before falling asleep.”
Raised Catholic, her family regularly attended church on Sunday. “Through the stories I heard about Jesus and his life, I developed a real affiliation with this remarkable person who loved and accepted everybody. And I had great sympathy for his suffering. But I didn’t really have a concept of God then. I believed in a higher power; what that was I didn’t really know and I was okay with that.”
As Krista grew into adulthood, she drifted away from religion, married and began a career caring for people as a Physician Assistant. In the initial stages of labor induction, preparatory to the birth of her daughter, Krista’s heart stopped pumping blood to her brain for a distressing eight minutes. So dire was her condition that she was placed in a sedated coma for 36 hours. “My doctor would later say that a miracle happened that day and that my daughter, Maggie, was a ‘special kind of angel.’” What happened to Krista in those eight minutes when her heart stopped is her near death experience:
“Oh my God! I can’t breath! What about my baby! That thought rushed through my head as I was rolled out of the room to the OR across the hall….Then…perfect calm came over me….the noise and commotion around me faded away….I suddenly found my Self high above….As I watched what was happening below, I was the observer, unattached to it all….Imagine all of your memories being erased leaving you only with yourself, the essence of who you are….I was pure consciousness…and more alive than ever!
“Then, something tugged at me….Once I felt, okay I’ll go, I was…moving…through the …wall into a place that was just a brief, white flash….Its Divine warmth enveloped every bit of me. I felt I’d become a part of the ‘whole’ of the universe. It was all of me and I was all of it….indefinable, irrefutable, unbounded, Love! .…I was that love….In that instant, I was utterly and completely transformed.
“I traveled through another threshold and emerged into a glorious scene so incredibly beautiful! I couldn’t believe it existed! Brilliant, vivid yellow flowers covered the ground everywhere. To my left, a sparkling blue-white waterfall cascaded down huge brown rocks into a pure, crystal pool. In the distance, rolling green hills merged with a tranquil blue sky. To my right, a deep, dark evergreen forest….It was my Eden….Although I couldn’t imagine the love I felt could intensify, the glorious scene before me elevated it to pure ecstasy. I became one with everything around me….What joy….I understood all of it was created from the same divine love, that every bit was a unique expression of that divinity and I was that same expression.
“I found myself flanked by.…benevolent spirits, guides…what we call ‘angels’ here on Earth, and I was given three choices. I could stay in that beautiful, magnificent place filled with peace and tranquility, I could continue moving forward to what lay beyond or I could choose to return to my body….They made me feel like if I were to return, I must be willing to share what I learned….I looked at the beauty around me…I had no conscious reason to choose it and still had no knowledge of this life, but my decision was to return.”
Krista’s return was quick, but not easy. For ten years, she pushed the experience out of her mind, out of her life; but it remained like “static in the background.” Life was deteriorating around her and that included her husband teetering on the brink of life or death with a serious illness.
To be continued….
“The things that happen to us do not matter; what we become through them does.”
—Sri Gyanamata, God Alone
Copyright © 2020 Nancy Kopack.
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