Mike McKinsey had only gone to his son’s wedding.
A few hours later, he was on a stretcher in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with a ruptured appendix and an infection advancing faster than the doctors. They rushed him into surgery in 2004, and it was just before the anesthesia took effect that, according to his account, something changed forever. “I looked to my right and Jesus walked through the operating room door”, he recounted on the BearFruitWithChrist podcast. He says Jesus took his hand and led him to a hill from which he could see what he understood to be heaven. He does not describe him as he appears in paintings: darker skin, blue-green eyes, wavy shoulder-length hair. He told him just one sentence: “I want to answer your prayer”.
The story didn’t end there. While recovering from pneumonia in the same hospital, he says Jesus appeared again, this time to spend three hours talking with him. “Since I met Jesus, my life has changed radically”, McKinsey says today, having become a writer and willing to repeat his story as many times as necessary.