Into The Light

I recently read the Kindle version of Into the Light: Real Life Stories About Angelic Visits, Visions of the Afterlife, and Other Pre-Death Experiences by Dr. John Lerma.  I borrowed this book from a fellow member of the Kindle Lending Club.  I was drawn to this book because my father was under hospice care for about a month before he died of congestive heart failure.  Dr. Lerma is a physician who specializes in hospice and palliative medicine.  He worked for many years as the inpatient medical director at the Medical Center Hospice in Houston, Texas.  Dr. Lerma states that he interviewed more than two thousand terminally ill patients and recorded more than five hundred pre-death experiences. 
The author states that "the religious aspects of the stories come from the individuals and do not necessarily reflect my beliefs, for I am still observing and holding a place of scientific observation and skepticism while considering all of the possibilities." 
The patients in this book all experienced visits from deceased loved ones and angels in their final days of life. The author notes that the angels almost always appeared in the upper corners of the room and the loved ones appeared standing at the foot of the bed.  The angels helped the patients review their lives and make things right with loved ones.  A nine-year-old cancer patient learned from the angels that his death would help his mother find God.  A young mother of three was dying of cancer but could not be at peace until she found someone to raise the children after she was gone.  The father of two of the children had a vivid dream about his former wife being ill and needing him.  He and his wife agreed to raise all three children in a loving, Christian home.  A 78-year-old Baptist minister was dying from colon cancer.  The angels persuaded him to expresss love to his wife and children.  He had been so busy working and preaching that he neglected them most of his life. A man came to Houston from Argentina to receive treatments for lung cancer.  He was moved to the hospice house when his death was imminent.  He told Dr. Lerma that he had been an officer in Hitler's army during World War II and had participated in the extermination of many innocent people.  Angels brought him out of his self-imposed hell of guilt and shame.  He died peacefully serveral days later.
I found these accounts of pre-death experiences very interesting.  Many of these stories were amazing and hard to believe, but I do believe that God is loving, compassionate, forgiving and very, very good.  I pray that I will one day see the Lord and experience His glory!