90 Minutes in Heaven

by Sarah Austin

I must admit that when my mother recommended Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven, I was skeptical. A guy dies, goes to heaven, and comes back to life to tell about it? Right.

In fact, I really had no intention of reading the book until 1) I found a copy to borrow (or rather, it found me) and 2) I found myself without anything to read. I had no excuse to not read it. Funny how that works sometimes.

The title sums up the book’s plot, but there’s a bit more to it than a dead guy spending 90 minutes in heaven. The author—Piper—dies in a car accident. The paramedics announce him dead at the scene and simply have to wait for a judge to come and make it official. While the accident clean up continues, a pastor who is stuck in the traffic behind the accident, walks to the scene and starts a conversation with a cop. He feels the Holy Spirit prompting him to pray for the dead guy (at the time, the pastor didn’t know the dead guy was also a pastor and that they had both been traveling home from the same pastors conference). The pastor crawls into the back hatch of the dead guy’s car, puts his hand on his shoulder, and starts praying for him.

Meanwhile, the dead guy is in heaven. He’s welcomed by all the Christians in his life that had gone before him. He sees the pearly gates, he sees the streets paved with gold, and he sees the city of heaven. In heaven, there is music we’ve never heard and colors we’ve never seen on earth. Just as he is getting used to the idea of heaven, Piper finds himself back in his car. He had been dead 90 minutes.

The pastor who had prayed Piper back to life had prayed specifically that Piper would have no head or internal injuries, and he didn’t. In spite of that miracle, the injuries to Piper’s leg and arms were horrific. Piper spends the rest of the book detailing his recovery with the Ilizarov device and how that device and his experience in heaven have allowed him to minister to others in similar situations.

I was a skeptic when I picked up this book, but somehow I know Piper’s experience in heaven is true. His description of that place is just how I would’ve imagined it, and beyond my own imagination, his description makes sense to me. While some have been changed from hearing how Piper recovered, his heavenly experience has changed how I come to worship. Heaven is a real place to me now—almost something tangible. And as I imagine singing with other saints before the Lord’s throne, I am excited for that day.