Message Via Heaven

by Rhonda Empson
(Coudersport Pa)

There were four of us kids, but my younger brother and I were the closest. I know this is because my mom treated us differently. My older brother and sister were favored, I know, and I went through many years angry at this. My mom didn't seem to have time for us and was verbally abusive and sometimes physically.

My father never stood up for us, never told us he loved us or did anything but work. My mother on the other hand would go out most of the week nights and all weekends. We couldn't make a sound on Sunday mornings or wake her up..her moods were very unstable.

So, I grew up feeling very unloved, and unwanted, was even told one time by my mother she wished she'd never had us.

One person who did make me feel loved was my Aunt, she always took me and my brother to church every sunday and sunday school.

When my brother was eighteen he shot himself in our basement after a fight with my mother. I was in the next room and found him first.

I suffered with guilt for many years, because I knew what my mother was like, and felt to blame because that night I had told her I wanted to go to bed but my brother was down stairs with his friends and they had been drinking a little. This made her mad and she said some hurtful things to him. It crossed my mind to talk to him after that on my way to bed, I wanted to tell him it would be okay, but instead decided to wait until morning. He was dead ten minutes later.

Now I had spent so many years believing it was my job to make my mom happy so she would love me, so she wouldn't leave me, and even though I blamed her that night, I wanted to make her happy, I wanted to do something to take away all our pain.

I suffered nightmares for the next year and in that time I had gotten married but we were living in the basement because we were young and had no money.

Almost a year to the day my brother died, I woke up in the middle of the night, I remember sitting up on the side of the bed and choosing whether to wake up my husband or not because I was afraid of the dark. I then thought, no, you can go to the bathroom by yourself. I got up and when I walked into our bathroom, the room was empty with this hazy light.

In the corner I saw my brother lying on a cot, wearing the same clothes he had on the night he died. I got excited and walked over to stand beside him, just knowing that if I waited he'd wake up and I'd have all my questions answered, like what happens when you die, etc.

Suddenly my brother raised up his arm, took a hold of my wrist, his expression was one of anger and said, though his lips did not move, "I cannot tell you anything. You must wait."

I accepted that and moved back as he got up off the bed and stood. In his pocket were the pictures I gave him at his funeral, of us kids so he wouldn't forget us. "You still have the pictures I gave you!" I said as I took them from his pocket. He smiled. The children in the pictures though, I didn't recognize.

As I flipped through, something made me stop...it was of a baby boy, small for his age but yet he was crawling.
"Who is this?"
My brother grinned and said, "You'll find out soon enough." Again his lips never moved.
Again, I simply accepted that, no question.

Next we moved to sit down on the steps going into the bathroom. My brother took hold of my hand and said, "I know you have something to ask me, so ask it."
"Did you mean to kill yourself?" My question.
My brother shook his head and said, "Rhonda, I honestly didn't mean to do it. Do you forgive me?"
"Of course I forgive you," I said. "I love you."
"I love you too."

He then asked me..."Why did you scream at me that night?" He asked this as he mimicked what I did that night, throwing my hands over my face. "You scared me," he added.
Oh God, if I had known he was scared I would have tried to comfort him, but...
"I knew you were dead," I answered.
He accepted that with a nod of his head. "Who was standing behind me," he then asked. "I could feel their hands shake, but couldn't see who it was."
"That was Allan," our older brother, "He was checking to see if you had a pulse."

My brother shook his head, "Oh, okay."
In the next moment, we were standing, he hugged me, I could feel him, smell him. Slowly space began to separate us until he stood with his back against the door. In his pocket were the pictures, in his right hand was the red rose I laid upon his chest at the funeral and in his left hand was a poem I had written him and left at his grave sight.

"Now that I have your forgiveness," he said, "it is time for me to go home. I will not see you again."
The light around the door got brighter and brighter until my eyes stung, and watered and finally I had to close them.

I then remember feeling weightless, floating around my bedroom then suddenly, the coldest brush of air poured through my chest making me gasp and my eyes opened, tears falling down my face.
It took me three days to tell anyone of this and years until I didn't weep when I told it.

Now, one month after this, I found out I was pregnant. I went into early labor...my son was born three months early, 1 pound 8 ounces. He was given an 8 percent chance of survival. We were even asked if we wanted the doctors to try to save him.

But in my heart, I just knew he was going to be fine. After being told of all the handicaps that he would have, my son came home three months later with not one ill effect. He is and always has been completely healthy and is graduating high school this year.

Now another thing happened soon after my visit via heaven, my older brother went to work, picked up his pencil he always used but this day there was a scripture engraved on it: John 10:9, which is-I am the door;if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
It wasn't until years later when I began to study the word of God what exactly that meant. Praise God, my brother was saved, he is with Jesus.

Since then, the Holy Spirit has come upon me like a whirlwind. I have this hunger to learn of the Lord and learn and learn...God gave me the will to learn why my mom was the way she was, and helped me to forgive her and myself...She had had a rough childhood, with no affection from her own mother. By praying for her, I was able to forgive her and myself and forgive others and now when I look at others, those that are cruel or make me upset, I try to remember that we are all God's children, I am no better nor any worse than anyone, we all are the same. We can change anytime we choose to let God into our lives.

My mother started going to church after my brother died and is still really involved...maybe God's way of bringing her to Him. And after my brother died, my father told me he loved me. He tells me all the time now.

I hope this can help someone, somewhere. Try not to judge, love with everything you have, and know, the body is dust but the spirit is ALIVE.