12 Hours In Heaven

AUGUST 1937

Back in 1937, my grandfather Samuel Henson was a farmer (age 46) and at that time his family was living on a farm about five or six miles from McAlester, Oklahoma. In the last week of August, he had gotten appendicitis. On Thursday the neighbors came and put him in the car on some pillows across the back seat and took him into McAlester to the hospital. He received an operation on Friday, August 27. He said the following Monday he became very ill and he had a premonition that he was going to die. He was burning up with fever and hurting all over, so he prayed that he would be allowed to finish raising his family. He prayed “Lord let me live until I finish raising my family!!” That evening just shortly after the 7:00 p.m. nurse came in, he said “I felt myself slipping away, and I was there in no time.” He went to Paradise.
The nurse that came in that was in charge of him was a Christian lady and she told him afterwards that when she came into his room the Lord spoke to her and said “I want you to take good care of this man, he’s Mine.” So she stayed with him all night long.
He felt himself passing through space but could not see anything. After he got to Paradise, he went in through a pearly gate. The gate was a single leaf of pearl. As he stood there wondering, “What beautiful land is this?” . . . . the Lord came behind him and said, “This is Beulah Land, the home of the soul, Paradise and Heaven,” etc. He named all of the Biblical names for Paradise.
As he turned to see Him, the Lord remained behind him as he turned. Jesus said, “You can’t see My face this time, your prayer was sent up to the Father and answered, you have to go back. Later on, if you live for me, you will come back again and then you can see My face, but while you are here I will answer any questions that you want to ask.”
Being a farmer his first question was, “Doesn’t it take a lot of work to keep this place looking this way?” He answered, “no, it is predestinated to grow this way, it grows this way automatically.” The sky was so blue, the grass was beautiful green and as perfect as a carpet. The flowers were so large, there are none on Earth as large and as beautiful in color. All the hills were covered with flowering shrubs and trees. There are birds there. They sing like musical instruments and in perfect harmony with the people as they sing. They do not warble like they do here, but sing actual melodies. When the birds eat of the fruit of the Garden, they do not leave part of it, but eat all of it. Then another fruit immediately begins to replace it; first the bloom, then the fruit appears and grows until it is ripe, and is ready to eat. The trees were covered with flowers and young fruit and ripe fruit at the same time.
The Garden of Eden is right there, just inside the pearly gate going into Paradise. In it are twelve kinds of fruit trees, each one has a different color fruit. The Garden of Eden is a spiritual place and is not a part of this natural world. It is a large place and has a hedge around it.
Paradise, which he said is the second heaven, is a very large place, in the shape of a large valley. There is more of it than of the surface of the earth. Also Paradise is flat, not round like a planet and is above the North pole about as high above the Earth as the Moon is from the Earth.

A VALLEY AND TWO MOUNTAINS

As far as one could see this valley continued on and on through it. There were two mountains with this broad valley between them. All along one side of Paradise (what would correspond to ‛south’ on the earth or would have been to his left) is a low scenic mountain covered with flowering shrubs and trees. He asked what that mountain was and the Lord called it “the Hills of Glory.” This mountain separates the view between Paradise and the place called Hell.
In the middle of Paradise is a very large and very high mountain, so high that the top is above the stars. He asked what that mountain was, and the Lord said “that’s where God’s throne is, high and lifted up.” The top of this mountain is the third Heaven. [Fig. 1]
This mountain was covered with flowering shrubs and trees up to the same height as the top of the mountain on the other side—(the Hills of Glory). From there on, it had the appearance of crystal, and it went straight up to the top of the universe. A river came out from under this mountain, and wound all through Paradise and the Garden of Eden and watered them. The water of this river is so clear and transparent that one can see the bottom. The people, even those that were babies, could skip over this river as easily as one can skip over a small brook on Earth. In Paradise, even though one walks, he moves at great speed.
Then he was taken over on top of the Hills of Glory. Looking across (and toward what would be ‛south’ on Earth), in the distance was a ‛planet,’ bigger than the Earth but irregular shaped like a large chunk of rock, barren, dry, dismal and had no plant life anywhere on it. This place had black holes in it like the entrance to a cave. A man was standing on a ledge outside one of these caves, waving his arms. Grandpa said to the Lord, “Someone over there wants help.” The Lord said, “Many of them come out there and beg for help. It was right along there that the rich man stood and begged Lazarus to bring water to him, but no man can pass from there to here, nor from here to there. In addition to the great gulf (space), there is a LINE OF DISTINCTION* that no man can pass through.” *(It’s a barrier that they can see through but cannot pass through). Those in hell could stand in the caves and see those who were going into paradise but they could not cross over the gulf.
It was from here (atop the Hills of Glory) that he looked down and saw the Earth. It had the same blue-green look and similar size as the pictures made of the Earth from the moon by the astronauts. He said that’s how the Earth looked to him then, looking from Paradise.