As my fingers fly across the keyboard right now a dear friend is meeting to set up hospice care for her mother. My friend has had a history of white-coat syndrome—she has been very fearful of all things medical.

This is part of an email message I sent to her:

What comes to mind is that hospice is not-hospital, and not-medical, as it is truly more spiritual. In the way of loving release, the information and the service is about how to keep your mom as comfortable as she can be for as long as God gives her. Even with everything I knew (and all of my first-hand experience with people passing), the morning my mother-in-law was dying I asked Hospice to send someone out to help guide and support me.

God was so involved in all of that. The hospice nurse that came was named Stacey, the same as my daughter. Stacey was kind, she was competent, and she was explicit in explaining things to me in a way I could understand.

Once I knew what I needed to know (the physical signs and processes of the soul preparing to leave the body) I was able to help the rest of Mom’s family be at peace with what they were seeing.

The other evening, wrestling with news of her mom’s condition, my friend asked me if I was familiar with the book, To Heaven and Back A Doctor’s Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story. A kayak accident during a South American adventure took this doctor to heaven—where she experienced God’s peace, joy, and angels—and back to life again.

I reminded my friend the focus of today’s meeting is not her but her mom, and not about her mom’s dying, but about her mom’s living as comfortably as possible for as long as possible and then going to Heaven.

Many have shared similar stories of the wonderful state we call “Heaven.” Many have told of angels who guide, support, and protect us.

Heaven is beautiful and one thing you can be sure of—the universe is friendly. If you need more proof of that fact, let me know if you might enjoy listening to a talk I gave at Pilgrim Congregational on October 15, 2017: “Universal Recovery.”

I wish we had recorded the last song. Imagine arms waving in the air singing….