Secrets from Beyond The Grave

estimate that she was dead for twenty-one minutes, but she suddenly revived and stunned the hospital workers. Later, to her husband, she related that while she was dead, she was taken to heaven and actually saw their nine-year-old son. Thelma and the boy recognized each other! The little lad related to his mother that he and other children enjoyed playing games on the s treets of gold . Thelma recalled how she could see her reflection on the streets of gold. As she spoke to her son, he looked exactly as he did when he passed, forty years prior! She also noticed several saints whom she had known for years and had worshiped with in church who had also passed away many years ago. One of the main individuals, a fellow minister, was standing with the boy in heaven. The lad said, "Momma, he is my guardian angel!" Later, as they discussed the incident, the Carters realized that when a child passes, that child is not lonely in heaven but enjoys the friendship of children his or her own age, and there are also people who knew that child or his or her family on Earth who are there with them! This should be a comfort to anyone who loses a child. Thelma also saw her godly parents, who had died, but never spoke to them--she only saw them. She saw many people she had seen being baptized in the river many years ago who had also passed. Not many people die more than once and experience both paradise and hell, but I know one man who has. Bishop Curtis "Earthquake" Kelley was a guest on Manna-fest when we aired the series on paradise. Bishop Kelley was once a heavyweight boxer, which is where he acquired the nickname "Earthquake." While his mother was a Spirit-filled believer, his father, who had Haitian ancestry, was a voodoo priest who was training Earthquake in voodoo from the age of five with the intent to send him to Haiti to work under Papa Doc. Earthquake became a drug user who died at age fifteen after consuming a mixture of marijuana, cocaine, pills, and alcohol. Earthquake left his body at death and was pulled into a place within the earth, where he was mocked and tormented by evil spirits. Here demonic spirits beat him and laughed as they said, "You did voodoo for us. You were a sorcerer. You sold drugs for us. We tricked you! Now you are in hell. You can't get out of here. You belong to us now. You are lost forever!" In his book Bound to Lose, Destined to Win , Earthquake wrote, "It seemed that every bad thing I had ever done, every good thing I had ever heard about Jesus, every Sunday school lesson I'd been taught, and every prayer I'd heard my mother pray came back to me. But there was not one thing I could do about it now. I was in hell."6 Then he described how that suddenly, two hands that were a golden color and brighter than the noonday sun reached into the room where he was being tormented. When the demonic spirits saw the hands, they screamed, "No! No! He belongs to us! You can't have him! No!" The golden hands placed him back in his body. He heard a voice say, "Because of your mother's prayers, and because you have been chosen by God, you were spared." Earthquake's mother prayed fervently for him and the rest of her children, often speaking the Word of God over their lives. Although paralyzed from the waist down after the experience, God miraculously healed him. Soon after, Earthquake received salvation and deliverance. Years later, Earthquake briefly died of a brain aneurism as he lay in a hospital bed hooked to machines. Angels that were so bright they were almost difficult to look upon appeared in his room, along with a beautiful golden, boxlike vessel. The angels carried him to paradise, where they invited him to step out of the vessel and walk around. In his book, Earthquake wrote of beauty that was indescribable. Grass was lush, green, and perfectly manicured. Blades of grass and branches of trees swayed to the music as they appeared to be praising God. The music was more outstanding than any he had heard on Earth, and it permeated his entire being. Flowers on Earth seem to be painted with crayons compared to