Lola Ryann

As the dying prepare to leave this world, they often begin to get a glimpse of what lies beyond through deathbed visits from deceased loved ones, strangers, and angelic or divine figures. Religious beliefs appear to have no bearing on these experiences - even atheists and nonbelievers have reported such phenomena. At times these visits are experienced by others in the room, offering incredible validity to the idea that life truly does continue.

On April 28, 2006, as he lay in his hospital bed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, visions of celestial beauty were the last thing on Marv Besteman's mind. He had just had surgery to remove a rare pancreatic tumor. It was after visiting hours and his family had left for the day. Alone and racked with pain, Marv tossed and turned, wanting more than anything else to simply sleep and escape the misery and discomfort for a while. The retired banker, father, and grandfather had no idea he was about to get a short reprieve....

You've heard it all before. The promises for a better life get tiresome after awhile, because you know they don't deliver. However, they do touch on a profound and inescapable truth. You were created to live your life out of a rewarding, richly textured relationship with God and others - and deep down, you long to experience that kind of life. But how? Are you willing to devote 60 days to finding out? John Burke guides you on a journey of experiential discovery that has already made a profound impact on thousands who have discovered what it means to actually "do life" with God.

All of us long to know what life after death will be like. Best-selling author John Burke is no exception. In Imagine Heaven, Burke compares over 100 gripping stories of near-death experiences (NDEs) to what Scripture says about our biggest questions of heaven: Will I be myself? Will I see friends and loved ones? What will heaven look like? What is God like? What will we do forever? What about children and pets?

Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of the psychic phenomenon called haunting; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a lonely, homeless girl well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.