by Mary C Neal
3. Mary writes that at the time of their passing from life on this earth, people “often see the beauty of heaven, a mother or mother figure, siblings, or people who weren’t yet known to have died. They often talk about getting ready for a trip, ask about their luggage or tickets, describe angels, or mention the name of the person who is coming to get them.” Does your family have a story of a deathbed visitation surrounding the passing of a loved one? Tell your story.
4. What is your personal reaction to what Mary calls the Second Lesson That Heaven Reveals: Death is not to be feared, because death is not the end. It is a threshold where we leave our physical selves behind and walk whole into eternity.
Chapter 4, Sitting Next to Jesus
1. With no communications and no hospitals anywhere nearby, two men “just happened” to appear on the riverbank to help Mary’s rescue party find a way out. More unexplainable coincidences followed. Have you had encounters that seemed divinely orchestrated? Write them down, or talk about them.
2. Do you believe Mary when she says of the person sitting next to her on the rock that he was “utterly, inarguably known to me—he was Jesus.” Why or why not?
3. Mary admits that she hesitated to tell others that her companion in the beautiful field was Jesus. “I wanted to deserve Jesus,” she writes. What is your reaction to that desire?
4. Perhaps the best-known story Jesus told is of the return of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11–32). Which brother in the story do you most identify with—the brother who ‘ ‘deserved” the father’s love, or the son who didn’t? Does Mary’s experience with Jesus change anything for you?
5. Mary’s Third Lesson That Heaven Reveals states: Choosing forgiveness releases our burdens and frees us to live fully and joyfully in God’s extravagant love. Do you believe God’s love has the ability to break the chains of your past disappointments and hurts? Do you see how this can set you free to enjoy the full and abundant life that God intends for you?
Chapter 5, Life Goes Further Than Science
For some readers, the science-focused content of this chapter may be off-putting, even unnecessary. For others, it will be the single most important chapter in the book. Here, Mary describes in some detail her quest to understand in physiological terms what happened to her. She organizes her research by question; for example, “Was it just my imagination?” and “Was it a seizure?”
1. Have you experienced something that left you baffled to explain rationally to yourself and others? What was it? How did you set about to find answers?
2. Mary writes, “I knew I needed to be methodical in my search for answers. After all the trauma I had sustained, could I trust my cognitive ability to help me reach reliable conclusions?” What safeguards can a person take who has reason to doubt his or her own reliability as the person asking the questions?
3. Do you find the scientific case that Mary builds convincing? Why or why not?
4. If you are a Christian or a follower of another faith tradition, have others suggested that your spiritual experiences and convictions might simply be creations of your own overactive imagination? If so, how have you responded?
5. Do you believe that science can—or eventually will—explain spiritual realities that people of faith call miracles? Or are you of the opinion that science can only go so far?
Chapter 6, Crossing Over and Coming Back
1. This chapter brings corroboration from scripture, history, and current accounts for the reality of near-death experiences. All of the ten commonly shared phenomena cited here occurred in Mary’s experience. Nevertheless, Mary sees your “reading this book as an act of courage.” Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
2. In your own words, define an NDE as you understand it.
3. At least two biblical accounts seem to describe NDEs: the story of Elijah and the widow’s son in the Old Testament (1 Kings 17:17–21), and Paul’s journey to “the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4). How well do these two experiences fit your answer to question #2?
4. Mary writes, “Skeptics often use these differences between individual details to question the validity of the NDE phenomenon.” How do you respond to the variances in the experiences of others? Do you see it as a positive or a negative?
5. Have you ever experienced something that was so unusual or profound that it seemed to set you apart from others, in part because you felt unable to talk about it easily?
Chapter 7, A Guided Tour of Heaven
1. Were any of your assumptions about heaven changed by what you read in this chapter?
2. Describe what you imagine heaven to be like? How much has that picture changed since you were a child? How do you talk about heaven to your children, if you have them?
3. How do you feel about sharing heaven with people you don’t want to be there?
4. Read the Bible’s description of “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1–5). What do you find most personally appealing in this account? Does heaven matter more to you now, or less, than it did ten years ago? Explain.
5. Share your personal reaction to what Mary calls the Fourth Lesson That Heaven Reveals: Heaven is a reality, where we are made whole—no pain, no sorrow, no suffering—understanding prevails, relationships are reconciled, and we will be with God and our loved ones forever.
Chapter 8, Miracles Are Always in the Making
1. Where do you stand on the reality of miracles today? Choose one and explain:
a. I believe they used to happen, but no longer do.
b. I believe they could happen, but don’t.
c. I believe small miracles happen today, but not at the scale we see in scripture.
d. I believe miracles of any scale are just as real and possible today as ever.
2. If a miracle has touched your life in an important and memorable way, would you be willing to talk about it? If you experience a “nudge” or whisper as being from God, what is your typical response? If you act on the prompt, what outcomes have you seen?
3. Mary writes about the blooming Bradford pear tree and alpine rose. Do you take certain small signs or reoccurrences in your life as a nudge from heaven that God is present and at work in your life? Talk about it.
4. Do you feel that some people overly ascribe happy outcomes in ordinary life to the miraculous? What might be a downside to this outlook?
5. Share your personal takeaway from what Mary describes as her Fifth Lesson That Heaven Reveals: Big miracles happen sometimes; personal miracles happen often. God invites us to notice His miraculous presence all around.
Chapter 9, Angels Walk Among Us
1. Have you or someone close to you been “touched by an angel”? If so, what happened?
2. Sentiment versus strength—I love the line from Psalm 103 (at the top of this chapter) where they are described as “mighty ones who do His bidding.”
3. If angels come from God to do God’s business, why do you think angel encounters in the Bible so often strike people with fear?
4. Why do you think angels are often reported nearby when a person is about to pass from this life to the next?
5. Have you ever come to believe then or later that a person helping you was actually an angel? How did it affect your emotions? How did it affect your spiritual understanding?
Chapter 10, God Has a Plan
1. Can you recall a time in your life when you needed more intensely than usual a sense that a loving God was in control? What about your situation was most troubling? How did things resolve?
2. Jesus taught that we need not fear being unknown or uncared for by God (Matthew 10:29–31). Why do you think it’s so natural for us to feel separate from, even abandoned by our heavenly Father?
3. Mary says, “I constantly try to sense where the Holy Spirit is leading.” Would you say you are a person who looks for guidance “constantly,” for even small decisions, or one who tends to only ask for help with big decisions? Explain. Do you see a risk for leaning one way or another?
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4. Do you relate to what Mary means when she talks about spiritual prompts? Share your experience.
5. On this page, Mary writes her quality checklist for making a decision. What would your checklist look like, and how is it working for you?
6. In what area of your life are you currently most in need of clarity, or struggling most to say yes to God? From the perspective of heaven, what kind of advice would you give yourself?
7. Talk about your personal reaction to what Mary calls her Sixth Lesson That Heaven Reveals: God has a plan for each of us—full of hope, purpose, and beauty—and He wants us to discover it.
Chapter 11, Beauty Blossoms from All Things
1. The central question of this chapter is universally challenging: “If God is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, why does he allow evil in the world?” Would you say your response to the question has tended to drive you toward God or away? Why? Have you noticed any change in your response over time?
2. The question of God’s goodness in the face of evil seems unanswerable at times. Does Mary’s story of the corn maze suggest a possible solution?
3. Mary proposes three pictures for how we can think about God’s plan: a river, a cowriter, a handwoven rug. Which picture resonates most with your experience now?
4. If you’ve ever been in the midst of a painful, unwanted experience, someone has probably tried to encourage you with a statement like, “You’ll be okay—God works everything out for our good” or “You’ll understand why some day.” Why can responses like that be unhelpful, even hurtful at the time?
5. Can you identify an experience in your past that felt entirely awful, wrong, and even cruel at the time, but that you see differently now? Talk about it. How did that experience shape your outlook now?
6. Share your personal response to what Mary calls the Seventh Lesson That Heaven Reveals: In our mistakes and failures, tragedies and losses, God never leaves us. His goodness and love surround us. In His time, beauty blossoms in all things.
Chapter 12, There Is Hope in the Midst of Loss
1. Have you experienced a premonition about something that came true? Do you believe it was coincidental, or a message from heaven? Talk about it.
2. Thinking back to your own experiences of loss, what gestures, actions, or words would you say brought you the most comfort? Explain.
3. We all want to live without regret. Why is actually accomplishing that so difficult?
4. Of her loss of her son, Mary writes: “Many days I wanted to stay curled up in bed, wanting only to be relieved of the pain, of existence itself. But I survived….Even on my saddest day, the joy I found in God’s promises never left me.” Do you believe pain and joy can exist so closely together? If so, has that been true for you? Talk about it.
5. If you’ve been through grief, how has it affected your other close relationships? What have you learned from the experience?
6. In your own words, what is the promise of heaven for us in our grief?
Chapter 13, How to Live with Absolute Trust
1. Mary writes that “we’re invited to lean wholly and confidently—in absolute trust—on God’s unfailing goodness.” If you were to apply a scale of 1 to 5 to show how much or how little you trust God’s goodness (1 being little to not at all, 5 being a lot or all the time), how would you rank yourself today?
2. “Hope is like oxygen,” writes Mary. Can you recall a time in your life when you felt hopeless? If so, what did that feel like? How did that affect your energy level? Your ability to make decisions? Your feelings about the future?
3. Some people think of faith as primarily about ascribing to the correct set of beliefs, or behaving religiously. There’s nothing wrong with those things, of course, but why might that leave a person—in Mary’s terminology—only partly “in the boat”?
4. “Faith becomes trust when we personally see evidence of God’s presence in our own life, and act on it.” Have you acted in trust for this reason recently? If so, share your experience.
5. Mary uses a picture of a footbridge over a ravine to illustrate what trust in God, or the lack of it, looks like. Where would you place yourself in relation to the bridge today? Why?
Chapter 14, Step 1: Look Beyond
1. Why might it be important to bring more than simply our intellect to a search for evidence of God in our lives?
2. Mary proposes a list of reasons that our past could be blocking our ability to understand and respond to God. She describes these reasons as baggage. Pick one or two of the obstacles (baggage) that were true in your past. Would you say these obstacles blocked your progress in your spiritual life (a) entirely, (b) partly, or (c) very little or not at all? Explain.
3. Can you identify obstacles that you’re finding particularly limiting or distressing in your life now? What would it take for you to get past this “baggage” and go free?
4. As you “look beyond” your life for evidence of God’s loving presence, what do you see? What kind of evidence feels most important for you?
5. What working hypothesis have you decided to take with you as you collect evidence of God’s loving presence and purpose in your life? If you’re willing, please share.
Chapter 15, Step 2: Look Around
See also the suggestions for Actions and Reflection for this chapter.
1. Mary describes what she sees when she looks out her windows at home and on her commute. Look out your windows at home or on the way to work. Take the time to write down what you see. Keep looking until you see evidence of the supernatural. What is it? Any surprises or insights?
2. On the spectrum of “very aware” to “not very aware,” how would you describe your level of attentiveness to signs of God or the supernatural in your typical day? What helps you most to “wake up” to God and the supernatural in your day?
3. If you could capture the truth about God that you see most clearly in a photograph of the Milky Way, what would it be?
4. When you look at the human body, what evidence for or against a trustworthy God do you find?
5. When you look at the historical record, including the Bible, what evidence for or against a trustworthy God do you find?
Chapter 16, Step 3: Look Within
See also the suggestions for Actions and Reflection for this chapter.
1. How did God’s presence and promises show up for you in the times described below? If you’re willing, choose one or two examples you can share with the group.
• Times of disappointment or failure
• Times when you noticed synchronicities
• Times when a closed door opened others
• Times of celebrating a life passage—e.g., christening, baptism, graduation, wedding, birth, memorial service
• Times of sorrow, pain, or loss
• Times of utter joy
• Times when you were confronted by great need or suffering in another person
2. As you look closely at your life story, share what you find that you consider: (a) evidence of God at work in your life; (b) evidence that the supernatural world (angels, nudges and prompts, miracles, so-called “visitations”) is always near; and (c) evidence that God has a plan and a purpose for you.
3. Does your inventory of your own life experiences suggest that you are becoming more aware and more responsive to God’s presence over time, or less?
Chapter 17, Step 4: Form a Conclusion
1. In this chapter, Mary leads the reader in a summing up. You have completed your personal investigation. Now it’s time to gather your findings, form a conclusion, and—with a clear picture of what you now know to be true—apply it to your life. What could change for the better almost immediately for you if you take this action?
2. Reread the Churchill quote that opens the chapter. Why is it so easy—when we encounter important, potentially life-changing insights about how to live well—to “hurry off as if nothing had happened”?
3. In the Gather Your Findings section,
Mary describes her book as a discovery process, starting with what she learned in her near-death experience and from other sources, and continuing with what we, too, can learn. To what degree has reading 7 Lessons from Heaven been a discovery process for you? Share your answer, and explain.
4. How well has your reading and thinking supported your working hypothesis? How might you revise or expand your original working premise, and why?
5. Based on your reading and the evidence you’ve gathered, where on the spectrum of conviction, between “confirmed skeptic” on the one hand to a “true believer” on the other, would you now place yourself? (Use a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represents “confirmed skeptic” and 5 represents “true believer.”) How do you feel about your answer?
6. Based on your reading and the evidence you have gathered, what could you now reasonably conclude about God in the key areas we’ve been exploring? For example:
• Can you conclude that God is real and present in your life and in the world?
• Can you conclude that God’s promises are true?
Chapter 18, The Sweetest Fruit on Earth
1. Mary writes, “We are made for heaven, starting now. From birth, we are created to respond to the Spirit, to be touched by angels, to deeply long to live eternally with our loving God in the company of those we love.” To what degree do you agree with the author? Has reading 7 Lessons from Heaven changed your thinking? If so, how?