The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World by Kevin Malarkey; Alex Malarkey Read Free Book Online

lighted outline when I received the phone call about the accident.
    Dr. William Malarkey, Kevin’s father
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    Are we going to lose our house?
    Is Beth thinking, “I knew this would happen with Kevin because of all the chances he takes. If he had listened to me, none of this would have happened”?
    Is everyone here and at the accident just being kind but really thinking what a rotten person I am—what a pathetic father Alex has?
    That first day, fear, doubt, and self-loathing slid in and out of my mind—reasonable, under the circumstances, but also pointless and destructive. I knew these thoughts didn’t come from God—they were directly from my adversary, the devil. But knowing the truth about these things wasn’t enough. I was almost overcome by them. I had to fight against them. I had to reject the false voice and cling to the truth. I began holding on to the only hope I had: God loves me. God loves Alex. God loves Beth and our other children . God’s peace was there, available for me, but I had to receive it by rejecting the Accuser and listening to the Voice of Truth. I will listen to the Voice of Truth.
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    Another memory came to me . . . a happy one. Alex was just a few days old, and to get him off to a proper start, I held him up to see Ohio Stadium.
    “Hey, buddy,” I said, holding him face out, “that’s where the Buckeyes play football!”
    Yes, I had planned this initiation rite well in advance. On check-in to the birthing center, just before Alex’s delivery, I had managed to secure the hospital room that afforded the best view of the stadium. Now, sitting in the hospital waiting room, I wondered, Why am I thinking about this now?
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    At last a hospital worker arrived to lead us to Alex’s room. We were about to go into a very different hospital room from the one of my memory. I had never before been in an intensive care unit. Walking down the hall, I thought how strange it was that none of the rooms had doors. Only loosely hanging, shabby-looking drapes separated us from the many families and the trauma that engulfed them. For all their plainness, those drapes wielded tremendous power to shield passersby from the pain within each room. The hollow gaze of hopeless anguish flooded through the doorways with open drapes. The children I saw looked so sick, so distressed. Alex would look much different, I assured myself, much better.
    When we rounded the corner and stepped into Alex’s room, I took a sharp breath. The scene was overwhelming. It was as if we had stepped into the command center in some diabolical war. Alex lay flaccid, eyes closed, on a bed in the center of the room. He was completely surrounded by a riot of monitors, wires, tubes, and endless medical paraphernalia. A ventilator conspicuously pumped air into his lungs.
    Yet other than the obvious trauma points and the tubes running in and out of his body, he looked fairly normal, at least at first glance. Garish evidence of the accident was mercifully spare, just a few small scrapes and one deep gash held together by stitches.
    A moment later, though, the icy fingers of fear once again encircled my heart—he looked . . . lifeless. How do you describe what it means to be a parent and to stand, helpless, over the broken body of your child? Yet in that very moment, something deep inside me believed Alex would survive—in what condition I dared not think. But from that moment on, an assurance that he would live took root, never to be dislodged.
    Please, God, help our son.
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    I remembered praying with Alex as he received Jesus as his Savior a few years before. He was so young, yet so sincere. What an awesome privilege! Alex knew he wanted to go to Heaven someday, and he grasped that he could not go simply by “being a good boy.” Heaven could not be earned like other things. Alex knew he needed someone else to pay the price for his sin—the wrong things he would do in his life—so that he could accept the gift