Quotes from Don Piper

When you start to "fall down the stairs" there is that moment when you realize that you have no control over what is going on. You simply experience the plunge and see where it takes you.

Some may not believe my account; they may think it was some kind of wish fulfillment during a point of severe trauma. I don't have to defend my experience. I know what happened to me. For those of us whose faith is in the reality of heaven, no amount of evidence is necessary.

When we're up against a struggle and we think we can't keep going, we can change that by praising God.

That's perhaps the biggest miracle: People prayed and God honored their prayers. As

Satan is a liar. He wants to steal our joy and replace it with hopelessness. When we're up against a struggle and we think we can't keep going, we can change that by praising God. Our chains will fall from us. Meese encouraged me by reminding me of the real reason we have for fully living this life. It's to give everything we have to God--even the heartbreaks and pain. God is our reason to live.

God had chosen to keep me alive. Even in my worst moments of depression and self-pity, I never forgot that. Christy

couldn't say it, but I believed then-and still do-that I survived only because a number of people wanted me to. They were relentless, passionate, and desperate, and they believed God would hear them. People prayed for me who had never seriously prayed before; some who hadn't uttered a word of petition in years cried out to God to spare me. My experience brought people to their knees, and many of them had changed in the process of praying for me to live.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord to those who love him and know him.

None of the hymns that filled the air were about Jesus' sacrifice or death. I heard no sad songs and instinctively knew that there are no sad songs in heaven.

My feeling has been that once we're actually in God's presence, we will never return to earth again, because it will be empty and meaningless by comparison

Just then I realized how badly I had missed the whole idea. I had failed them and myself. In trying to be strong for them, I had cheated them out of opportunities to strengthen me. Guilt overwhelmed me, because I could—at last—see their gifts to me.

Most of the time when people have that if-you-can-do-it attitude, I nod, acknowledge what they're saying, and add, "I'm just doing the best I can." And really, that's all I did during the worst days. Sometimes "the best I can" was nothing but to endure. Even when I struggled with depression, it was still the best I could do.

When we're up against a struggle and we think we can't keep going, we can change that by praising God. Our chains will fall from us.

As I ponder this, I don't believe my greeting committee said, "Oh no, he doesn't get to stay." They're still there at the gate. They're waiting. For them, time is not passing. Everything is in the eternal now—even if I can't put that into words. Even if ten more years pass, or thirty, in heaven it will be only an instant before I'm back there again.

I have absolutely no fear of death. Why would I? There's nothing to fear-only joy to experience.