“I saw this huge pearl gate. It’s beau-tiful!”
Patti Miller Dunham’s brother Richard had lapsed into a deep coma. Along with other family members, his sister waited for what seemed inevitable. Then he defied expectations—he woke up and eventually the life support equipment was turned off.
Dunham says, “Back in 2001 in the Missouri Intensive Care Unit, when my brother talked of seeing heaven, he also said, ‘I didn’t see God, but He told me I had to go back because He has more work for me to do.’”
Then she makes a startling statement: “Little did I know part of the work planned for him was his own sister.”
Months later, Richard called Dunham after hearing her marriage had collapsed. She was at a loss to deal with the depression and sense of betrayal that were left. He quickly identified his sister’s central problem: “Every sentence you are saying to me starts with the word ‘I.’ You are in control. God isn’t.”
In a series of eighteen more phone conversations over the next several months, Richard Miller shared wise counsel that Dunham documents in I Saw Heaven. His advice amazed her. She was the “good, churchgoing Christian,” and he was a recovering alcoholic who had been a struggling believer for a few years and had rarely attended church as an adult.
Yet Richard stated truth in ways that pierced her soul. She says, “I got it. I heard it.” The conversations encouraged her to search the Bible, to pray, and to meditate. Her life changed forever as a result.
I Saw Heaven is a testament to a way God often works—through the words of people who are not afraid to “speak the truth in love” to us. It portrays how one life was changed—and it’ll change yours, too.
