He held out his right hand, palm up and pointed to the center of it with his left. Without hesitation, he stood to his feet. Quietly, carefully, I said, "Colton, where are Jesus' markers?" Jesus has red markers on him."Īt that moment, my throat nearly closed with tears as I suddenly understood what Colton was trying to say. You mean like markers that you color with?"Ĭolton nodded. If you're a Christian, there's something admirable about Todd's trust in his son and in the Son of God. That's what makes Heaven Is for Real a fun book for believers and skeptics alike. Then Colton started talking about visiting heaven and sitting in Jesus' lap, and Todd bought it after only a second of doubt. But the prayers of friends in Imperial came through, and Todd's brief moment of questioning disappeared when Colton emerged unscathed. At that moment, he writes, Todd doubted God. Colton spends costly days in the hospital before his life-threatening condition sends him to surgery. Then his son Colton develops appendicitis, is misdiagnosed, and becomes gravely ill. Despite suffering financial setbacks and a painful broken leg, Todd Burpo-volunteer firefighter, wrestling coach, garage-door installer, and minister to a congregation in Imperial, Nebraska-is certain of the presence of God in his life. So no, there's not much doubt in Heaven Is for Real, as the book's name implies. Those are the kind of righteously tone-deaf people Lynn Vincent writes books with, people whose level of doubt vacillates between "Am I right?" and "Am I right, or am I really right?" It was co-written by Colton Burpo's father, Todd, and Lynn Vincent, who also co-wrote Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and Never Surrender, with Lieutenant General William Boykin, who left the US Army after saying that America was at war with Satan and that he didn't fear a Somali warlord because he was armed with God, while the Somali had only an "idol," and who once proudly stated that he wanted to crawl into heaven on all fours covered in blood. Published in 2010, it sold like only a relentlessly heartstrings-tugging tale of a young boy who saw heaven during emergency surgery could. You've probably heard about Heaven Is for Real, which, like everything, was a book before it was a movie.
The bare bones of that story sounds like a Capra script already, but somehow, Hollywood fucked it up. Like Heaven Is for Real, the tale of a four-year-old Nebraska boy-deliciously named Colton Burpo-who went to heaven and then came back to tell his pastor father all about it. Getting smaller stories right is easier, or so you'd think. You know, 50 million dead, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous, the atomic bomb.
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