my name is Lauren and I'm 29 years old now I've lived through things I never thought I'd survive and I mean that literally three different times I stepped right to the edge of death what I experienced on those thresholds changed me forever I saw things I still can't fully explain from a light so warm and immense It could only be described as Divine to an otherworldly presence that shattered everything I believed about life these moments taught me about suffering love and the power of forgiveness and in a Twist I never expected they also transformed the
one person who hurt me more than anyone else my own father I want to take you back to the beginning to when I was just a child I don't remember a single day of my early years where I wasn't scared fear felt like it lived in the very walls of our house it soaked into the floors and hung in the air like the stale smell of my father's cigarettes and beer he was a big man looming large both in size and in the force of his temper which came and went without warning you couldn't guess
which version of him would walk through the front door each night sometimes he'd barge in so hard that the door frame shook my older sister Ella and I would freeze on the sofa or Crouch by the hall exchanging glances that spoke a single message brace yourself we hardly breathed hoping he'd pass out in his chair with a bottle in hand but if he was wide awake and Furious well those are the nights I'd give anything to forget my father's favorite way to hurt me was to bat my head between his fists like I was a
volleyball other times he'd pick me up by the shoulders and slam me against the wall so hard that the pictures shook I remember once when I was maybe eight I accidentally spilled a glass of milk he gripped me by the hair and dragged me across the kitchen floor I kept trying to scramble to my feet but I couldn't as he pulled me along he muttered pathetic his voice calm in a way that was more horrifying than if he'd screamed Ella suffered too but in different ways she was older by a few years and where I
would cower she sometimes stood up to him though that only seemed to push him further once during a particularly bad night he actually pointed a gun at her I was sure I'd lose her forever but she didn't cry she just stared back trembling but somehow refusing to Flinch she whispered go ahead daring him to do it he didn't pull the trigger but the look in his eyes told us he had thought about it the worst part was knowing he could have killed her and that knowledge stayed lodged like a thorn in my mind Ella left
home the second she turned 18 she got accepted to a college in another State and was gone in a Flash part of me was relieved for her Another Part Of Me felt abandoned angry that she'd escaped and left me behind but deep down I understood it was survival you do what you have to do my mother was around in a physical sense but it was as if her spirit had left she hardly spoke never made eye contact with my father and seemed trapped in her own haunted Daydreams once after he slammed me into a wall
for something small maybe I'd come home 5 minutes late I can't remember she was just sitting at the kitchen table her hands around a coffee mug her gaze lost in the distance I inched over my face swollen blood drying under my nose and I whispered mom please she blinked for a second I thought she'd help she even reached out and brushed her fingertips against my cheek but then she sighed stood up and turned away to start doing dishes at that moment any hope that she would protect me vanished after that I never went to her
for help again books became my refuge I read anything I could find library books old paperbacks the back of cereal boxes because reading let me slip into a different world in those stories I was Brave I was strong I could imagine a life where I had control church was my other Escape though for different reasons we lived just down the street from a small neighborhood Chapel my parents had attended it once back before I was born but apparently they were asked to leave they never went back but every Sunday I'd sneak off by myself to
sit in a pew at the back I'd listen to the pastor talk about love and compassion about a God who sees all and still chooses to love us that idea lit a tiny flame in my chest maybe there's something better out there but a question lingered if God saw everything why didn't he stop the abuse why didn't he make my father stop hurting me why did he let my mother turn away when I needed her one day I worked up the nerve to ask a Sunday school teacher a sweet woman with gray hair and kind
eyes she gave me a gentle smile and said God gives us free will sweetheart he doesn't make people do bad things they choose to I nodded like I understood but it felt Hollow at night when the house was finally quiet I'd stare at the ceiling cracks and Whisper God are you even there if you are do you love me the silence afterward was agonizing I was eight the first time I died it's a strange sentence I know but that's how it felt one moment I was in pain maybe from my father's latest outburst and the
next I was floating outside above our backyard the transition was so abrupt that I didn't have time to wonder how I'd gotten there I wasn't standing on anything I was just there weightless our yard had tall hedges all around a barrier my father liked because it kept prying eyes away in that weightless State I felt a freedom I'd never known in my short life no dread no pain just a lightness that made me want to laugh below the grass swayed though there was no Breeze above the sun Shone but I couldn't feel its warmth on
my skin actually I had no sense of having a body at all I was just awareness then I saw something above me it wasn't the sky it was a radiant endless light so gentle that it didn't blind me it felt more real than anything else I'd known and in that instant a word formed in my mind God not an old man on a throne not a figure like all the paintings this was different it was pure love filling me up like I'd been Hollow my entire life my chest felt full to bursting with warmth and
belonging he spoke to me but not with a voice it was like he was part of my thoughts and I heard you are here because you have something to do instantly an overwhelming Joy washed through me could he really mean me the girl my own father called worthless I felt unworthy but I wanted to embrace his words I understood that I could choose to stay there in that unimaginable peace or go back to my life I didn't hesitate because that love was everything I'd ever wanted yes I answered in my mind I do anything to
stay connected to that presence then he told me you must be baptized a surge of excitement went through me though I didn't understand why I just knew it was vital before I could ask anything else the light dimmed and I was suddenly falling plunging back into myself it felt like a violent Crash Landing my head pounded my body felt impossibly heavy and hot and a wave of disappointment settled in I was back in the mess but a new sense of purpose glowed faintly in me still shaky I forced myself up and went inside my father
was in the basement dad I called surprising myself with how steady my voice sounded I have to talk to you he came to the top of the stairs glaring as if I'd interrupted something important what he demanded I need to be baptized I blurted my heart was pounding but I wasn't afraid of him in that moment his eyes narrowed I could tell he was trying to figure out if someone had put me up to it why he asked at last his tone even but with a hint of confusion because I need to serve God he
stared at me and something maybe fear or uncertainty flickered across his face who told you that he said sounding suspicious no one I replied God told me I thought he might strike me right then but instead he looked rattled after a pause he muttered I'll talk to the pastor then almost as an afterthought don't tell your mother a week later I was standing in a baptismal pool at the church the water cold around my legs the Pastor said the usual words then leaned me back under for a split second under the water I hoped maybe
God would bring me back to that light but when I emerged coughing and blinking under the bright Church lights I was still in this world people clapped politely my father stared at me white-faced and that was that the next day nothing changed on the surface my father still yelled still threw things but I felt a small victory burning inside me I'd done what God asked and for now that was enough the second time it happened I was 10 and terrible sick I had a fever so high that everything felt dreamlike I remember lying on the
couch in our living room too weak to move barely able to focus on the television that flickered in front of me the air felt heavy pressing down on my chest suddenly my vision shifted I didn't just see the room anymore I saw numbers equations floated in the air scrolling by like they were on a computer screen even though I'd never been good at math it felt like I understood them instantly like the knowledge was pouring into my mind it terrified me I wanted it to stop I called for my mother though my voice sounded muffled
to my own ears with effort I got up and stumbled into the kitchen where she was sitting at the table staring at some far off point mom I said waving a hand in front of her face she didn't blink didn't move didn't acknowledge me at all then I turned around and saw my own body still lying on the couch I was so disoriented that for a second I couldn't even think I was there standing but also there motionless on the sofa my skin was pale my breathing shallow as I stared I felt a magnetic pole
drag me backward and then whoosh I slammed back into my physical self gasping I looked around the fever was raing raging my clothes clinging to my sweaty skin I was so weak I could barely sit up my mother was in the kitchen still unresponsive but that sense of having left my body it was more Vivid than any nightmare later on after other unusual experiences I'd realized I had truly floated out of myself but at 10: I managed to convince myself it was just a fever dream by the time I was 15 the bruises on my
body seemed permanent never fully fading before fresh ones took their place my father's Fury had only grown over the years feeding off his bitterness and my mother's silent acceptance but one night after he punched me so hard that I collapsed on the living room floor he said something that splintered whatever was left of my hope he stood over me face calm breath sour with whiskey I hate you he said as if stating a fact sometimes I think about killing you but that'd be too much trouble those words rang in my head all night I'd always
felt he hated me but hearing him say it so casually made me feel subhuman like I wasn't even worth the effort it would take to pretend to love me that night in the quiet darkness of my bedroom I closed my eyes and prayed for the last time God please just let me die I can't do this anymore a sudden searing pain erupted at the base of my skull like someone had driven a red hot Spike into my head my eyes shot open but I saw nothing no bedroom walls no bed no lamp only Blackness the
pain Ended as quickly as it had started but I felt lighter like I no longer had a body at all at first I was strangely calm is this death I thought maybe dying is just floating in an endless void then my mind started whirling I was still aware still me and that terrified me because I'd expected nothingness my heart or whatever was left of it pounded in my ears as I realized I might be stuck there forever I tried to move to see if there was anything around me but I was suspended in emptiness just
when I thought I'd dissolve into Panic a presence manifested it was everywhere surrounding me and reaching inside me all at once it felt vast and loving like the warmest embrace you can imagine a wave of relief poured over me God not in a shape or a body but in everything in that moment I somehow understood all the mysteries of existence the purpose behind life the nature of love words can't really explain it but I knew everything and it was so perfectly clear that I actually laughed how could I have missed it before then as quickly
as it began that full understanding started to fade the Blackness shifted and suddenly I was in a place that resembled a cave the walls glowed softly pulsing like they were alive confused I pressed myself against a rock wall as if I needed to hide why did I feel the need to hide I didn't know that's when I saw her she drifted in from a corner of the cavern her form tall and slender unlike any human being her skin shimmered with shifting colors kind of like the Aurora in the night sky her head was elongated and
her eyes were huge and black so deep they seemed to hold entire galaxies within them an alien I realized but somehow I wasn't afraid she paused tilting her head as if listening to something her gaze swept around until it landed on the spot where I crouched I sensed her surprise then her nervousness she seemed as uncertain about me as I was about her are you going to stop hiding the words echoed inside my mind she wasn't speaking out loud yet I heard her as clearly as if she had I I'm sorry I stammered I stepped
forward feeling oddly self-conscious in front of this being you're beautiful I blurted my voice sounded far away even to me she didn't reply just studied me with those unreadable eyes then I noticed the wall behind her which wasn't stone at all but a giant screen of sorts on it scenes from my life played Moment by moment things I remembered clearly and things I'd forgotten why are you showing me that I asked I already know my life I want to know about you she didn't answer instead she turned back to the screen exasperated I watched along
another scene came up I was on stage at my High School Musical I had a big Solo in front of friends teachers my mother everyone I realized if I had died that night they would have canell the show my friends would be devastated the production would have fallen apart in my darkest moments I'd convinced myself my life didn't matter to anyone but here was proof it did the second I understood that the cave disappeared and it felt like a rope yanked me backward I hurdled through a blur of swirling Darkness then bam I snapped back
into my body with such force that I vomited my head pounded my limbs spazzed and I gasped for air but I was alive somehow I knew what I needed to do the next morning I woke up with a different perspective my face was still bruised my ribs still tender but the bitterness in my heart the anger and resentment I'd carried for as long as I could remember was gone in its place was an understanding so profound it made my chest ache I no longer saw my father merely as a monster I saw a broken man
who had never known real love pain had Twisted him into someone cruel but beneath that cruelty he was just an unloved child in an adult body I thought about what I had experienced with God that overwhelming unconditional love if he could love me despite everything maybe I was meant to share that love even with my father but how could I ever say the words I love you they felt impossible instead I decided to love him silently through my thoughts I began by finding one tiny good thing about him that I could focus on a glimmer
of positivity for my father that was his skill in gardening despite everything he cared for our yard meticulously planting roses fruit trees and flower beds it was the one place he poured his energy without anger or violence so every time he yelled at me instead of absorbing the hate I'd mentally repeat you're a good Gardener you're a good Gardener you're a good Gardener with each thought I imagined sending him a small small beam of light a fraction of the love I'd felt in that other realm at first nothing changed he was still him rageful unpredictable
but gradually little shifts occurred one evening as he raised his hand to hit me he seemed to hesitate his expression flickered confused like he sensed something was off but didn't know what over the next several weeks his blowups became shorter eventually they became less free frequent then one evening after a relatively calm dinner he looked at me with an expression I'd never seen on his face regret quietly he said I feel like you're the only person in the world who loves me I'd never told him those words not once but somehow he felt it for
a long time I kept my near-death experiences secret I knew people would dismiss it as Illusions or a trauma matized mind Conjuring fantasies Ella my sister tried to label it Stockholm syndrome suggesting I was just empathizing with my abuser and I understood why she felt that way she hadn't seen what I'd seen she hadn't felt that boundless love or glimpsed the possibility of transformation to this day some friends insist near death experiences are just the brain's desperate fireworks as it shuts down they say it's random neurons firing weaving Illusions out of bits of memory and
Imagination but I know what I felt was real it was more Vivid than anything else in my life it had substance beyond what we typically call reality that doesn't mean I have all the answers but I've chosen to live differently through my experiences I've learned that people who hurt others are often the ones who are in the most pain themselves their actions don't become okay by any means my father abuse was horrific but understanding the roots of Cruelty can spark compassion which can lead to Healing I still believe love is the most powerful force in
the universe where there is suffering it's usually because love is absent or rejected God or whatever you want to call that all-encompassing presence is always there always offering that love even when we don't see it today my father and I have a very different relationship ship we're not exactly best friends but he's sober now and we actually talk sometimes he tends to his roses and I sit nearby reading a book neither of us says much but there's a quiet understanding between us I'm not scared of him anymore and he no longer speaks to me with
hate in his eyes it's as if we've both been granted a second chance if I've learned anything from hovering on the brink of death three times it's that we are never alone Even in our Darkest Hours Moments When Hope seems impossible there is a love that reaches beyond all comprehension whether you call it God the universe or just compassion it's available to us if our hearts remain open that's what saved me that's what changed me and that's what allowed me to see my father not as a monster but as someone who needed love more than
he ever dared to admit I don't expect everyone to believe my story but if there's even one person out there who's hurting who thinks they're unloved or unworthy I hope you'll remember there is a light out there a love so vast it can make you whole again and if you ever feel trapped please know you're not alone you never were you never will be
