August 3, 2025 • 33 mins
In this deeply moving episode, Dr. Pamela Prince Pyle, board-certified internal medicine physician and author of "Anticipating Heaven," shares her remarkable journey from sceptic to believer. After witnessing her husband's dramatic spiritual transformation following a near-death experience, Pamela initially resisted faith for two years before encountering God's peace in a life-changing moment. Her story reveals the power of persistent prayer, authentic repentance, and the evidence of God's work in our lives.
As a medical professional with decades of experience in hospitals and emergency rooms, Pamela brings a unique perspective to end-of-life care. She discusses the difference between "good deaths" and difficult ones, sharing insights about near-death awareness versus terminal restlessness. Her practical wisdom helps listeners understand how to prepare for death well, turning what many fear into an opportunity for witness and peace. This conversation challenges us to live fully while anticipating heaven, offering hope to anyone facing mortality or caring for those who are.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening today.
Dozens more episodes filled with hope are waiting for you at bleedingdaylight.net.
Please help kick the darkness by sharing this and other episodes with friends.
(00:32):
When we're younger, we feel invincible and somehow believe that death can't touch us.
But as we get older, or are faced with a bad diagnosis, we begin to face our own mortality.
Are there things we should be putting in place even before those moments that will help us to die a good death?
Today's guest has written a book to help others face the inevitable.
(01:03):
Today I'm joined by Dr. Pamela Prince-Pyle, a board-certified internal medicine physician whose work spans continents and touches countless lives.
As one of the pioneers of hospital-based internal medicine practices in the US, Pamela has spent over three decades caring for patients both at home and abroad.
(01:23):
She's been instrumental in establishing the Dream Medical Center in Rwanda, serves on various medical advisory boards, and has recently authored the best-selling book, Anticipating Heaven.
When she's not practicing medicine or serving as chair of the board for Africa New Life Ministries, you might find her sharing her insights on the intersection of faith, medicine and hope at venues like the National Prayer Breakfast or the Museum of the Bible.
(01:49):
I'm so very pleased that she is my guest today.
Pamela, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you so much, Rodney.
I am so excited to be on your show.
In some ways, your coming to faith and your interest in facing the end-of-life world come together in the story of someone very close to you who wasn't at that time prepared to die.
(02:11):
Can you share that story with me?
Yes, so a little bit of backstory on that story.
My husband and I met and married within six months.
We just fell deeply in love, but probably for all the wrong reasons.
He was a wild and crazy guy that I had not had that experience and fun, and I was going to school and finishing my residency at the time we met.
(02:39):
Neither one of us were Christians.
Religion, faith wasn't on our radar screen until about two years into our marriage.
Jesus really began to chase my husband.
I didn't really understand that and thought it was a little strange when he would talk about it because I had had no experience of growing up with religion, faith, spirituality, Jesus.
(03:05):
My husband had an accident where he had had a lot of blood loss.
I was riding in the ambulance with him.
He was unconscious, and I truly did not think he would survive.
Arriving at the hospital, I worked in and just everyone jumping in as they did with every patient, but I'm just understanding this might not end with him surviving.
(03:37):
But from his perspective in that unconscious state, he experienced what he believed to be, and in reflection we both believe to be, death without Christ.
He saw a darkness, felt a darkness, and felt that as he described it, his existence felt to be leaving him.
(04:04):
He had grown up with praying grandparents and as a young child had gone to church, and the only thing he remembered from Scripture was, every knee will bow, every tongue confess.
Every knee will bow, every tongue confess.
At that moment, he understood he was dying without Christ, and he calls out to the Lord and just said, Lord, please give me one more chance.
(04:32):
Please allow me to accept you.
Please take me.
Jesus saved my husband, both spiritually and physically, and when he woke up after his surgery and was at a point where he could discuss what had happened, he's different.
(04:53):
He's talking in ways that were even different than before the accident in a spiritual calmness.
I thought, he's not the man I married, and he was consistently not the man I married.
He was transformed.
For me, that was really disturbing, and most people would be so happy that their husband all of a sudden isn't getting angry and isn't this person who wants to go out all the time, but I just thought of Jesus as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and this name of someone who stole my husband.
(05:34):
My husband prayed for me, and there's so much power when we pray for others in our lives about coming to faith.
He prayed for me for two years, and it had to have been a rough two years for him because I was fighting him all the time.
I even thought, he's so different.
(05:56):
There had to have been something medically occurred.
I'm making him go to a medical university to get psychologically tested, and I still didn't understand until almost exactly two years later.
I'm certainly interested in what it was if you're so resistant to this idea of faith, and yet you can clearly see that it has made a difference in the life of your husband.
(06:24):
When was it that things started to change for you?
When was it that you started to think, you know what, he might be on to something here?
I can remember as if it were yesterday because it was such a pivotal time in our marriage and in our life.
He was sitting at the breakfast table right next to me.
(06:45):
I was mad at him, and he was not fighting back.
I was like, where's the fighting going?
He looked at me and very calmly says, I don't care what you say to me, and I don't care what you do to me.
I will never leave you, and I will always love you.
The thing about that moment for me is that had not been my experience with men before.
(07:12):
I thought men leave, and men hurt you, and they don't have that kind I'm not worthy of that kind of love.
But it was the first time I was like, if Jesus gives someone that kind of love, maybe there's something about him that is true.
(07:33):
A month later, while my husband was diving, I was looking for something to read, and there was this little book in his dive bag that he'd left, and it was called God of My Father.
It was written by a man who was talking about his father's faith.
As I was reading it, I was reading almost a story that I now would relate to Job.
(07:56):
This man had been through so much sorrow, suffering, losing a child, and then losing his beloved bride, and yet he had deep abiding faith and deep abiding peace.
In that experience, and I closed the final page, I realized my entire life had never experienced any kind of peace.
(08:28):
I would have temporary joy or happiness or a band-aid, if you will, but my heart was as stormy as all the people around me growing up.
I just knew that I knew that he had to be real if he could change my husband and change a man so much that he could experience life with peace.
(08:57):
I just cried out, Lord, I believe you, and I'm so sorry.
I was so brokenhearted because I just knew this deep sin in me.
I just asked that he would forgive me, and I apologized for all the things I'd said about it and not believed him.
(09:21):
I said, would you just give me a little bit of your peace?
Rodney, to this day, it breaks me emotional because it's so memorable, feeling like it was a rain shower of peace, and it was sudden.
I felt drenched in peace.
I just knew I was changed.
You had seen the change in your husband and an absolute transformation as you describe it, and then now there's this transformation for you, and I suppose you're also wondering, why did I leave it so long?
(09:54):
But what was your husband's response when you say, I get it now, and this faith is not just for you, it is for me also, that Jesus I know died for me?
There probably aren't words to describe the joy he felt.
He came back from that dive, and I was so taken back by this experience.
(10:16):
I was sobbing.
His immediate response was, something terrible's happened.
And I'm like, Jesus saved me.
He saved even me.
We just celebrated right there, the two of us on that beach of knowing that Jesus loved us both so much.
(10:39):
Then in our own way, he had to chase us to the end of ourselves to help us look to him, and that's how much he loves everyone.
He chases everyone to the end of themselves.
Your story speaks a lot of understanding that you've fallen short of the mark, that it requires repentance, that it requires that apology that you talked about to God.
(11:06):
Do you think that's sometimes missing in our churches, that we don't get the full weight of what it is that Jesus sacrificed on our behalf, and that when we do realize our own sinfulness, and the amazing way that God now sees us through Jesus, it brings faith into a whole new focus, doesn't it?
(11:28):
It truly does.
Paul described it very well when he says, I do what I don't want to do, and I don't do what I want to do.
This is the apostle Paul.
It's like the more you are in relationship with Christ, and the closer you become.
(11:48):
It's not the big sins that are so externalized.
It's the sins that occur in our life every day.
I'll tell you the power of repentance.
There was a global prayer day called Gather 25, and for 25 hours from seven continents, there was a live stream that took place of prayer and worship.
(12:16):
Hearing from the global church, Ginny Allen spoke about going to college campuses, and how in these secular campuses in the U.S., these young people were coming to faith.
But she called them to repentance, and how she called each person there to go to a stranger and repent of what God had placed on their heart, and that it was happening.
(12:50):
But then she spoke to everyone that was listening around the world, and asked us to do the same.
There's so much power in that.
My husband had happened to go to the bathroom at that point, and was standing in the back.
We were called to just look around and see who we were repenting to, and speak it out loud.
(13:15):
He heard a person who repented of something very deep and painful, a lifestyle that he wanted to change, and they prayed together.
I had something to repent of that I really didn't realize until that moment I had to speak it out loud.
(13:36):
I spoke it to the person who was next to me, who was a young girl.
She was a new believer a year into her faith, and she prayed so powerfully for me.
It was so freeing.
I just want to share what I had to repent of as a 62-year-old person, believer since 1996, that I had allowed alcohol to become a sin in my life.
(14:10):
Not that I was an alcoholic or anything, but it had replaced a part of my first love relationship.
I didn't want anything between me and my Lord.
It's hard to even say it now, but it was hard to say it to a young girl who I didn't want to appear as if I had failed our Lord.
(14:38):
That's not what Jesus used it for me.
She also shared to hear the authenticity of the power of repentance.
For her, it was an impactful moment also.
So it's hard to speak it, but boy, when we do, there's so much freedom.
(15:02):
There's a grace and a mercy that our Lord paid on the cross that we must remember as we're thinking about what He did for us and gives us the opportunity to repent.
I want to turn to the book that you've written, Anticipating Heaven, because it seems like an interesting topic that you're very concerned about people being able to die well, coming to the end of their life, being able to plan that out and do that well, because again, death is something that we tend to avoid in our societies.
(15:42):
We know that we're all going to die one day.
Why do you think we shun thoughts of death so much in Western society?
Actually, I would say it's a global issue.
Death is just more prevalent in developing countries, and so just because of its prevalence and nearness, it's talked about more.
(16:03):
I'll just use in the U.S. as an example.
We don't want to talk about it because we don't want to explore the nearness of our own mortality.
Our lives are so brief.
In fact, Billy Graham, the famous evangelist, in his 60s, he was asked, what is the most valuable lesson you've learned in your years thus far?
(16:31):
And he said, the brevity of life.
We don't know when our ending will occur, but we have a death date on our calendar.
If we consider our death as not an ending, but before the believer, it can be a beginning, how much different would we live our lives today?
(16:55):
Because that calendar date made it be tomorrow.
And so that's part of the reason the book's Anticipating Heaven.
How can we anticipate the goodness of God in our everyday life?
How can we anticipate his bringing someone to us to share the gospel if we're not expectant of his work in our lives on a daily basis?
(17:24):
For many, it's not that they are truly afraid of death.
And this is where the book enters the picture of when someone receives a diagnosis, even for the first time, and they're going through the battle of fighting whatever the disease is, cancer, strokes, heart disease, and the principles of how to navigate healthcare, whether you're in Australia, Rwanda, or the U.S., the principles are the same.
(18:02):
Knowledge is power.
Understanding what am I really fearing?
For many, it's their fearing the dying process, the suffering.
There's so many things that we can talk about that are available to help alleviate suffering, but there's also some value in suffering.
(18:25):
And that's what our Lord taught us, and he told us to follow him.
And he experienced the greatest suffering of anyone that walked this earth, and that was having known the presence of the Father and then experiencing death on the cross and separation for the first time from the Father.
(18:51):
And that's what he dreaded.
He had physical suffering, but he cried in the Garden of Gethsemane because he knew what that loss was going to be, and I don't want that for anyone else.
It is a strange paradox that we can certainly know that if we are facing the end of our life,
(19:14):
whenever that might be, there is an extra piece that we know if we know Jesus, but also
there's an urgency on top of that, that if we realize that we don't know the day or the hour,
that our time may be short and overall life is short, there's an urgency to say,
how can we reach out to those people who don't yet know Jesus?
(19:39):
Do you deal with that paradox of the piece that we're given, and yet the urgency that is placed upon us when we consider our own death?
This journey of really focusing on death began when a patient told me the day before she died, it's okay, it will be a good death.
(19:59):
God used that in my own life to begin exploring my own death, and even though in medicine, and I worked in acute care, so I was in hospitals and emergency rooms and ICUs, and death was present and a part of my work.
(20:21):
I hadn't thought of it in the context of my own life, but when I began to do that, I realized death brought clarity to life.
It brought clarity to the brevity and also the understanding as you said, we don't know the day or hour.
So am I going to worry about the things I can't change?
(20:45):
Why?
How can I be a better mother, a better spouse, a better doctor, a better human, and love each other well?
I have three questions that I ask myself.
One is, are you fully living your moments?
(21:08):
When your child talks to you, and you turn away and miss their maybe look of pain on their faces, that you weren't paying attention, don't miss that moment.
And then are you truly living your purpose?
(21:28):
I have found that is one of the greatest gifts of going to Rwanda, my work in medicine, my work in writing.
I am living on purpose.
It makes every day so valuable.
And then the most important question is, am I confident of my destination?
(21:52):
Are you confident of your destination?
My patient saying, it will be a good death, was her confidence in her destination?
And I have the same.
And I'm often asked why I am so confident.
And they expect a lot of answers when I say, well, it's the evidence.
(22:18):
But it's not the evidence of those that are dying or my husband's experience.
It's the evidence of his work in my life.
And it would be statistically impossible for the things that have happened in my life, good and bad, to have occurred if it were not for the truth of who Jesus is.
(22:46):
When we make a diagnosis, we look at the evidence.
And it's the same when I look at my dying.
When I take my last breath, I know that I will be welcome into the arms of my Savior.
It's because of the evidence.
A big part of the book was spurred on by that woman who said, it's okay, I'm going to have a good death.
(23:11):
And that's something that we would all hope to experience.
But I suppose, conversely, there's probably, working in the medical field, those times we've seen people that have not had a great death.
Is that one of the things that has also spurred you on to say, there is hope for people, we want them to experience something better than those sorts of deaths that I've seen?
(23:37):
Medically, there's two things that can happen, don't always happen, but can happen.
And the medical term for one is called near-death awareness.
And it's characterized by a sense of comfort and peace for the patient.
They don't seem like they're agitated.
(23:58):
They may describe people within the room that have already died.
They may talk about they're ready, their bags are packed, they're getting on the train.
They may talk about seeing a faith figure.
Or as Stephen in the Bible describes, just before his death, he saw Jesus and he saw habit.
(24:26):
And I've been with those that have seen Jesus and are calling out with their final breath.
Alternatively, there's something called terminal restlessness.
And this is also a medical term and it's characterized by agitation, crying out, sometimes screaming in a disturbance, even in their unconsciousness.
(24:51):
They might describe seeing snakes or darkness, things they can't put a name to.
And as physicians, clinicians, medical staff, we must look at first, is there a physical cause for what we're seeing?
Are they in pain?
(25:12):
Is there a bladder catheter issue?
How can we fix those things?
And then emotionally, mentally, is there someone that they might need to hear from or give forgiveness to or receive forgiveness?
(25:32):
And I'll always ask the families, is there someone that's not here?
But then there's a spiritual component.
When I describe that terminal restlessness, I think of what my husband saw and I can't help but think, is there a component of them seeing death without Christ?
(25:53):
I tell families, don't give up on your loved one.
Jesus came to my husband when he was unconscious and he was saved when he heard the Lord when he was unconscious.
And that may be the kind that that loved one also hears the voice of Christ.
(26:15):
God desires that none shall perish.
And we know that Jesus saved the thief just before he died.
Is it possible that there will be more in heaven because Jesus meets them there than we can even know now?
I hope so.
I pray so.
It's interesting that you mentioned Stephen there and as he is dying, as he is being murdered by the crowd around him, we see in the text that those who went out to kill him left their cloaks with Saul, who later became Paul.
(26:51):
It tells me that as well as Paul having that encounter with Jesus along the road, this would have been one of those moments that actually witnessed to him because he saw someone dying well.
And I suppose that's one of those things that for those of us who love the Lord, who have those in our family around us who don't yet know him, it can be such a powerful witness for us to prepare well and die well, can't it?
(27:19):
I call it last chance evangelism.
There's a reason last words are lasting words.
How we die may be the way that someone else comes to Christ.
It may be someone in our family.
It may be the medical person that's standing in the room or the orderly that comes in.
(27:42):
So much power when we share our faith in our suffering, whether it's suffering in our dying journey or suffering in our illness.
Suffering brings us a stage and pain is the microphone.
Don't waste your dying.
Your book Anticipating Heaven, who do you see is the main audience for it?
(28:06):
Who is it that should be grabbing themselves a copy and reading through and not just reading through but putting some of the things that you talk about into practice?
I'd like to say everyone because they're components of these are the things you need to do now before the crisis comes, before the diagnosis is made, before you receive the call.
(28:29):
When we are equipped before, it makes those events so much less chaotic and those events occur every day.
If you want to say the main audience, I would say it's a person who's experiencing their first serious diagnosis.
(28:50):
Because regardless of our faith, when we hear those words, you have cancer, you have ALS, you are dying, you just don't know how to walk it.
And I really wanted to equip that person with every bit of knowledge of decades of medical practice and also being a patient myself.
(29:18):
Have you heard any cases where what you've written has helped someone to live the rest of their life well and then die a good death?
I've heard the most unbelievable stories.
It's hard sometimes when you are putting your words, your thoughts, your heart into a book not knowing the impact in someone else's life.
(29:46):
But the stories that I get back, the emails, the contacts through my website, the people that call it, that is what gives me life and joy.
As one example, a woman had read the book when it first came out.
And she had it by her bedside table.
(30:08):
And she said, oh, this is so good.
But she never knew that she would need it when a few weeks later her husband would have a cardiac arrest.
And she had to navigate this terrible, terrible journey of CPR, hospital, machines, and then making the decision to take him off the machines because he'd had too much brain injury during the arrest.
(30:43):
But how the book helped her in that journey.
And she knew what to do, how to make decisions.
And then she said, and now I'm going to plan my own ending so that my children will know exactly what I want.
And they're not having to make decisions in the dark.
(31:06):
That's what I want for everyone.
It's the greatest gift we can give our loved ones when we have planned for our ending.
And then we can spend what time we are fighting a disease or living our ending journey.
And we can do so with spending that time, not doing the business of dying, but doing the business of living.
(31:33):
I'm sure that there are people that would love to get hold of the book and find out more and start to plan their own ending in a way that is going to bring honor to Jesus and is going to bring comfort to their family.
Where's the easiest place for people to connect with you?
My website is drpamela.com.
(32:01):
And there's a contact form.
You can contact me there.
You'll also be able to access a page on the website that you can get the book at every bookstore and online.
You'll find many materials that will help you just on the website.
(32:21):
Pamela, it has been an absolute delight to have this conversation, a much needed conversation, as you say.
I will put a link in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you easily, find the book easily.
But again, I just want to say thank you so much for your time and being a part of Bleeding Daylight today.
Thank you.
(32:43):
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening today.
Dozens more episodes filled with hope are waiting for you at bleedingdaylight.net.
Please help kick the darkness by sharing this and other episodes with friends.
(00:32):
When we're younger, we feel invincible and somehow believe that death can't touch us.
But as we get older, or are faced with a bad diagnosis, we begin to face our own mortality.
Are there things we should be putting in place even before those moments that will help us to die a good death?
Today's guest has written a book to help others face the inevitable.
(01:03):
Today I'm joined by Dr. Pamela Prince-Pyle, a board-certified internal medicine physician whose work spans continents and touches countless lives.
As one of the pioneers of hospital-based internal medicine practices in the US, Pamela has spent over three decades caring for patients both at home and abroad.
(01:23):
She's been instrumental in establishing the Dream Medical Center in Rwanda, serves on various medical advisory boards, and has recently authored the best-selling book, Anticipating Heaven.
When she's not practicing medicine or serving as chair of the board for Africa New Life Ministries, you might find her sharing her insights on the intersection of faith, medicine and hope at venues like the National Prayer Breakfast or the Museum of the Bible.
(01:49):
I'm so very pleased that she is my guest today.
Pamela, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you so much, Rodney.
I am so excited to be on your show.
In some ways, your coming to faith and your interest in facing the end-of-life world come together in the story of someone very close to you who wasn't at that time prepared to die.
(02:11):
Can you share that story with me?
Yes, so a little bit of backstory on that story.
My husband and I met and married within six months.
We just fell deeply in love, but probably for all the wrong reasons.
He was a wild and crazy guy that I had not had that experience and fun, and I was going to school and finishing my residency at the time we met.
(02:39):
Neither one of us were Christians.
Religion, faith wasn't on our radar screen until about two years into our marriage.
Jesus really began to chase my husband.
I didn't really understand that and thought it was a little strange when he would talk about it because I had had no experience of growing up with religion, faith, spirituality, Jesus.
(03:05):
My husband had an accident where he had had a lot of blood loss.
I was riding in the ambulance with him.
He was unconscious, and I truly did not think he would survive.
Arriving at the hospital, I worked in and just everyone jumping in as they did with every patient, but I'm just understanding this might not end with him surviving.
(03:37):
But from his perspective in that unconscious state, he experienced what he believed to be, and in reflection we both believe to be, death without Christ.
He saw a darkness, felt a darkness, and felt that as he described it, his existence felt to be leaving him.
(04:04):
He had grown up with praying grandparents and as a young child had gone to church, and the only thing he remembered from Scripture was, every knee will bow, every tongue confess.
Every knee will bow, every tongue confess.
At that moment, he understood he was dying without Christ, and he calls out to the Lord and just said, Lord, please give me one more chance.
(04:32):
Please allow me to accept you.
Please take me.
Jesus saved my husband, both spiritually and physically, and when he woke up after his surgery and was at a point where he could discuss what had happened, he's different.
(04:53):
He's talking in ways that were even different than before the accident in a spiritual calmness.
I thought, he's not the man I married, and he was consistently not the man I married.
He was transformed.
For me, that was really disturbing, and most people would be so happy that their husband all of a sudden isn't getting angry and isn't this person who wants to go out all the time, but I just thought of Jesus as Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and this name of someone who stole my husband.
(05:34):
My husband prayed for me, and there's so much power when we pray for others in our lives about coming to faith.
He prayed for me for two years, and it had to have been a rough two years for him because I was fighting him all the time.
I even thought, he's so different.
(05:56):
There had to have been something medically occurred.
I'm making him go to a medical university to get psychologically tested, and I still didn't understand until almost exactly two years later.
I'm certainly interested in what it was if you're so resistant to this idea of faith, and yet you can clearly see that it has made a difference in the life of your husband.
(06:24):
When was it that things started to change for you?
When was it that you started to think, you know what, he might be on to something here?
I can remember as if it were yesterday because it was such a pivotal time in our marriage and in our life.
He was sitting at the breakfast table right next to me.
(06:45):
I was mad at him, and he was not fighting back.
I was like, where's the fighting going?
He looked at me and very calmly says, I don't care what you say to me, and I don't care what you do to me.
I will never leave you, and I will always love you.
The thing about that moment for me is that had not been my experience with men before.
(07:12):
I thought men leave, and men hurt you, and they don't have that kind I'm not worthy of that kind of love.
But it was the first time I was like, if Jesus gives someone that kind of love, maybe there's something about him that is true.
(07:33):
A month later, while my husband was diving, I was looking for something to read, and there was this little book in his dive bag that he'd left, and it was called God of My Father.
It was written by a man who was talking about his father's faith.
As I was reading it, I was reading almost a story that I now would relate to Job.
(07:56):
This man had been through so much sorrow, suffering, losing a child, and then losing his beloved bride, and yet he had deep abiding faith and deep abiding peace.
In that experience, and I closed the final page, I realized my entire life had never experienced any kind of peace.
(08:28):
I would have temporary joy or happiness or a band-aid, if you will, but my heart was as stormy as all the people around me growing up.
I just knew that I knew that he had to be real if he could change my husband and change a man so much that he could experience life with peace.
(08:57):
I just cried out, Lord, I believe you, and I'm so sorry.
I was so brokenhearted because I just knew this deep sin in me.
I just asked that he would forgive me, and I apologized for all the things I'd said about it and not believed him.
(09:21):
I said, would you just give me a little bit of your peace?
Rodney, to this day, it breaks me emotional because it's so memorable, feeling like it was a rain shower of peace, and it was sudden.
I felt drenched in peace.
I just knew I was changed.
You had seen the change in your husband and an absolute transformation as you describe it, and then now there's this transformation for you, and I suppose you're also wondering, why did I leave it so long?
(09:54):
But what was your husband's response when you say, I get it now, and this faith is not just for you, it is for me also, that Jesus I know died for me?
There probably aren't words to describe the joy he felt.
He came back from that dive, and I was so taken back by this experience.
(10:16):
I was sobbing.
His immediate response was, something terrible's happened.
And I'm like, Jesus saved me.
He saved even me.
We just celebrated right there, the two of us on that beach of knowing that Jesus loved us both so much.
(10:39):
Then in our own way, he had to chase us to the end of ourselves to help us look to him, and that's how much he loves everyone.
He chases everyone to the end of themselves.
Your story speaks a lot of understanding that you've fallen short of the mark, that it requires repentance, that it requires that apology that you talked about to God.
(11:06):
Do you think that's sometimes missing in our churches, that we don't get the full weight of what it is that Jesus sacrificed on our behalf, and that when we do realize our own sinfulness, and the amazing way that God now sees us through Jesus, it brings faith into a whole new focus, doesn't it?
(11:28):
It truly does.
Paul described it very well when he says, I do what I don't want to do, and I don't do what I want to do.
This is the apostle Paul.
It's like the more you are in relationship with Christ, and the closer you become.
(11:48):
It's not the big sins that are so externalized.
It's the sins that occur in our life every day.
I'll tell you the power of repentance.
There was a global prayer day called Gather 25, and for 25 hours from seven continents, there was a live stream that took place of prayer and worship.
(12:16):
Hearing from the global church, Ginny Allen spoke about going to college campuses, and how in these secular campuses in the U.S., these young people were coming to faith.
But she called them to repentance, and how she called each person there to go to a stranger and repent of what God had placed on their heart, and that it was happening.
(12:50):
But then she spoke to everyone that was listening around the world, and asked us to do the same.
There's so much power in that.
My husband had happened to go to the bathroom at that point, and was standing in the back.
We were called to just look around and see who we were repenting to, and speak it out loud.
(13:15):
He heard a person who repented of something very deep and painful, a lifestyle that he wanted to change, and they prayed together.
I had something to repent of that I really didn't realize until that moment I had to speak it out loud.
(13:36):
I spoke it to the person who was next to me, who was a young girl.
She was a new believer a year into her faith, and she prayed so powerfully for me.
It was so freeing.
I just want to share what I had to repent of as a 62-year-old person, believer since 1996, that I had allowed alcohol to become a sin in my life.
(14:10):
Not that I was an alcoholic or anything, but it had replaced a part of my first love relationship.
I didn't want anything between me and my Lord.
It's hard to even say it now, but it was hard to say it to a young girl who I didn't want to appear as if I had failed our Lord.
(14:38):
That's not what Jesus used it for me.
She also shared to hear the authenticity of the power of repentance.
For her, it was an impactful moment also.
So it's hard to speak it, but boy, when we do, there's so much freedom.
(15:02):
There's a grace and a mercy that our Lord paid on the cross that we must remember as we're thinking about what He did for us and gives us the opportunity to repent.
I want to turn to the book that you've written, Anticipating Heaven, because it seems like an interesting topic that you're very concerned about people being able to die well, coming to the end of their life, being able to plan that out and do that well, because again, death is something that we tend to avoid in our societies.
(15:42):
We know that we're all going to die one day.
Why do you think we shun thoughts of death so much in Western society?
Actually, I would say it's a global issue.
Death is just more prevalent in developing countries, and so just because of its prevalence and nearness, it's talked about more.
(16:03):
I'll just use in the U.S. as an example.
We don't want to talk about it because we don't want to explore the nearness of our own mortality.
Our lives are so brief.
In fact, Billy Graham, the famous evangelist, in his 60s, he was asked, what is the most valuable lesson you've learned in your years thus far?
(16:31):
And he said, the brevity of life.
We don't know when our ending will occur, but we have a death date on our calendar.
If we consider our death as not an ending, but before the believer, it can be a beginning, how much different would we live our lives today?
(16:55):
Because that calendar date made it be tomorrow.
And so that's part of the reason the book's Anticipating Heaven.
How can we anticipate the goodness of God in our everyday life?
How can we anticipate his bringing someone to us to share the gospel if we're not expectant of his work in our lives on a daily basis?
(17:24):
For many, it's not that they are truly afraid of death.
And this is where the book enters the picture of when someone receives a diagnosis, even for the first time, and they're going through the battle of fighting whatever the disease is, cancer, strokes, heart disease, and the principles of how to navigate healthcare, whether you're in Australia, Rwanda, or the U.S., the principles are the same.
(18:02):
Knowledge is power.
Understanding what am I really fearing?
For many, it's their fearing the dying process, the suffering.
There's so many things that we can talk about that are available to help alleviate suffering, but there's also some value in suffering.
(18:25):
And that's what our Lord taught us, and he told us to follow him.
And he experienced the greatest suffering of anyone that walked this earth, and that was having known the presence of the Father and then experiencing death on the cross and separation for the first time from the Father.
(18:51):
And that's what he dreaded.
He had physical suffering, but he cried in the Garden of Gethsemane because he knew what that loss was going to be, and I don't want that for anyone else.
It is a strange paradox that we can certainly know that if we are facing the end of our life,
(19:14):
whenever that might be, there is an extra piece that we know if we know Jesus, but also
there's an urgency on top of that, that if we realize that we don't know the day or the hour,
that our time may be short and overall life is short, there's an urgency to say,
how can we reach out to those people who don't yet know Jesus?
(19:39):
Do you deal with that paradox of the piece that we're given, and yet the urgency that is placed upon us when we consider our own death?
This journey of really focusing on death began when a patient told me the day before she died, it's okay, it will be a good death.
(19:59):
God used that in my own life to begin exploring my own death, and even though in medicine, and I worked in acute care, so I was in hospitals and emergency rooms and ICUs, and death was present and a part of my work.
(20:21):
I hadn't thought of it in the context of my own life, but when I began to do that, I realized death brought clarity to life.
It brought clarity to the brevity and also the understanding as you said, we don't know the day or hour.
So am I going to worry about the things I can't change?
(20:45):
Why?
How can I be a better mother, a better spouse, a better doctor, a better human, and love each other well?
I have three questions that I ask myself.
One is, are you fully living your moments?
(21:08):
When your child talks to you, and you turn away and miss their maybe look of pain on their faces, that you weren't paying attention, don't miss that moment.
And then are you truly living your purpose?
(21:28):
I have found that is one of the greatest gifts of going to Rwanda, my work in medicine, my work in writing.
I am living on purpose.
It makes every day so valuable.
And then the most important question is, am I confident of my destination?
(21:52):
Are you confident of your destination?
My patient saying, it will be a good death, was her confidence in her destination?
And I have the same.
And I'm often asked why I am so confident.
And they expect a lot of answers when I say, well, it's the evidence.
(22:18):
But it's not the evidence of those that are dying or my husband's experience.
It's the evidence of his work in my life.
And it would be statistically impossible for the things that have happened in my life, good and bad, to have occurred if it were not for the truth of who Jesus is.
(22:46):
When we make a diagnosis, we look at the evidence.
And it's the same when I look at my dying.
When I take my last breath, I know that I will be welcome into the arms of my Savior.
It's because of the evidence.
A big part of the book was spurred on by that woman who said, it's okay, I'm going to have a good death.
(23:11):
And that's something that we would all hope to experience.
But I suppose, conversely, there's probably, working in the medical field, those times we've seen people that have not had a great death.
Is that one of the things that has also spurred you on to say, there is hope for people, we want them to experience something better than those sorts of deaths that I've seen?
(23:37):
Medically, there's two things that can happen, don't always happen, but can happen.
And the medical term for one is called near-death awareness.
And it's characterized by a sense of comfort and peace for the patient.
They don't seem like they're agitated.
(23:58):
They may describe people within the room that have already died.
They may talk about they're ready, their bags are packed, they're getting on the train.
They may talk about seeing a faith figure.
Or as Stephen in the Bible describes, just before his death, he saw Jesus and he saw habit.
(24:26):
And I've been with those that have seen Jesus and are calling out with their final breath.
Alternatively, there's something called terminal restlessness.
And this is also a medical term and it's characterized by agitation, crying out, sometimes screaming in a disturbance, even in their unconsciousness.
(24:51):
They might describe seeing snakes or darkness, things they can't put a name to.
And as physicians, clinicians, medical staff, we must look at first, is there a physical cause for what we're seeing?
Are they in pain?
(25:12):
Is there a bladder catheter issue?
How can we fix those things?
And then emotionally, mentally, is there someone that they might need to hear from or give forgiveness to or receive forgiveness?
(25:32):
And I'll always ask the families, is there someone that's not here?
But then there's a spiritual component.
When I describe that terminal restlessness, I think of what my husband saw and I can't help but think, is there a component of them seeing death without Christ?
(25:53):
I tell families, don't give up on your loved one.
Jesus came to my husband when he was unconscious and he was saved when he heard the Lord when he was unconscious.
And that may be the kind that that loved one also hears the voice of Christ.
(26:15):
God desires that none shall perish.
And we know that Jesus saved the thief just before he died.
Is it possible that there will be more in heaven because Jesus meets them there than we can even know now?
I hope so.
I pray so.
It's interesting that you mentioned Stephen there and as he is dying, as he is being murdered by the crowd around him, we see in the text that those who went out to kill him left their cloaks with Saul, who later became Paul.
(26:51):
It tells me that as well as Paul having that encounter with Jesus along the road, this would have been one of those moments that actually witnessed to him because he saw someone dying well.
And I suppose that's one of those things that for those of us who love the Lord, who have those in our family around us who don't yet know him, it can be such a powerful witness for us to prepare well and die well, can't it?
(27:19):
I call it last chance evangelism.
There's a reason last words are lasting words.
How we die may be the way that someone else comes to Christ.
It may be someone in our family.
It may be the medical person that's standing in the room or the orderly that comes in.
(27:42):
So much power when we share our faith in our suffering, whether it's suffering in our dying journey or suffering in our illness.
Suffering brings us a stage and pain is the microphone.
Don't waste your dying.
Your book Anticipating Heaven, who do you see is the main audience for it?
(28:06):
Who is it that should be grabbing themselves a copy and reading through and not just reading through but putting some of the things that you talk about into practice?
I'd like to say everyone because they're components of these are the things you need to do now before the crisis comes, before the diagnosis is made, before you receive the call.
(28:29):
When we are equipped before, it makes those events so much less chaotic and those events occur every day.
If you want to say the main audience, I would say it's a person who's experiencing their first serious diagnosis.
(28:50):
Because regardless of our faith, when we hear those words, you have cancer, you have ALS, you are dying, you just don't know how to walk it.
And I really wanted to equip that person with every bit of knowledge of decades of medical practice and also being a patient myself.
(29:18):
Have you heard any cases where what you've written has helped someone to live the rest of their life well and then die a good death?
I've heard the most unbelievable stories.
It's hard sometimes when you are putting your words, your thoughts, your heart into a book not knowing the impact in someone else's life.
(29:46):
But the stories that I get back, the emails, the contacts through my website, the people that call it, that is what gives me life and joy.
As one example, a woman had read the book when it first came out.
And she had it by her bedside table.
(30:08):
And she said, oh, this is so good.
But she never knew that she would need it when a few weeks later her husband would have a cardiac arrest.
And she had to navigate this terrible, terrible journey of CPR, hospital, machines, and then making the decision to take him off the machines because he'd had too much brain injury during the arrest.
(30:43):
But how the book helped her in that journey.
And she knew what to do, how to make decisions.
And then she said, and now I'm going to plan my own ending so that my children will know exactly what I want.
And they're not having to make decisions in the dark.
(31:06):
That's what I want for everyone.
It's the greatest gift we can give our loved ones when we have planned for our ending.
And then we can spend what time we are fighting a disease or living our ending journey.
And we can do so with spending that time, not doing the business of dying, but doing the business of living.
(31:33):
I'm sure that there are people that would love to get hold of the book and find out more and start to plan their own ending in a way that is going to bring honor to Jesus and is going to bring comfort to their family.
Where's the easiest place for people to connect with you?
My website is drpamela.com.
(32:01):
And there's a contact form.
You can contact me there.
You'll also be able to access a page on the website that you can get the book at every bookstore and online.
You'll find many materials that will help you just on the website.
(32:21):
Pamela, it has been an absolute delight to have this conversation, a much needed conversation, as you say.
I will put a link in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you easily, find the book easily.
But again, I just want to say thank you so much for your time and being a part of Bleeding Daylight today.
Thank you.
(32:43):
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
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