The mirror between worlds

The accident happened on a warm June afternoon. The lake shimmered like liquid silver beneath a sky of spun glass, the breeze carrying the scent of pine and distant wildflowers. Elise had always loved the water. It had been her place of peace since childhood. But that day, it turned into a passage. A misstep on a moss slick rock. A splash. And silence. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen breathless, pulseless minutes.

Her body floated motionless, eyes closed, lips tinged with blue.
When the EMTs arrived, they moved with quiet urgency. The lead paramedic, Jordan, dropped to his knees and began CPR, his voice cracked from pleading: “Come on, Elise… come back…”

And then, just as the sun slid behind a cloud, she gasped. The world, stunned, held its breath. She was back. But Elise would later say she hadn’t truly left only crossed over.

She spoke nothing of it for weeks. Not to the nurses, nor her family, nor even the kind-eyed chaplain who came to pray at her bedside. But deep inside her, something stirred. Not fear, longing.
One night, in the quiet of her candlelit bathroom, she looked into the mirror.

And saw two reflections. The first was her earthly self pale, recovering, and still carrying the shadow of something vast and sacred.

But beside that image shimmered her other self, the version of her that had died. This version radiated light that pulsed with warmth. Her eyes reflected eternity. Her skin looked kissed by heaven’s breath. A crown of stars circled faintly above her head like a divine whisper.

Elise raised her hand to the glass. Her fingers trembled. And then, like a wave returning to shore, it all came back.
The moment she drowned, she didn’t fall into darkness. She rose into light.

Soft, golden, and alive, it wrapped around her like a warm embrace. And then she felt Him. Not seen, but known. Not heard, but unmistakable.
God.

The Presence moved toward her like the sun rising inside her soul. It was not a man nor a voice nor a thunderclap, it was every sunrise she’d ever witnessed, every prayer she’d whispered in the dark, every moment she had ever chosen love over anger. It was Him. And He knew her name. Not just “Elise,” but the name underneath, the one only Heaven remembered.

A meadow bloomed around her. The grass glowed with inner light. Petals danced without wind. She could feel a thousand lives brushing past her skin people she’d loved, people she’d lost, ancestors whose prayers had carried her. Time had no edge here. Joy had no bottom. Then He spoke, not with words, but with truth: “ My child, your time is not yet. There is more love for you to give”

And then she fell, not with fear, but with promise. Back to the world. Back to the broken and beautiful Earth. And so, standing before the mirror, Elise wept, not from sadness, but from remembrance.

She had seen Heaven. She had felt God. And He had sent her back not to escape life, but to transform it. From that day on, Elise lived a faith-filled life.

She began each morning in prayer, whispering gratitude before her feet touched the floor. She volunteered at the church’s food pantry. She hugged longer, listened deeper, and forgave more freely. Her eyes carried something eternal, like someone who knew this world wasn’t the end. And when she returned to that mirror, from time to time, her reflection, the radiant onewould still appear. Not to haunt her.

But to remind her: That the Kingdom of God is not only above, it is within. And she was living proof that even in death… God is near, and love is eternal.