Author Randy Kay says he’s seen heaven — and it’s an experience he still gets emotional recounting.
It all happened years ago when Kay experienced a medical emergency. He recalled waking up in the middle of the night with a swollen calf after a business trip — something he initially ignored.
“I could barely walk, went for a bike ride of all things, which I should not have done because that exacerbated the problem,” he told Billy Hallowell and Jen Lilley on their “Into the Supernatural” podcast. “I went up the coast of San Diego … on the bicycle and could barely breathe. My calf was about one and a half times its size.”
At first, he thought he was experiencing asthma, but soon realized it was something else entirely. By the time he reached his doctor’s office, he collapsed and ended up in the emergency room.
And things went from bad to worse from there:
“The ER physician said that I was a walking dead man because I had let this go so long,” Kay said. “By the time I had made it into the emergency room, I had seven clots, one near my heart, six that were blocking the pulmonary artery, which is the main blood flow to the lungs.”
Already struggling to survive, Kay ended up contracting Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which got into his bloodstream. Suddenly, he was clinically dead, but rather than being overtaken by darkness and nothingness, Kay experienced something he’ll never forget.
“Immediately, my body went still, and, initially, it felt like a tugging at my hospital gown,” he said. “And, later, I would come to realize that that was my spirit leaving my body, and then I became a third party to my body. So, I was looking down this still body I knew that was my body, but that wasn’t me.”
Kay said he was suddenly “in a different place.” He found himself moving up to a new location — a place where he witnessed a spiritual battle over his body. As it unfolded, he cried out.
“As soon as I cried out the name of Jesus Christ, I was side to side with this figure who I knew was Jesus,” Kay said. “I just caved. I just collapsed. And I was sobbing. I knew I was in the presence of God and the first thought was, ‘So this is love.’”
And he said that love began to tunnel throughout his body, infusing him with joy.
“At that point, He had hugged me so tightly … and then He brought me on a journey, and it was a journey of my life,” Kay said. “And it dated back into my early childhood, and there were different vignettes that He showed me, and I realized that He was showing me how He had redeemed the various parts of my life because I eventually had become an agnostic.”
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He continued, “And he showed me how He’d been with me every moment of my life, bringing me to this point.”
Kay emotionally recalled witnessing the power of prayer in heaven. He saw a vignette of a time when he served as a hospital orderly and took care of a small boy who was critically ill. As a teen at the time, Kay was hesitant to get too close to the child, worrying that his illness could somehow rub off on him.
“I just gave him his food on the tray and he said, ‘I’m going to heaven,’” Kay said. “I thought, as an agnostic, ‘Well, that’s nice, and I said something to the effect of, ‘Well, you know, I don’t really believe in that, but if there is a heaven, I’m sure you’ll be there.’ And he said, ‘I’ll pray for you. … and someday you’ll be there, too.’”
Kay said he was watching this replay while in Heaven and was mesmerized as Jesus was showing him the effectual prayers of the little boy — a complete stranger.
“I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me,” he said. “His prayers brought me to a saving knowledge of Jesus. That single prayer from that boy, and that’s just as a testimony of how profound our prayers are.”
Kay, who wanted to stay in Heaven, said he was clinically dead for 30 minutes and 49 seconds — but miraculously returned to his body. He said Jesus told him he would need to go back.
At first, he held his story close. But, after more than a decade, Kay began publicly sharing his story and has since written books like “Heaven Stormed,” among others. He also has a popular YouTube channel where he tells incredible stories of near-death experiences.
