What I Saw in Heaven: The Incredible True Story of the Day I Died, Met Jesus, and Returned to Life a New Person

Heidi Barr didn’t believe in Jesus. No one in her Jewish family did, nor did they want to--especially not her father, who told her that Jesus Christ was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humankind. So when Heidi was in a terrible horseback riding accident and died at age 16, Jesus was the last person she expected to see. Yet she did. And then she returned to life.

This is the incredible true story of Heidi’s difficult family life, her sudden death, her unexpectedly loving encounter with Jesus, and her return to life on earth as a person completely and irrevocably changed. This is also the story of Heidi loving her father and mother despite their disbelief of and disagreement with her faith. And this is the gripping, beautiful story of her parents’ eventual reconciliation both with Heidi and with God, through the redeeming grace and all-encompassing love of Jesus Christ.

Heidi Barr was raised Jewish in a small Orthodox Jewish community in Iowa. When she was 16, a horseback riding accident led to the near-death experience that introduced her to Jesus and changed her life and faith forever. She went on to work as a hospital and later hospice nurse. She is now retired and lives in Bozeman, Montana. Heidi and her husband have three children and two grandchildren.