A Re-Sharing: An inspiring account:-believe it or not as you will, but I see no reason to not believe it, as there are so many other similar countless testimonies of the power of the love of God and of Eternity, through the ages, to not believe this one.
Time: Sat, 1 Oct 2022 22:38:03 +0000
From: Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com>
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“How Marvelous Are Thy Works, O Lord! There Is no tongue sufficient to hymn Thy wonders; Thou Art The God Who Workest Wonders!” ALLELUIA!
“Unless we become as the little children, we cannot enter the Kingdom of God”
Atheist Dad Is Transformed After Glimpse of Heaven as Toddler Son Is Taken Off Life Support
BY GEETA NANGIA TIMEFEBRUARY 17, 2022 PRINT
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A family who lost their 2-year-old son due to respiratory complications of the flu virus 11 years ago have said that what God did for their lives, and in the lives of others through their son, has been nothing short of a miracle.
A former atheist, dad Darin Hamm shares his story of how a glimpse of heaven transformed him and led him on a journey of faith, while his late toddler son, Griffin, was given only a few hours to live before he was taken off life support.
Darin Hamm with his wife, Jennifer, and two sons, Dylan and Griffin. (Courtesy of Jennifer Hamm)
A Gifted Child
Darin and his wife, Jennifer, say their toddler son, Griffin, a bright-eyed little boy with beautiful curly blonde locks of hair, was a “content, happy, and observant child who loved what all boys do—tractors, cars, and being outside with his daddy.”
“It took seven years to have him,” his parents told The Epoch Times, “and he was a gift from God.”
Darin and Jennifer Hamm’s son Griffin. (Courtesy of Jennifer Hamm)
Facing Trials in Marriage and in Faith
Although parenting Griffin and their older son, Dylan, went smoothly for Darin and Jennifer, the father of three said they’d been going through a very difficult time in their marriage.
Jennifer described that, during that time, her husband dealt with a profound amount of anger and frustration toward others. It was not uncommon for him to get into an altercation with someone who upset him at the store or out in the community. He was often unpredictable, and she’d been counseled to consider divorce. However, she struggled and found hope through her faith.
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On the other hand, Darin said he was a proud atheist who “hated Christians,” feeling they were usually inauthentic and the many he knew were corrupt. He said he often dealt with people who claimed to believe in God but didn’t live a good life.
As an owner of a large business in the Central Pennsylvania region, in an area where many professed faith, he often felt discouraged by others’ behavior and became further angered as a result.
Thus, when Jennifer would visit churches, looking for a place for Griffin to be baptized, Darin would tell her she was chasing “the invisible man,” referring to a God he didn’t believe existed.
Experiencing Heaven and a Glimpse of Eternity
However, on a cold January day in 2011, things took an unusual twist for the Hamms. After days of Griffin being on life support due to an unforeseen turn in his ability to breathe, Darin had an experience that would change the course of his life.
The family had been in the hospital at that time for four days and were told that Griffin was brain dead and that in 24 hours, they were going to disconnect him from life support.
“I told the doctors that I didn’t want to guess every time someone walks in the room if they’re going to do that, so I needed them to set a time,” Darin said. “So it was 4:30 p.m. when we had this conversation, and so they said the next day at 4:30 p.m. they’d remove the life support.”
Both the parents were told by Griffin’s medical team that they were going to unwrap his head, and the couple was given permission to lie down with him. Darin watched Jennifer as she lay down with her son for hours, knowing she didn’t have much time left with him.
“At 11 o’clock, she said, ‘I feel terrible, I haven’t shared,'” Darin said. “She got up, and I laid down with him.”
However, for Darin, the last few hours with Griffin were completely different. As he lay down for 30 minutes, everything around him was getting darker with each passing minute, he said.
“I wasn’t able to comfort him at all. It was too much for me,” he said. “It was the first time in my life that anything was too much. I sat in a chair and I looked at him and said aloud, ‘I am not man enough. I can’t comfort my own son, with 14 hours left.'”
Not wanting to give up, however, he tried to summon up the courage and lie down with Griffin again. Finally, the third time he lay down with him, Darin touched his hair and grabbed his hand like a handshake. He recalls telling him, “I never even got to teach you how to shake hands, Griffin.”
What unfolded next was a transformative experience that changed Darin’s life forever. The following is what he shared:
Right there, at that moment, I was GONE. Like … lifted out of my body … gone. I was traveling with him. He was ahead of me, and he was looking back at me. He had his right hand behind him, and my left hand was holding his hand. We were traveling. It felt fast, but it wasn’t the wind. I could only see blue, and there was communication happening with me. I would get lots of information from what seemed like the atmosphere.
My initial response to Griffin was, “I can’t believe this is happening,” and he would look at me and his smile was just so large and he was so alive. But, when he would look away from me, I would become very ill, similar to the state I was in when I felt I wasn’t tough enough to comfort him. Then, he would look at me again, and that feeling would go away. It was just so intense … the love I felt, and then he would look away. The third time he looked away, I was so sick and nauseated by my own feelings of not being enough, and I thought to myself, “You’ve got to toughen up. This is a rare moment you are getting with your son. He is alive.” This time, Griffin looked at me, and he laughed. He knew my thoughts, and he knew them deeply. He chuckled and said, “Daddy, you aren’t sick!” I knew all of what he meant at that moment, spiritually and emotionally. I was NOT sick!
And then … I experienced the love of God. He was everywhere. He was the blue I saw, and totally encompassed me. I could see the things I had done in my life, the things I thought were good decisions but they weren’t. I could see business decisions that I made that were so wrong, because the perspective with which I made them had been selfish. I was supposed to be my brothers’ keeper. I didn’t take care of people like I should have. I felt God say that He’d put people in my life to take care of them, but I hadn’t. I could see these things play out and God showing me in a very peaceful and loving way, not a critical way. It was harsh, but so loving at the same time. Everything made sense.
I could see eternity, and see it precisely. It was to be outside of time. It was very clear to me there that Griffin, in his two years, did more than most men in one hundred years could conceivably do. His life was truly precious and accomplished.
We got to what seemed like the end, and it seemed Griffin was trying to introduce me to someone. His attention went somewhere and then he looked back at me. And then, he asked me, “Daddy, may I stay?” It was a yes or no question. I knew that I could say no, and that he would have been alive when I got back. It was crystal clear. But you know what I said? I said well beyond “You could stay.” I said, “Wow, son. Of course you can stay!”
Darin remembers clearly that the moment he uttered the word, “Wow,” he was back in his bed in the hospital shaking his son’s hand, and at that moment, everything was “really over.”
“That love that I felt there in heaven … it was clear that the most I could ever do with all the love I could ever muster up, was a tenth of one percent of the love that I experienced that God had for me,” Darin said of his profound experience.
Lives Transformed Through Realization of God’s Love
When doctors came in to take Griffin off life support, Darin found himself with a “peace beyond comprehension.” Jennifer recalls that, at that time, she knew something was different because he was comforting everyone else.
“I was not as affected by what was happening because my reality was what I was shown in heaven,” Darin said. “Eleven years later, that is my reality. I didn’t know if what I experienced would somehow wear off, or if the knowledge and memory of what I saw would fade.”
His journey toward faith might have been different compared to others and came on rather “dramatically and instantly.” However, he believes it’s stronger than ever now.
Jennifer said that, in the weeks following Griffin’s passing, her husband kept repeating the line, “Life is about love and relationship.”
(Courtesy of Jennifer Hamm)
Darin believes that these were the words he was given while he had the vivid experience of a glimpse of heaven. The encounter made him a completely different man who then had a sudden insatiable desire to read the Bible and learn everything he could about God.
He went down a path where he wanted to let everyone know about God, mend past relationships, and make things right with people in his life. Everyone was surprised and couldn’t believe how he’d changed, as he went from being an angry and volatile person to being patient, loving, gracious, and caring.
“It has been 11 years, and I see how he has totally changed, like a new creation,” Jennifer said. “I started to love my husband again, watching him love Jesus and love others.”
Purpose Redefined
Over the years, it’s not only Darin’s life that’s changed; he’s also made it his life’s focus to share God’s love with others.
He wants people to know that “Heaven” is real and that God’s love for us is unquestionable. He believes life is short and that our purpose is to love and serve God and one another.
In an attempt to help others, Darin has spoken to those who have questions about life and has developed a ministry around helping people on the verge of suicide.
For Darin, he knew it was like God gave him the ability to share hope with them. He strongly believes that people who are in crisis somehow end up in his path, so that he can help them to know about God’s love and about eternity.
Meanwhile, Jennifer went on receiving counseling after Griffin passed away. She remembers finding herself in a sad place over and over again.
However, one day, her counselor told her that nothing he could say to her would make her situation be less painful, but he asked her a poignant question.
“He asked me if I had any blessings in my life,” she recalled, “and then he advised me to begin thanking God for those blessings before I lose them. So I began to force myself, before I prayed and went over my laundry list of concerns and complaints, to thank God for each and every blessing in my life—and it totally reprogrammed my mind.
“I don’t know where we’d be if this never happened.”
Two years after Griffin changed his address to heaven, Jennifer and Darin were blessed with a daughter, named Alaina.
Jennifer quit her job and began staying at home to savor every moment of seeing her daughter grow up.
Jennifer and Darin with their daughter, Alaina. (Courtesy of Jennifer Hamm)
Dylan, who loved his brother with all his heart, is now married and lives close to his parents. Darin and Jennifer are so proud of both Dylan and Alaina.
“God didn’t have to do this, but He has been so gracious. He has helped me to have joy after all this pain,” Jennifer said. “God has been so good in the midst of this.”
[L–R] Jennifer, Darin, Alaina, Brooke (Dylan’s wife), and Dylan. (Courtesy of Jennifer Hamm)
Blessed Assurance
In January this year, Jennifer added another poem to the many she has written for her son; Griffin would have been 13.
“I have a lot of questions, but by the time I get to heaven, it won’t matter. I trust God’s plan is bigger than mine,” the mother of 3 said. “This is such a little part of life. Heaven is forever. This is all just a blink of an eye.”
Both parents confidently express that they know Griffin is with the Lord, and that, one day, they’ll all join him, and this time, it will be for eternity.
(Courtesy of Jennifer Hamm)
 MY COMMENT: And remember, THE HOLY BIBLE IS OUR COLLECTION OF HOLY LETTERS, A TOTAL Vetted & Compiled CREATION OF OUR HOLY ORTHODOX CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH, so that in its profound wisdom is MUCH that is necessary for any human being to come closer to God with, and to many of the heterodox, it is all they have. We must not limit “The Holy Spirit, Who Goes Where HE Wills”, Because God loves All Mankind, not just we formal registered members of The Earthly Orthodox Church…many of us Orthodox, who do not daily LIVE what our Saviour in His Gospel teaches, nor what our saints have lived and tried to teach us about, (which Orthodox-Gospel the Heterodox also read, and often they ACTUALLY!...try to LIVE) and thus what our church teaches, anyway!..as we Orthodox TEND to reduce our Christian Walk, to merely observing endless & automatic CORRECT PERFORMANCE of RICH & BEAUTIFUL AGE-OLD RITUALS-many of which we do not really understand anyway-in any language, and external pious formalities..often forgetting WHY we perform them: THEY ARE MEANT TO BE, A MEANS/Our ROUTE Podvig/Our Spiritual-Bodily/Soul STRUGGLE our ASCENSION TO ACHIEVE THE DESIRED END-RESULT-: OVER-COMING THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH, -FOR OUR SOULS!-AND-THEOSIS/UNION WITH GOD! NOT AS ‘AN END IN THEMSELVES’!..which is PRIDE-FILLED DEADLY PARISEEISM, condemned by Our Lord, as also CAN BE with physical FASTING, IF it is only centered on what foods we eat or do not eat, and not on our INNER-MAN, -our souls, (like the Pharisees and Saducese of Jesus day, who only cared about outward legalistic external practices, (“To be seen of man”) ‘observing every jot and title of The Law’, not ‘The New Man’ ) but without FAITH or in LIVING OURSELVES repentant lives, WALKING WITH GOD. No beautiful rituals nor the mumbling of INSINCERE/EMPTY RATTLED-OFF PRAYERS, will get us into Heaven!..if our souls are not right with God…which is the essence of Jesus’ entire preaching. “Acquire the spirit of peace,(the Holy Spirit), and a thousand souls shall be saved around you!”-St. Seraphim of Sarov. So we dare not self-righteously, judge or condemn anyone, but pray for their enlightenment, and so LIVE ourselves, that we, by OUR EXAMPLE, even if we do not verbally speak about such things, may point them to a fuller more complete spiritual path, -the Orthodox Christian Path, and when asked by them, to SHARE OUR HOLY FAITH WITH THEM., but not min a useless spirit of angry self-righetous argumentiveness, which never converts anyone. Years ago an Orthodox Abbot said about the zealous among heterodox Christians: “They have SO LITTLE , but they do so much with it, while we Orthodox have SO MUCH, but we do so little with it!” This wonderful account, of God’s Mercy in action, is of those whom the Lord showed His love and power to, in ways which THEY could comprehend.. (GOD STOOPS DOWN TO OUR LEVEL, TO SHOW US THE PATH TO HIMSELF) -that is: both by the very INCARNATION OF CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, IN THE FLESH, and also of the message of this inspiring account: ”GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS, HIS WONDERS TO PERFORM”., “TO IF, BY ANY MEANS, TO SAVE SOME!”..because : GOD IS LOVE! Retired Psalm-Reader Daniel Everiss in the forest. P.S. And if any of us proud, FORMAL “ Orthodox Christians”, do not LIVE what Jesus taught,-clearly preached in His Holy Gospel, then WE are bound for Hell, not Heaven, most especially as WE Orthodox have been given by God, MORE SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND GRACE, and hence MORE WILL BE EXPECTED FROM US at our judgements. “In Thy Kingdom remember us, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom!”
_____________________ 10/6/2022: Again, my comment to your new comment here: Sent from Mail for Windows To understand heterodox after-death experiences, (different from Orthodox experiences), read and study Fr. Seraphim's "Soul After Death" http://startingontheroyalpath.blogspot.com/2010/04/soul-after-death.html | ||||
To understand heterodox after-death experiences, (different from Orthodox experiences), read and study Fr. Seraphim's "Soul After Death" http://startingontheroyalpath.blogspot.com/2010/04/soul-after-death.html
Once again, you seem to not be aware of some facts.
We do not know. .nor dare we to assume, IF non-Orthodox, after their souls leave their bodies, -that they do not also experience THE SAME route into the next world, (whether they wish to, or not…) as we believe that we Orthodox will basically have to face our first jugement, and so forth, as Orthodox doctrine teaches that ALL must face. But that the Heterodox do not even know of. Certainly though, this blameless child’s soul went to Heaven, as even if he passed through the toll-houses, the demons could not have anything to blame him for, to imped or block his path to Heaven and God.
Perhaps, the difference is that we adult Orthodox who have been given more grace & more knowledge of spiritual things than they, and who should know how to better live and to better please God, will have to face a far more rigorous testing route, than those whom God has not granted to know this knowledge (for His inscrutable reasons) his more perfect will-than do the Heterodox and the Pagans, etc.
“To whom more is given, more will be expected”.
Hence it would seem, that: God will judge the non-Orthodox, more softly, less strongly. But that is only a supposition, as we here in this realm of existence, cannot know ALL that is on the Other Side, especially not what is the state of each individual soul there, until WE OURSELVES PASS ON TO IT.
However yes, the Heterodox Christians (as are in this inspiring article, do usually have many fanciful pleasant and romantic notions of the After-Life, and the most popular one, among all ”Who believe that there is a God”, is that , “ALL DEPARTED SOULS AUTOMATICALLY ‘GO TO HEAVEN’”, or, “IF YOU BELIEVE IN CHRIST, YOU WILL FOR SURE: GO TO HEAVEN”, & if you were a “Good Person”, .etc. But I believe, that such as this innocent angelic child, did go to Heaven.
Few of them, ..whether they call themselves, any degree of “Christians” or not, really believe that there is a real Hell, as that is unpleasant and not comforting. WE Orthodox, KNOW that there IS A HELL: -ETERNAL SEPARATION FROM GOD, and we assume, that unless we please God and acquire His Holy Spirit-THEOSIS, in this world, and REPENT of our sins, that..to Hell is where we can expect to go…as by our earthly lives, WE, BY OUR FREE-WILL PUT OURSELVES!... IN HEAVEN OR HELL…not God. And as Holy Scripture warns us, then, when our souls leave our frail perishable bodies, we will have to give an answer for all of our earthly sins.
At any rate, we who often proudly, call ourselves “Orthodox Christians”, cannot automatically assume, that because we know more of what precisely will happen to our souls when we depart our bodies, that therefore, WE know all about it, than the non-Orthodox or Pagans…as “Pride cometh before a fall”, and pride separates us from God.
The worst spiritual fault of many of the Protestant Heterodox,-as is presented to us in this article, by this child’s parents -newly awakened to God’s marvelous existence and mercy, … Is that their doctrine about salvation is very deficient and erroneous, and especially that they do not seem aware that this earthly life must be one of EACH BELIEVER’S ASCETIC SELF-DENIAL & STRUGGLE, because mere ‘faith’, ALONE, is not enough to get us into Heaven, where ‘Only the redeemed of the Lord-The Blameless”-as it would seem, is this angelic pure child, can possibly fit-in, may BELONG NATURALLY, dwell, as : “Faith without WORKS/Podvigs/STRUGGLES, is dead!” Our time on earth is our limited short time to CLEANSE OUR SOULS…which we Orthodox are supposed to be busy at.
BUT, we must always be aware that because God is All-Merciful, and He deals with each individual human being, HE CONDESCENDS, to our realities-of our entire life’s good deeds, or in this care the angelic innocence of this child, (about whom we may say: “Of whom this world was not worthy”. & acquired virtues and their faults, that He grants more condescsenion/forgiveness/leeway, to the weaker among us.
Most heterodox do not even know about fasting, or spiritual restraint, as one example of their weak & dangerous heretical off-balanced and ignorant theology…YET regardless, God loves them all, and desires for their salvation.
If they respected God’s saints, and their writings and wise advise as to how to live a sincere Christian daily life, THEN they would know much much more about the real spiritual world.
But, No, we have no way of automatically assuming, that the souls of the Heterodox, or Pagans, etc., do not also have to go through the same after-death trials & arduous route that we Orthodox believe we must. But we Orthodox will be judged more harshly.
When we leave this world, then perhaps, we will know all things.
God make us ready to leave this vale of tears, and be prepared to give an answer for our earthly lives.
“Grant me, O Lord, The Homeland of my heart’s desiring, making me a citizen of Paradise”. ALLELUIA!
Reader Daniel in the forest
To understand heterodox after-death experiences, (different from Orthodox experiences), read and study Fr. Seraphim's "Soul After Death" http://startingontheroyalpath.blogspot.com/2010/04/soul-after-death.html
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