An amazing light display in the mountains gives a hiker blessed assurance from his Creator
by Tom Giesecke
The following is an excerpt from Tom’s book Gracious Goodness, available on Amazon and in the Sonrise Bookstore.
Art by Amy Heath
On July 27, 2022, I got up early and drove to the Boardman Lake trailhead. My car was the only one there. Donning my backpack, I began to hike to the lake. I remembered that nearly twenty years ago I had hiked this same trail with Mille’ and Dad and Mother. As we were returning at dusk, we paused, bunched up, and were talking on a narrow section of the trail with a near vertical drop-off on one wooded side. When Mother stepped back, I think to let me by, she stepped off the trail. By God’s grace, her foot landed about four feet down on the trunk of a small sub alpine fir tree. Only her head was at the trail level. Dad reached down and pulled her up back onto the trail.
Recalling this, I passed that spot on the trail and proceeded to and around the west side of the lake to my primo campsite. This site was just big enough for my one-man tent. It was about twenty feet from the lake and about ten feet above it, just inland of a fairly flat-topped granite promontory. After setting up my tent, I began to read a remarkable book, Heaven is So Real by Choo Thomas. In it she recounted several out of the body experiences with the Lord Jesus. On a few of these trips in her spiritual body, she visited heaven. She described what she saw simply and vividly. I found her descriptions to be amazing and yet compatible with my understanding of heaven from the Bible. The fact that this simple Korean-American Christian lady wrote a book that has sold more than a million copies speaks for itself. I finished reading her book on my trip and highly recommend it.
After lunch that day, I swam in the beautiful clear lake while wearing the shorty wet suit Steve gave me. With it the water was comfortably warm enough to swim along the surface, though it was cool below. This lake is very deep. With goggles I saw the steep underwater drop-off to depths I couldn’t see into.
That evening after dinner, I sat and stared at the astounding spectacle of the light from the sun setting behind me reflected off the water before me. There were just faint ripples on the lake surface. On the far side of the lake to my right the ripples reflected the slanting light in a rich copper hue from each sparkling wavelet. On my left the water appeared as shimmering silver. However, straight ahead the water shone like yellow gold. There were two broad straight streets of bright gold stretching toward the far shore separated by a narrow band of water. I sat and stared at this amazing scene and then moved down from my campsite to the rock for a ring-side seat. For about fifteen minutes from 7PM, I gazed at this persisting spectacular display of light: copper rippling on the right, silver shimmering on the left, and yellow gold glistening streets stretching straight before me towards the far shore. I told the Lord, “This is better than watching TV!” I regretted not bringing my camera, though I doubted my photographing it would have done it justice.
At home the next evening as Mille’ and I were eating dinner, I described this spectacular scene to her. Without peer, this visual experience was the highlight of my camping trip. The following evening as Mille’ and I were again eating dinner, she reminded me that this was my Dad’s anniversary. Only then did I recall that Dad died on July 27, 2015, exactly seven years to the day before I saw this light display on the lake.
I remembered his Memorial Service held in Lacey, Washington, on July 31, 2015. It was a clear sunny day, full of light and heat, about 100 degrees F. After the outdoor service, we gathered at his gravesite. Many people closely surrounded it as we heard Taps expertly and plaintively played by an Air Force bugler. Dad’s body was laid to rest.
Following our family and friends’ sharing in the chapel, I walked out alone to the gravesite. I told the Lord, “I believe Dad is with You, but I sure would like a sign.” As I stood by the gravesite, I looked up and saw a headstone about 30 feet away. On it were engraved Jesus Christ’s words: “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Dad is now walking in the light of the Lord in heaven. He is seeing sights more sublime than the spectacle of light I saw reflected on the lake exactly seven years after God called Dad home. The fact that God arranged for me to see this glorious light show exactly seven years after Dad’s death is amazing to me. God answers simple prayers in magnificent majesty. Dad certainly believed in Jesus Christ as his Lord. By this light show God also gave me further assurance of the reality of heaven as the home for everyone who trusts in Christ alone to get him or her there.
Hear the rest of the story, and why this vision from God spoke so deeply to Tom’s heart regarding his dad in this interview from Rick Michels’ Meet the Body YouTube channel. Gracious Goodness is the first published work from the new Sonrise Creative Community Publishing Co-op. Click below, and subscribe to watch more amazing testimonies from our Sonrise family authors:
Leave a Reply