What’s in a name?
Apparently, if your name is Josiah, which means “Fire of the Lord,” quite a lot.
Josiah Cullen, from Minnesota, is a profoundly autistic kid who, according to his mother, suddenly and miraculously began to communicate via an iPad keyboard when he was seven — conveying wisdom far beyond not only autism but his years, indicating that much was going on in his head despite his inability to talk — and most amazingly, relating conversations alleged with Jesus and angels and visits to Heaven.
For our discernment.
It’s the subject of a major book, Josiah’s Fire. We’re carrying it because indeed there is interesting wisdom. And because the boy’s descriptions of Heaven strikingly match those of folks who report near-death experiences.
“Autism stole his words,” says the subtitle. “God gave him a voice.”
His mother wrote the book and quotes him as saying things like: “Heaven is holy. Gold is pure like glass, not so solid but clear. Fountains go up into arcs and jump around like water is jumping and leaping into high air.
“Huge mighty lakes of great crystals burst forth in colors might in every way. Ponds are jumbo there. Purple is greatly the purplest there. It is big to look on large nimble people and not one is old or sick or lame there.” Just like those who have afterlife glimpses during clinical “death.”
Remember: this is an autistic seven-year-old.
In Heaven, he told his parents, there indeed are “great big mansions not motels or teepees or lodging like anything we have here. Mansions are boldly your life in multiple layers built into your outer home. This very idea that we have individual homes in Heaven is really neat. Why? Because each person is different. Mansions are the personal expression of this person in house form.”
If a person loved cats, said Josiah, they will be in that person’s mansion. “You get a bold, great, nice hug [from these loved creatures and things]. Just think of all you really liked. You will have it in your mansion.”
Those on the other side “see us by going to ledges on the unusual homes of Heaven that have a porch of massive size.
On these porches, many worlds part and they can see through the blackness to the earth. Angels go up and down a lot.”
We should ask for their help, he emphasized.
His first actual typing was, “godisagoodgiftgiver.” Some messages were quite cryptic, such as, “Danger to peace [February 2013]. Fog in Magog. Last danger name is pestilence for men.”
And as confirmations, Josiah described deceased relatives he knew nothing about and once told his mother they should go to the Mall of America where they would meet someone who needed help because she was immersed in witchcraft — which indeed occurred (and led to a conversion)!
It goes on from there: When his mother Tahni asks, “How do you know you’re not hallucinating or hearing things?” the boy responds (via the keyboard):
“Dent that idea. It’s not inside my mind, so it is not imagination or hallucination. Tragically, slanderous, troubling, faithless doctors might say otherwise, but oh well. So what?
“Now, demons will try to trial this frequency sound as well, but, ‘pick a different channel, Satan, you don’t belong there, so go away from this frequency. It is timed for my God’s words, not yours.'”
Whew.
Going, allegedly, to Heaven, said the boy, was not like a dream but a real trip.
“Angels come to take me,” he said, mentioning various angels and archangels by name, including Raphael (who came adorned in green and white).
Angels, claimed Josiah, bring us “dares” that can enhance faith and closeness to Jesus.
A key to life, the boy seems to indicate, is daring to take certain paths — leaps “to destiny’s trials that make [us] need God more to accomplish such a feat.”
God thinks of something, Jesus loves it, and the Holy Spirit creates it, the boy said.
“I love it, mom,” he typed, “when Jesus kisses my face. We hold hands, and we value halls of hope together. Halls of hope are beauty yet to happen. King Jesus walks with me down the hope hall, seeing my future.
“Run to the dazzling river of life. You come out like a dry man, only saturated in plans.
“His big gate is pearl. Because He is Lord of past loud seas, mighty mountains, and long miles of land, He gets a big pearl from His own Hand!”
Surprising language. And befuddling?
Very.
But perhaps that will be our reaction to many things in the heavenlies.
[resources: Josiah’s Fire, A Life of Blessings, and afterlife books]
[Upcoming retreat in New Jersey, June 24, 2017. Sign up here]