A Cottonwood tree Photo: Ed Suominen/Foter/CC BY-NC
[by Dean Smith] According to a report in the Daily Mail, Annabel Wilson Beam, 12, of Texas was playing with her two sisters on a hollowed out Cottonwood tree in December 2011, when she fell 30′ down inside the tree.
Trapped at the bottom, emergency crews were called in to pull her out. Falling in and out of consciousness, Annabel then 9 was rushed by helicopter to nearby Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth Texas.
After her arrival, MRI scans showed wounds consistent with head trauma (she had apparently hit her head three times on the way down), but other than a few bumps and bruises they could find nothing wrong with her. Annabel was eventually released.
One doctor quipped:
“I guess someone up there was looking out for her.”
That in itself was a miracle. However, after Annabel was sent home, things started getting a bit bizarre.
Annabel told her parents, Kevin and Christy Beam, that while unconscious she went to heaven and sat on Jesus’ lap. Annabel described Jesus as having dark skin, wearing a white robe and with a big beard similar to Santa’s, but then added not really. Jesus also told Annabel that it wasn’t her time.
She further said while lying at the bottom of the tree she started coming too. That’s when a small angel appeared who stayed with her until the firefighters eventually pulled her out.
When Annabel told these stories, at first her parents thought she was experiencing the after effects of a concussion, but CT and MRI scans ruled that out.
Now I am a bit suspicious of these accounts.
Tyndale Publishing recently announced it has pulled the book The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World from its catalog. Published in 2010, it is the story of Alex Malarkey, then six, who while in a coma after a 2004 car accident said he had gone to heaven. Tyndale recalled the book after Malarkey stated recently he had made up the story.
Anabel’s story though has one odd twist.
Since 2008, she had also been in an out of the hospital due to intestinal pseudo-obstruction mobility disorder. This rare and incurable disorder occurs when the contractions necessary to move food through the intestinal tract go out of sync. Unable to properly absorb nutrition and move food, the symptoms are vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation and weight loss. It is serious disease that can lead to infections, muscle deterioration and malnutrition.
Annabel was taking ten medications daily and on a restricted diet of fluids and soft foods.
However, shortly after the accident, the symptoms stopped. Her parents took Annabel back to the doctor who concluded she had somehow been cured of this incurable disorder.
Her doctor decided to gradually take her off the medications and she is now down to three a day. She no longer uses pain killers, eats what ever she wants and hasn’t been to the doctor in over a year.
Summing up what happened, Annabel’s father Kevin said:
‘I can’t explain what happened to her physically while she was in that tree. All I have to go on is the radiological data and the medical records from before and after.
The proof is in the pudding. She wasn’t well before and now she is.”
As we read through the Gospels and Book of Acts, one message that constantly comes through is that miracles confirmed the message:
19 So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. (Mark 16:19-20 NASV)
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