A woman who baked a cake. A man in bib overalls who stopped to change a stranger’s tyre. According to Laurie Ditto, both of them were honoured in a parade in heaven.
Laurie first joined the God’s Truth Podcast to share a sobering account of hell, which you can read in “In Hell for Unforgiveness”: Laurie Ditto’s 70 Years in Hell. She urges everyone to hear that one first, because, as she puts it, everybody thinks they are going to heaven, and it is just not true. In this return visit, she tells Abigail Smith about heaven: meeting Jesus for the first time, a room full of gifts, streets of living gold, and a King whose crown will stop you in your tracks. What follows is her account.
“Give Me that”
Laurie’s first encounter came, of all places, at a women’s conference, where she was frustrated that everyone else seemed to be meeting God ahead of her. Then suddenly she was in heaven, and she knew it at once. Everything was alive, even the stones.
Jesus stood in an archway. As she watched, He turned up His own light like a dimmer switch until He was too bright to look at, then turned it back down so she could behold Him. We become like Him by beholding Him, she says (2 Corinthians 3:18). He spoke her name as if He had always known her. She noticed that the marks of the nails were not in the palms of His hands where she had always pictured them, but further toward His wrists. He did not correct her theology. He was after her heart.
He held out His hands and said, “Give Me that.” He wanted her pain. Laurie did not know how to give God her pain, so she said no, shut her eyes and waited for Him to strike her. Nothing happened. When she peeked, He was smiling.
He showed her a room piled with presents in every colour and size, gifts for every day of her life, with more than one on the hard days. Some gifts, He told her, are things He wants to give. Others are things He needs to take away. Again He held out His hands. The pain that came to mind was her smoking. She was on three and a half packs a day, full of shame, and had tried and failed to quit many times. She was sure even God could not help. She said no a second time. Again He only smiled.
The dance
Then Jesus showed her a vision inside Himself. He was dancing with a bride He adored, twirling her around Him. Whenever her face turned away from Him, a darkness crept close and tried to touch the hem of her dress. Each time, His eyes blazed like white fire and drove it far away.
Watching, Laurie realised what she needed more than anything: to be loved like that, cherished, set apart, important to God. Then she noticed the woman’s feet. The bride was her.
This time she said yes. Jesus put His forehead to hers and began, she says, to rewrite what she thought about herself. She came out of that encounter knowing she was loved with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) that nothing could stop. “I don’t have to figure out why He loves me,” she says. “I just need to realise it, accept it and live in it.”
The parade
Laurie says she has returned to heaven many times since. On one visit, friends in heaven urged her to pay attention: she had come to see a parade. Its title was This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24).
The street was not made of gold bricks. It was like a living ocean of gold held between two sheets of glass, moving and playing with the people, its glitter bursting like whitecaps. From above fell drops of something like rain that did not make anyone wet. They zigzagged through the crowd like confetti, each one aimed at a particular person, and when one reached you it burst into you with the knowledge of what God thinks of you. People giggled with joy.
The parade honoured everyone who had been alive on one particular day on earth and done something beautiful for God on that day. A cheerful, outgoing woman waved to the crowd. She had baked a cake for a couple who had just learned they were expecting, and promised to pray for the baby. A quiet man in bib overalls followed. He had stopped for a broken-down family, happened to have the right tools, and changed their tyre. It seemed small. God thought it was wonderful. As Jesus said, not even a cup of cold water given in His name will lose its reward (Matthew 10:42).
Beside Laurie stood a man who, strangely for heaven, carried regret. He had been alive that day but had done nothing for Jesus. Later he too was invited into the parade, to loud cheers, because God knew the deep work He was doing in him would one day come to pass. Laurie says that is a hope for all of us who have had days we would not want honoured.
The King on the horse
You could hear the next part of the parade before you saw it. A white horse, perhaps three people tall, danced across the golden street with jewels braided into its mane and tail and great wings moving beneath a flowing cloak. It sang, “I’m the Lord’s horse!” and the crowd answered with who they are to God: I’m the Lord’s warrior. I’m the Lord’s strong one. Laurie called out, “I’m the Lord’s favourite one.” Leaves gathered on the hem of the cloak sent out bursts of power as they touched the street. She understood it as the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2).
Afterwards, her friends asked what she had thought of Jesus. “I didn’t see Jesus,” she said. They were astonished. He had been riding the horse. So they led her back to the front, and she looked up at the Rider from behind. She never saw His face, but what she saw was more than enough. She fell down, and a love song poured out of her.
The cloak rested on His shoulders. The healing flowed from Him. The raindrops of love were His good thoughts toward His people, more than the sand (Psalm 139:17–18). And His crown was made of light, in the shape of a crown of thorns.
Why a crown of thorns?
Laurie was stunned. Of all the crowns He could wear, why the one they mocked Him with? Then the revelation came. He wears it because of this day: the day He wore that crown and purchased people for God. Because of that one day, every other day people can be saved and serve Him. He is not ashamed of the cross (Hebrews 12:2). It is what it took to buy her, and you.
There is only one acceptable sacrifice for sin, she says, and that is innocent shed blood (Hebrews 9:22). None of us have any. You do not have to clean yourself up first. Agree that Jesus is who He says He is, be sorry for your sin, and ask Him to cover you with His blood. “It’s not about the words,” she says. “It’s about the position of your heart.” And if you already belong to Him, live for Him. Bake the cake. Change the tyre. Give the cup of cold water.
The room that was never used
On another visit, Jesus showed Laurie a room He had prepared for a man He loved. It held baseballs signed by great players and model cars He wanted to build with him. Delighted, she turned to say how much the man would love it, and saw that Jesus was crying. This man never chose Me, He told her. He will never see this room. Jesus said He would keep it, so that when the man’s family one day asks whether God did everything He could to reach him, the answer will be there.
God has prepared a place for each of us (John 14:2–3). His part is done. He is waiting for us to choose Him.
A God who responds to desperation
Asked how these encounters happen, Laurie says they come in bed, in worship, at her desk studying Scripture, and once while driving. What they have in common is longing. Over and over she tells the Lord, “I want to be with You. I just need You.” She laughs that after perhaps a trillion times, He must tell her angel, “Bring her up here. She won’t quit.” Heaven is not only for special people, she insists. God is no respecter of persons, and He responds to those who seek Him with all their heart (Jeremiah 29:13).
She also addresses a common question: how can a loving God allow hell? Hell was made for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41), a place of separation from God. The only way the enemy can hurt God, she says, is to convince us we do not want Him. The real wonder is not that hell exists, but that God made a way for us never to go there.
Connect with Laurie Ditto
- Website: myfathersreputation.com
- Email: laurie@myfathersreputation.com
- Her first episode: “In Hell for Unforgiveness”: Laurie Ditto’s 70 Years in Hell
Scriptures in this episode
- Psalm 118:24, this is the day which the Lord hath made
- 2 Corinthians 3:18, beholding His glory, we are changed
- Jeremiah 31:3, an everlasting love
- Matthew 6:10, on earth, as it is in heaven
- Matthew 10:42, a cup of cold water
- Revelation 22:2, the leaves for the healing of the nations
- Psalm 139:17–18, His thoughts outnumber the sand
- Hebrews 12:2, He endured the cross, despising the shame
- Hebrews 9:22, without shedding of blood is no remission
- John 14:2–3, I go to prepare a place for you
- Jeremiah 29:13, seek Me with all your heart
- Matthew 25:41, prepared for the devil and his angels
- Romans 3:23, all have sinned
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