Ryan's Electrocution NDE, Feels Excitement to "Go Home To Father!"

0:00 From the time that they pronounced me deaf was a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else. The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home. Welcome to Round Trip Death, everybody.

0:41 We have with us today Ryan Rampton from Roy, Utah. That's a lot of Rs in there. It is. But how are you, Ryan? I'm doing good. Thanks for having me, Eric. You're welcome. We are excited. We are going to hear a very unusual story today from a great guy in our pre-interview a couple of weeks ago. We had a lot of fun. Yeah, we did. And I think we're going to get together and have some fun sometime. But in the meantime, our listeners don't know you at all. So tell us just a little bit about who is Ryan. It's an interesting thing, kind of how that's phrased in the fact that we have two things.

1:22 We have our true self, who our spirit is, and then we have our persona, which is kind of like who we are in the world, right? So it's always a little crazy because I see both. I'm a firefighter or paramedic. I'm also a photographer. I was a commercial photographer for most of my life. You ever heard of Lifetime products? I was there a commercial photographer for about 10 years, photographed basketball hoops and sheds and kayaks and all that stuff. And I've done a lot of weddings and family groups. And but I love, I love being of service. So I do the firefighting and the paramedic stuff because I really feel like I make a difference.

2:06 And that's my goal is to serve and feel like I've got a purpose in being here. I think when you're of service to your fellow being, that's the highest calling you can have. And so for me, that's kind of why I do it. I enjoy the physical activities of it. I enjoy lifting weights. I'm married. You know, I just, I think God's blessed me so much. I've gone, not that I've always been that way. I've gone through like refiner's fire, yes, you would say. And there's times that, you know, life was so tough. Life was so hard that I didn't want to be here.

2:50 And that really kind of, I think made me understand a little bit more and appreciate when you do want to be here, when you are of service, when you found your purpose. Does that make sense? Absolutely. That's a good message. And by the way, if I were hearing talking to you for the first time, and I knew that you had a near-death experience, and I heard that you were a firefighter, paramedic, and that you did some photography, I would assume that your traumatic experience came in the line of being a firefighter. Right. And I would be totally wrong. That's true. Now, the weird thing is, is I've got probably 20 or 30 stories that I should have died, and just didn't.

3:37 And a couple of them have revolved around the fire department. One time we got caught in a flash over, and usually that's very fatal for firefighters. And my captain was able to pull me onto my back. I was a brand new rookie. Reached up, we put a fog stream, and it kind of protected us pretty little water curtain. We were able to make it out of that alive. And then another time, we were fighting a fire, and they had propane bottles in the house because they were cooking meth. And that exploded, and God had somebody run over our hose just before we made entry. And so instead of making entry into the home like we would, and try to put the fire out, we're hurrying and changing this hose out that got run over by a car, and then the house exploded.

4:26 So, there's been times like all of these that I should have died. I've got so many of them, and it's really crazy. And then the time we actually did die, that like you said, had nothing to do with firefighting. It was photography related. These terms get intermingled and confused a lot, don't they? They do. I mean, I tend to call the thing like you're saying about not going into the meth house. I tend to call that something more like a brush with death, right, versus a near death. Because the way that we use the term near death experience on this show is people who have died and come back.

5:08 And that's why the name of the show is round trip death. People that have made that trip to the other side and then come back. So let's talk about the very, very dangerous skill or profession of photography. And by the way, you weren't climbing Everest. You were in a studio when this happened. Give us a little background. What was going on this day? So earlier in the day, I had a family group in there and photographed this family group and their kids were being rambunctious and chasing each other. And they ended up knocking one of my lights over and broke this light, one real expensive flash head. I was like, no big deal. We finished the session.

5:48 I set it off to the side. And then later, my kids wanted to watch a movie on our projector. So we have a theater room where we did the sales. We project the images for clients and stuff. And they're in there watching this movie. And I was watching it with them and kept thinking about this light that I had to go fix. So finally I got up, left the movie and walked out and started messing around with this light. So that's how it started. Go ahead and keep going. Here it comes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So I'm messing around with this light and I had this feeling like in pending doom, like I'm going to get, I'm going to be electrocute. And I thought I'd better go unplug this.

6:29 So I went over and I unplugged it. I had four lights plugged into this, you know, double outlet. And I unplugged the wrong one, unbeknownst to me. Went back and it's like a computer, the back of a computer that has the three metal prongs and then the black plug slides into it. Well, that whole piece had broken out. I have these wires hanging off, this plastic housing, these three metal prongs, the wires on them. I'm going to take those off and then I'm trying to get the plastic housing off the cord so I can maybe order a new part for it and get it fixed or see if I can glue it. I don't know. And again, you believe it's unplugged? Yeah. I believe it's unplugged.

7:10 That's the key here. Okay. I couldn't get a good grip on it. So I would thought, you know, I'm pretty good at mug givering things. I'll figure something out. Oh, let me use my teeth as pliers. So I put this in my mouth and I bit down on it and the three metal prongs touched my tongue. So I can have 110 bolts going straight into my wet tongue, into my body and it locks me up. I cannot move a muscle. I'm sitting there frying. Can you explain what that feels like? I think we've seen that in movies and such, but it seems like, okay, just let go. Explain why you can't. So what happens is it freezes every one of your muscles.

7:53 So you could be the strongest guy in the world and you could not overcome this electricity because every muscle just completely contracts and locks up. That's usually 110 volts or certain voltages like 220, 240 or 440. They will make an entrance wound and an exit wound. And depending on how you get electrocuted is based on what kind of damage you have. So 220 usually has burn externally and you'll have an exit wound. Where 110 will actually cook you from the inside out.

8:33 So that's what's kind of crazy about 110 volts. So this electricity is going in my mouth. If you've ever been shocked, it's kind of a real, oh, you know, well, it's like every cell in my body is feeling that. Like I don't think I've ever been in so much pain or completely felt out of control or I couldn't move anything. And that was frustrating in itself. And yet I'm just going through this extreme pain of every cell in my own film like it's going to explode. So you absolutely cannot let go. No. This is in your mouth. Yeah. You've probably, have you like bitten down, clenched on it because everything's locking up.

9:16 Everything just locked up. And so all I could see is I was looking down at the cord in my mouth and I couldn't even move my eyes to see if I like my kids were going to find me. Someone's going to come and unplug it. I'm trying to move anything and I can't mind like I can move my eyes. So yeah, it was completely locked up. How long would you say this went on? Well, so the whole experience that we'll go into took about six minutes is what we figured. So up and up to this point, I'm probably being electrocuted for about a minute. And before I kind of realized this is it, I'm going to die because black smoke was billowing out of my mouth.

10:04 Wait, say that again. The black smoke was billowing out of my mouth. Kind of like if you imagine a old cold driven steam engine, you know, a train, how they use that black smoke. Well, I could just see this black smoke coming out of my mouth. So what was it that was burning? My tongue. Oh. So my flesh, yeah. So it had charcoal to hold through my tongue the size of a quarter. So if you've been up camping and cooked a hot dog, forgot about it on the fire and come back and it's just completely charcoal. Sure. Touch it and it just falls apart. Well, I mean, I never have, but I'm sure other people less responsible have.

10:45 Right. Go ahead. Yeah. So I'm just being electrocuted and this black smoke is pouring out of my mouth. And so at that moment, I realized, oh my gosh, I'm dead. This is how I'm going to die. And I get incredibly mad. I was like, are you kidding me? This is how I'm going to go out. I'm going to get a Darwin Award on the internet. I'm going to be a joke. Like no, no, no, I can't die a hero. I can't die saving someone, you know, doing my job. I can't. I mean, all the times that I had the brushes with death, like, you know, no, I was saved, right?

11:27 Motorcycle accidents, car crashes, almost got to a plane crash. And I was a firefighter, you know, saving this little boy, we get in that flash over. No, no, no, I can't die a hero. I'm going to die from stupidity. So this is what's going through my head. Like, I'm not even upset that I'm dying. It's how I'm going to die and how it's going to look. That's the thing that cracks me up now. Remember, I said I couldn't move anything. That's including my eyeballs. Well, I remember seeing a light above my head that was so bright and I looked up into it. And I felt the light just coming down and it was like the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. And I just went right into the light, became one with the light and ended up in this pure white room.

12:12 And I knew at that moment that I had died, that I was, I passed over and I was like, wow, I'm dead. It's done. Like, I guess the biggest thought that was occupying my brain right then was, I get to go home to father. And that's what popped in my head. I was so excited. Like, I don't know if you remember back when you were a little kid, but I remember Christmas Eve and my parents said I could get up Christmas morning at 7 a.m. and I'd wake up early and just sit there and stare at the clock and watch the seconds tick by until I could go in and wake my parents up and go open the presents. It was like that.

12:53 It was the most incredible anticipation, so much excitement of being able to go home. And then about that time, I saw a really bright light in the, remember, I'm in this pure white room. As far as I could see any direction, it's just white. Right. Do you see any people or anything or just white everywhere? Just white everywhere and I'm all alone. So it's kind of like a waiting room of some sort. Yeah. That's kind of what I was thinking, you know? And then I see a really bright light up above me. And I kind of look up and there's something like a curtain avail, something that's separating and then this bright light and this personage comes through this and comes to the stands in front of me.

13:37 And for me, it was God the Father. Like I felt like this was my Father, this was God. And I had the most incredible completion that I've ever had. Like it's so hard to put into words like how this makes you feel because we've never experienced anything, anything remotely close to this on earth. Even the most spiritual experiences I've had and the different things when you're with God, like you feel whole and complete, you feel one. And it was the most loved and incredible feeling that I could ever even imagine.

14:17 And then God showed me my life, like it starts flashing in front of me. We're watching it transpire. I'm watching my life. And we went through so many things like in my life and it was so funny because it seemed like it happened that quick, but it was my life in entirety. Like time was all wonky, right? Yeah. Yeah, I want to slow you down for just a second if you don't mind because you used a word that I don't hear very often and that is the word feeling complete or completion. Explain that a little bit. So I've come to understand that a little bit more through both of the experiences, my near death experience and then what I call my God change afterwards.

15:02 And I go back to, if you guys, if you remember the commandment in the New Testament where Christ said, be perfect, even as my father in heaven is perfect. The original Hebrew word that he used was TANIN, T-A-M-I-N, and it means whole or complete. So be whole or complete, even as my father, heaven is full and complete. And once I understood that, coupled with my experience there, that's what it felt like to me. It felt like everything on earth, everything that I've ever experienced, we were so separate.

15:46 It's so lonely. It's so just fractured. And when you become one with God again, you are so whole and complete, everything that you've missed. And you're just one with God. And it was just the most incredible thing that I could ever even imagine what it felt like. That's a great explanation, thank you. Okay, let's talk about the life review. I feel like you were going to go through it really fast because it seemed fast. But can you give us any examples of what was reviewed? So it was everything, the good, the bad, my sins, my triumphs, like everything.

16:28 But the incredible thing was I grew up like a very self-judgmental. Like I never was good enough. Like I felt like I was always a failure. I was always too big of a sinner. So when I watched all these things through God's eyes, everything was a beautiful lesson for me to learn and grow. Like there was absolutely no, which I completely expected was this disappointment or shame or any of these emotions that I experienced on earth. But all I felt from God was this love and this pride, like he loved me so much and he was so, even the things that I considered sins and bad things were so incredibly beautiful because I learned so much.

17:17 So at this one point, I remember seeing, I'd been married for 15 years and we ended up kind of renewing our wedding vows or as a Mormon couple, we went to the temple and got sealed. Anyway, so we got this done and then like six months later, my ex-wife left with another man, ran off, left me with these four kids. And I was just devastated by that, right? I'd worked so hard in my marriage and I remember seeing this through God's eyes and going, wow, like why was I so upset about that? It was such a beautiful learning experience and I had nothing but the utmost compassion for her and love and just completely understood and like almost revered that like it was so sacred that that happened to me and it was so amazing.

18:13 You know, and then I get back to earth and I'm like, nah, I still hate her. I'm kidding. I really don't. We're pretty good friends now. But it's just, it was such a different emotion than what I'm used to being human. Like how you can look at things like that through God's eyes and everything was just beautiful, perfect lesson for us, the eyes of unconditional love. And when we went through that, it was just like that's all experienced. And for me, like I couldn't believe it. In fact, after I got back from that experience, I remember talking to a guy named El Tom Perry and you probably know who that is. And I told him, I said, I still don't understand why God didn't pull that lever.

18:57 You know, that has this trap door and I slides out when he's talking with me and I slide down the chute and there's a guy with a red suit and a pitchfork to me be at the bottom. Like that's where I felt like I should have gone afterwards. But when I was in that moment with this life review, everything was this beautiful, perfect lesson. I had nothing but unconditional love from God and everything that I had done, the good, the bad, the ugly was all a beautiful experience for me to learn and grow. That's another thing you've explained very well because I hear about life reviews from other people and they have those same feelings, no guilt, no shame, just learning and they're feeling God's love.

19:39 But I think it's the fact that you felt like you were seeing it through his eyes that could make that possible. Yes. If it was through our eyes, we would feel all those negative emotions probably. Yes. I think that's exactly it. And it's so hard when you're wrapped up in that moment to interpret me from God because I was experiencing what God, but I know me personally and I know how judgmental I was against myself. So I grew up, always let him God, but I also grew up with sins and with mistakes that I had made. So I hated myself.

20:21 I remember even being a young man, young, good-looking guy, and I would look in the mirror and say to myself, you're a good-looking guy, but if anybody really, really knew you, no one would like you. I just despised myself. I couldn't even look at myself in the eyes. I would look at my face or my nose, but I couldn't look into soul to soul in the mirror and look at myself in the eyes because I was so profoundly disappointed and so much self-judgment. And it completely affected my whole life. And so this experience with God and then many others actually taught me how to start learning how to love and forgive myself and how to get past all that.

21:07 Yeah, and I don't want to get too far off here, but how can people look at themselves through God's eyes on a daily basis? So it requires work, and that's all I'll say because we have so much programming, so much negativity. The funny thing is, is like, when you have children, you will give them a break. You're like, you know what? I love them. You know? Yeah, I made a mistake in giving them a break. But do you ever give yourself a break? Do you ever say, yeah, you slept in today. That's okay. You weren't so hard to deserve it. No, you should grab the biggest stick you can and start beating yourself with it.

21:48 You stupid idiot. And so we were very programmed to be self-critical of ourselves. And especially if you were an achiever, a type personality or things like that, then you're even more self-critical. And so I think one of the biggest lessons that I learned and how to incorporate this was I decided to start saying, because I knew what kind of love that God had for me, which was unconditional love. But I decided to start seeing myself like how he did, how God loved being no matter what, in spite of my sins.

22:30 And that was the hardest thing. I had to remember all the time, like, I love myself in spite of my sins and spite of my mistakes and spite of my flaws. I love myself. And believe me, this was probably the hardest struggle I've ever had in my life, was learning how to love and forgive myself. All right, let's get back to where we were. So you have this life review. Yeah. You're in this white room. What happens next? So we get done with a life review and God says to me, do you want to come home with me or do you want to go back with them? And he did this with his hand, kind of upside down, this kind of sweeping motion. And the floor we were standing on was pure white and it starts going foggy and then clear.

23:14 And we're standing in the air about 20 feet above my children. And I can see it in this theater room, the movie's just ending. And their credits are coming up and they're doing the little shadow puppet things. They're playing with each other in the shadow puppets. It was so cute. And I remember seeing that and just my heart sunk. And I knew my kids needed me. And yet I did not want to leave God. That was the hardest thing in the world. Out of anything, I stayed in a marriage, me and my ex-wife, we both did, in a marriage that wasn't probably the best marriage in the world, but I stayed because of my kids.

23:55 Like I would have done anything for my kids. And they meant so the whole world to me. And yet it was the hardest decision to decide to leave God and go back to him. But I saw my kids there and so I was given a choice. And I said, no, I need to go back to him. I know they need me. I need to go home. And God said, okay, I will see you again. And at that moment, I was anticipating maybe a hug or at least a high five, a slap on the butt, said go get back in the game. Like the coach sends you back into the football game. But no, immediately I'm out of God's presence and I get put back in my body and I get hit by this 20 ton truck of electricity that hits me and the pain hits me again.

24:48 And I was like, whoa. I would God send me back to my body and not get me off the electricity. That's a pretty good question, right? Absolutely. That's fair. I hear God's voice says, oh, did you ask for help? Isn't that funny? Did you forget to ask for help? Yes. So God was saying, did you ask for help? Like so that's a great lesson. God is bound. He cannot help us until we ask because of our free agency, because of our free will. So he allows things to happen to us. But if we ask, then he's there. So I was kind of like really kind of chagrined at that point because I was like, why would God help me?

25:31 And then he's like, did you ask for help? I was like, oh yeah, I kind of missed that part. And so I said, dear God, please help. And as soon as I said that, the court like felt like somebody huge, strong pulled on it and started pulling it out. And I went, holy crap. I mean, like I swore in front of God, you know, that's kind of. Oh, you're not the first one. I've heard plenty. Right. So I'm like, holy crap. So I grabbed the cord and I start, well, I was already grabbing the cord. So I'm doing this and I feel it coming down. So I'm trying to help as much as I can. And I feel the cord being pulled out of my mouth and I'm giving every ounce of effort and energy that I can to pop that out.

26:14 And then the cord pops out and I have no idea medically. I've never been able to figure this out why I was alert. And if you think about the electricity locking up everything in my body where I couldn't even move my eyes, couldn't blink. Well, my heart stopped beating either. So for that whole time, my heart's completely froze. So I'm not going to need blood flow. So I don't know why the electricity was keeping me alert. But as soon as like I pulled that plug out, man, I remember like unplugging and all that old fashioned black and white TV, just like everything was you and the blackness. And I crashed to the ground and fell on the ground. Well, my kids that were in the next room heard that and they come running out.

26:58 My 12 year old son comes running over and he rolls me over and starts shaking me dad, dad. And he said, I opened my mouth and he saw black smoke still billowing out of it. And he went, oh my God. So I just remember that, you know, like he put up his mouth and he's like, is that his eyes went about as big as saucers? He runs over and grabs the phone. He calls 911. So they ended up taking me up to the hospital. Real quick, I want to just go back to that. Did you ask for help? Because it's such a beautiful metaphor how God actually works, how the atonement for me of Jesus Christ works, that you, God makes up the impossible part in your life, but he still requires you to do every ounce of effort that you can for your own learning and growth.

27:45 But he is the part that makes up the impossible part. So that was it. I could have been the strongest man in the world. I could have been the incredible whole, could not have been able to overcome my own muscles. But through God and through his help, I was able to pull that cord out. But it wasn't on my own, but I still had to give out all my effort. Anyway, make it up to the hospital. The doctor comes in and looks at my mouth and I had charcoal, like I said, about the size of a quarter, right through my tongue. And God's so hot in my mouth that it melted the fillings. So I've got like silver fillings from the dentist. They were all brand new and shiny. And then I had one of my teeth that actually exploded.

28:26 They had too many, I guess it got hot and made the tooth expand and it exploded. And the doctor looked at this and says, you know, I'm not worried about your tongue. He says it will heal up in a couple of weeks and you'll end up with a nice little scar and a story to tell. He says, I'm not worried about your teeth. He says you get new dental work and that will all be fine. He says, what I am worried about, he says 110 will cook you from the inside out, where 220 will burn you externally and cause really bad severe burns. He says, what I'm worried about is every one of your organs being damaged and being cooked. And he said, we're going to run some enzyme tests and we'll be able to tell based on what enzymes are in your blood, not if you have damage, but how bad the damage is.

29:13 We're going to be able to tell your heart, your lungs, your kidneys, your brain, all that will is potentially damaged. And he said, again, given the amount of time that you were being shocked and what the damage has done to your mouth, he says you could die tonight. The doctor is like, you can go into organ failure tonight and not make it through. He says, we're worried about your airways. We're going to innovate you. We're going to put you out and we're going to run these blood tests and we'll go from there. Wow. It's terrifying. Yeah. But were you afraid or did you have this sort of afterglow from meeting God experience? You know what?

29:53 I was confused. And this is the interesting thing. I contrast this like 12 years later when I had my, what I call my God change versus coming back, coming back like the eye felt empty. I felt blah, like colors. Just nothing was vibrant. Everything felt just really bleak and depressing to me being back on earth because I think I was missing God so much, you know, missing that connection that I experienced it. I tasted it, I felt it and then to be back, I just, you know, I didn't really even care. When he told me you could die, I remember, you know, just thinking, well, that would be all right.

30:38 Like at least we gave it a shot, right? Anyway, next morning I wake up in the hospital and the nurse, they'd taken the tube out of my throat and they pick in my IVs out and all this. And then the doctor comes in and he says, well, good morning. He says, I discharged you from the hospital, you can go home. And I went, what? And he said, yeah, he said, I ran your enzyme test three times because I didn't believe the first results. And so I made them redo the test. And then I went down and I knew they had to be screwing the test up somehow because there was zero enzymes in your blood and that was physically impossible given the damage in your mouth.

31:19 So I went down and supervised and made sure they did the test right and they did. And this third time still showed zero enzymes in your blood. Yeah, absolutely no damage other than to just your mouth. He said, no other organ is damaged. And he says, I'm a man of science, not a faith, but you're a miracle. And so just go home and live your life. And so I remember going home and like I said, just being super confused. And here's the really interesting part is I didn't feel worthy to tell anybody about this. Like of course I told my ex-wife and I told my parents and I think I even told my kids, but even the reactions I got were kind of like, really?

32:06 It wasn't like anybody was like, wow, that was so amazing. I felt very self-conscious. And the biggest thing was I didn't feel like I had any right to be talking about God because I was a sinner. And to me, that makes me laugh now. But like I felt like, well, no, that should be a priest or a bishop or a religious figure or somebody that talks about God that is righteous, not me because like I'm not, I'm a sinner. And so it was really, really hard for me to talk to anybody about that. So I remember going through about 12 years, the next 12 years, went to my divorce.

32:50 I got remarried three or four years down the road and built this company up and was living my life and doing all these things. And then everything fell apart. Like I mean, just completely house cards crashed down. We were making so much money. We had this business and everything just exploded on it. We went through a divorce, lost my house, lost everything. And I was just devastated. And I remember this is 12 years after my near death experience. And I was up in this place called Lava Haas Springs up in Idaho. And I was in one of the cold pools and I was just meditating and I was sitting there and I was just so depressed, so destroyed.

33:34 And I was praying to God and I said, you know, I made the wrong choice. Like I shouldn't have come home. I shouldn't have come back to earth. Everything's just horrible. I feel like everything's blown up. I haven't made a difference in my kids' lives or anything. Like I just, I'm a waste. And I was so depressed and I'm like, I don't want to take my own life, but I don't care God. Like I made the mistake. Please correct it. Like drop a meteor on me, smash me, give me an aneurysm, a heart attack. I don't care what it is, but I want to come home. And I was praying to God and this is the first time that I heard God's voice physically since he said, oh, did you ask for help when I was trying to pull the cord out?

34:20 Right? I hear God's voice and he says, leaving my presence one time is traumatic for everyone because you leave nothing but love. For you to remember what my love feels like and chose to leave a second time has left such a hole in you that you've tried to fill it with everything but me. But what you really want is me. And when he said that, like something physically clunked into place, like I don't still don't know what it was, but I actually filled a physical clunk in my core that went clunk. And I went, dude, I'm yours. And I yelled at the top of my lungs, right?

35:00 And God is dude. I don't know if you knew that was one of his names, but. He answers to all kinds of things. Right. He's very forgiving about that. And like I felt God claiming me as much as I, I was claiming him, he was claiming me was this beautiful exchange where like I knew at that moment that everything I had, everything I ever did was for him, for his greater glory that I gave everything like I consecrated my life at that point to him. It was the most profound change that I've ever had in my life. I felt like purpose, like I went from complete despair wanting to die and come back home to renewed purpose, renewed.

35:52 I knew why I was there. I knew what my message was and that I was going to tell everybody that I could meet. But I kind of went from like telling nobody about my near death experience to everybody that I could chew on their ear for five minutes. Hey, let me tell you about God, you know, it was just so beautiful. Well over the next two weeks, I had probably the most spiritual experiences in my whole life. Like I just had amazing, amazing things happen. It taught me all of, all these lessons how to love and forgive myself. And they knew that that was what my message was going to be. Like how to start loving and forgiving yourself.

36:33 When you think back, you were face to face with God. Do you have any memory of what he looked like or was it more a feeling than specifics? So the interesting thing I remember trying to pick out features, because I was so enthralled, right? And God was so bright. Of course he was in the shape of a personage, like I could see a hand and I could see arms and his face, but he was so bright, you could not pick out any details except just pure bright white light. You know, you could kind of see a little bit there, but and no, but it was like, so it was like looking into a searchlight and trying to, you know, focus on that.

37:20 It was so incredible. Like God was this like so brilliant, so full of light that he, it was just hard to see anything around that. That makes sense. Now since you had this lava hot springs, this, what do you call it, a reawakening? What do you? My God change. I call it my God change. A God change. Okay. Love that. Since you had your God change, has your life been perfect? Have you been perfect and has everything been peaches and cream since then? So no, in fact, I'd probably, from that point on, I went through probably the, which I thought was before was the hardest time of my life, but I had no idea how difficult it was going to get and the trials that I would end up going through and just about destroyed me.

38:14 So during this two week period of time, I had an angel show up and tell me, basically command me to paint a portrait of my soul. And I'm like, didn't make a lot of sense. So a lot of times, I don't know, a lot of people that have had experiences with angels or spirits from the other side, non-ecryptic, they don't just come out and spell things out for you or speak in plain English. You're commanded to paint a portrait of your soul. And I'm like, I'm not a painter. I interpreted that to be, was write my basically life story and about my near death experience and all this. So when I was writing my book, I received so much opposition while I was doing it.

38:59 Like it, I mean, most people wouldn't even believe the stories of the stuff that happened to me while I was writing this book. Just crazy stuff. You know, I mean, that might be a discussion for another time, but it was like, it was so, so challenging for me. But now where I'm at now that I've overcome that and I feel so blessed. Like my life is never, of course, perfect and smooth sailing, but I am so blessed. Like I am so in a good spot right now. But that was not the norm for me. I had to learn some lessons.

39:40 And the biggest one was how to learn and love myself in spite of my sins. Love myself, forgive myself in spite of my sins. Well, and I just think it's a good reminder that even if things are doing great, even if we've had an amazing experience or we're really living right, doesn't mean life is going to be easy. We still have trials. We're still here to learn things. And that's okay. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, that's why we came here. If you really think about this life, we came here to learn what we're not. So if you take my experience, like what happened to me with God, when I was with God, I had this unconditional love for everyone and this perfect love.

40:23 So that's what we came from. So we don't really, and everything's about contrast if you think about it. So you don't really know what you are until you know what you're not. You don't know what it's like to be young until you've started getting older. And then you can appreciate youth. You don't know what it's like to be healthy until you've been sick. So you don't really appreciate health until you've gone through a sickness. And the greater the contrast, like people that have gone through cancer and recovered, they so appreciate their good health. They have such a love for it, but people that have never been sick, you don't even think about it. You take it for granted.

41:04 So this is how this life works is all of these trials you go through are for your highest good because they are teaching you contrast. They're teaching you to have such a greater and a deeper appreciation for the light because you've experienced the darkness or love because you've experienced fear or hate, you know, all these things that teach us that you've gone through, they teach us what you're not so that you can appreciate what you are. And I think that's just the most beautiful thing. How we can watch a world that all these atrocities happen in, how much pain and suffering.

41:50 But if you actually understand where you came from and this that you are nothing but that pure love of God, you understand why we go through this and why you see so much pain and suffering in this world is because we really wanted to know the contrast. One of my favorite stories is Michael Jordan, how he got kicked off the high school basketball team. In fact, not just kicked off, but told he was a terrible player and he should go pick another sport because this is not the sport for him. And now he's considered to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time. So think about that like with your life. You came down here to get kicked off the team to be, you know, go through trials to go through difficulties so that you can become the greatest of all time.

42:41 You can be the most loved that you've ever imagined. And how much deeper your understanding of that love is now that you've experienced the other contrast. That's awesome. You've got me motivated for today. Good. I'm ready to go out there and get it. So Ryan, tell me about the book. Is it done? What's it called? Called You Were Born a Warrior. Basically when I was at the darkest, darkest point in my life, I was contemplating suicide. And I had a gun. I actually put it in my mouth and I was done. I was ready to get enough courage to pull this trigger because I was just so low.

43:24 And I heard God's voice and he said, you were born a warrior. That doesn't mean you won't suffer. You have suffered greatly, but you do fight to win. And at that moment I went, yeah, I do. And I pulled the gun out and I put it down. I called my son and I said, hey, I need you to come get all my guns out of my house and take anything. I'm going through a real tough time. It taught me one of the things and there's so many layers to this about all of us being warriors because you're in a battle. You're in a battle just like God when he said in the beginning, the Lord separated the light from the darkness. That's in Genesis, right?

44:05 We're in a battle to separate light from darkness all the time. And that's within ourselves. So you are separating what is light, what is love from fear and darkness all the time. And that's part of being a warrior is learning how to separate that light and knowing what you're not and choosing what you truly are and what your soul is. And that is love. When you choose love and you choose that higher vibration, how you feel versus the darkness. And so it is a battle. And so we are warriors and you're a warrior. I'm a warrior.

44:46 We're a warrior in a battle of light and darkness and you are learning every day how to be that light and how to be that example to others and how to be that love that you already are. And we are here to learn definitely. Last question. Yeah. How much fear of death do you have? Not anymore. I really don't. Maybe the fear of the pain of what that is going to be like going through, but no, I have absolutely zero fear of passing over and going on to the next life. It was the most incredible feeling. And in fact, like for 12 years, all I did was long for that, long for death going back to the other side.

45:28 So for me now, I love my life. I love all the blessings I enjoy in this life. And I am so happy to be here. But when my time comes, I'm like, yep, I'm ready. You know, I'm ready to be united with God again. Ryan, thanks a lot. I've enjoyed it. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Thanks again for listening and sharing this podcast. Don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button and sign up for our newsletter at roundtriptest.com. If you want to share your near death experience or if you have questions or comments about the show, send an email to Eric at roundtriptest.com.

46:09 Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.