Up until the age of 16, Heidi Barr did not believe in Jesus, that is until she met Him face-to-face after a terrible horseback riding accident.
“I knew him immediately. Every cell in my soul knew everything about who He was. I should not have seen Jesus. Why should I see Jesus? My father told me Jesus was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind,” she recalled in a recent interview with Jews for Jesus.
“[Yet] I knew Him. I have known Him my entire life and I love Him. I have loved Him with everything in me,” Barr said.
Barr, now a mom and grandmother, is sharing more of her childhood near-death experience in her new book, “What I Saw in Heaven: The Incredible True Story of The Day I Died, Met Jesus, and Returned to Life a New Person.
In her book, Barr shares about her life, family struggles, and the redemption she found through God’s amazing guidance and grace.
She tells readers how it was easy to spurn any belief in a higher power as a child because, although she was raised Jewish in a small Orthodox community in Iowa, her parents made it a point to tell her God did not exist.
“I was raised in a family that was atheist, but we belonged to this Orthodox synagogue and my father was not only an atheist [but] we were only allowed to discuss God in our home if we were denying His existence,” Barr shared during her interview with Jews for Jesus.
“He hated God,” she said flatly.
Barr said her father used to repeat this mantra almost daily: “There is no God. There is no heaven, there is no hell, you are an accident of science.”
Despite what Barr was told by her father, she said she believed in the “God of Abraham” and prayed to Him daily.
But all that stopped at the age of 12 when she began to endure sexual abuse from the synagogue’s rabbi.
“It kind of set off this spiral of not talking to God, getting into drugs, getting into dangerous situations until I was 15,” she explained.
Barr says, at the time, she only found comfort and joy from riding her horse, Heather. But a freak accident changed the trajectory of her life and brought her face-to-face with the love, compassion, forgiveness, and inexpressible joy of Christ.
“I took off, headed out to hills on Heather, bareback…I was sitting there enjoying the day…when I suddenly heard hoof beats and I knew exactly what that meant,” she described.
An Arabian white horse was uncontrollably running from a nearby barn, its owner was barely able to hang on.
“She came towards me,” Barr explained. “The horse ran right by us, almost clipped us, and ran past. Heather reared up. The first time she reared up, I dropped the reins and grabbed her mane. The second time she reared up, her back feet stepped off the trail and she flipped over backward onto me. She fell across my body, fracturing my pelvis, breaking my back.”
According to Barr’s account, those injuries weren’t fatal, but when the horse fell across her chest, she died.
“The moment she fell across my chest, I left my body,” she continued.
Barr says she found herself 40 feet up in the air looking down at the commotion taking place near the horse stable.
“I watched my horse roll over my dead body and I was tossed like rag doll…I saw my little sister scream and cover her eyes with her hands. I saw my [other] sister in the car with her face pressed against the window. I could see the Arabian running to the barn with the man flapping on her back,” she recalled.
Then Barr noticed a white light, right near her shoulder.
“And I turned to look over my right shoulder and there was a man up there with me,” she described. “And I knew Him. He then came closer and He had this big grin on his face, and I said, ‘Hi, I know you,’ and it was Jesus.”
Barr immediately recognized Him, despite never learning about him.
“Every cell in my soul knew everything about who He was. I should not have seen Jesus. Why should I see Jesus? I’m Jewish. My father told me Jesus was the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind…and yet there was Jesus.”
Barr said that in that moment, all she could think about was that she knew Him.
“I knew Him. I have known Him my entire life, and I love Him. I have loved Him with everything in me,” she said. “All there was for me was Jesus.”
Barr gives an account, in great detail, of the personality of Jesus.
“He is funny. He is joy. He is love. He is everything good in the universe in one person. Everything that is good and joyous and happy and life-giving is in Him,” she said during the interview.
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However, it was something unique that He showed her that still deeply impacts her today.
“I had a life review and it was like watching this tape of your life except it was 3-D and it was alive and you were re-experiencing everything you had done,” Barr explained.
“I saw Him from the time I was in my mother’s womb forming me, I saw Him sitting next to me when I was an infant talking to me. I saw Him at every stage in my life. He was always there,” she continued.
The now mother and grandmother of three shared that the Lord also showed her the impact her words had on people – the good and the bad.
“There was another time He stopped the tape to show me when I had hurt someone,” she shared. “I felt His heart shrink in His chest. I felt the impact my words had on Him. Everything I did or said to someone else, if it was a good thing I felt that. If it was a not-so-good thing, I felt that.”
Barr added, “You have to be aware that God is watching…God is paying attention to every little thing we do.”
Her next stop in this journey was to the Father.
“It was a perfect, white, blemish-less light. It took up my entire field of vision. It was infinite in its scope, and it was alive. And the light was love, and this was God…Jesus took me into that light,” she shared.
She then found herself sitting in God’s lap like “a little toddler, kicking” her feet.
Barr says in that place she “never felt so loved and so cherished,” adding, “God was every single molecule of love in the universe. He is love.”
“I wanted to sit on God’s lap for all eternity,” Barr continued.
The now-retired nurse shared that while she was on His lap, she saw what she believes to be Heaven.
“I saw grass. It was this beautiful green grass. I could see every blade of this grass in this infinite meadow. It was perfect and precise,” she described. “I see flowers…I could see every part of the flower, every vein of the petals…I saw grove upon grove of trees. I could see every tree, every branch, every leaf, and every vein on every leaf on each tree.”
“And I realized everything was moving, but it wasn’t wind. The grass was singing. The grass was singing the praises of God. The flowers and the trees were moving to the songs of the grass…It was God moving through all those things. They moved in God’s light,” Barr added.
“And it struck me at the time that even on the most beautiful day here on earth, what we see is a mere reflection of what exists in heaven,” she writes in her book.
Barr told Christian ministry 100 Huntley Street that this part of her experience “left the biggest impression on her.”
The Iowa native was sent back to earth and she now shares a message of hope to those who feel lost and unloved.
“After I died, I knew Jesus was with me. I knew He was with me every step of the way and that no matter what happened…and this is one of the things he told me…your life is in good hands.”
He told her, “Good, bad,[or] indifferent, I’m here. Your life is in good hands.”
MORE:
‘I-T-S-R-E-A-L’: Woman Dies, Meets Jesus Face to Face in Heaven, Comes Back with a Message
Man Says He Visited Heaven, Met Jesus During Near-Death Experience: ‘I Was a Walking Dead Man’
‘I Was Looking at None Other Than Jesus Christ’: Near Death Experience Puts Man Face-to-Face With God
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#Real #Atheist #Dad #Told #Jesus #Hoax #Died #Met #Face #Face
![Displaced in Lebanon: ‘Lives turned upside down’Fatme A. is trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life in between the improvised tent shelters, stacked mattresses and all the other families sheltered close by.
She is staying in the Azarieh buildings, in the middle of Beirut’s commercial center — the buildings have become a shelter for hundreds of displaced Lebanese. Around 250 families are living here in makeshift tents. There’s water, a communal kitchen and goods distributed by aid organizations. But there’s not much space, let alone peace or privacy.
In early March, Fatme (right) and her family left their home in the Beirut suburbs under attack by IsraelImage: privat
Fatme spends most of her time inside her tent. She isn’t even that keen to go to the bathroom here. “You have to queue and everybody looks at you,” she confides. “I get embarrassed.”
That’s why she sits inside her cloth shelter, amid bags, blankets and the small number of personal belongings she was able to carry with her when she was forced to flee home.
She lives here together with her husband, their 7-year-old daughter and her mother, sharing what little space they have. Her husband, a carpenter, has been helping others in the building. He repairs, builds and organizes. “Because he is able to help, we managed to get two tents,” Fatme explains.
During the day she tries to carry on as usual. But the nights are more difficult. “The explosions are so loud,” she tells DW. “A lot of people here are afraid and sleep fully dressed.”
Conflict expanding in Lebanon
The Iran war arrived in Beirut some time ago, and lately it has moved from beyond what are recognized as conflict zones to other parts of the Lebanese capital.
Israel has expanded its targeting and has also started hitting areas that are beyond what are known as neighborhoods that support the Lebanese group, Hezbollah — that includes central city areas. Sometimes the Israeli attacks come without any warning.
Hezbollah has both a military and political wing, plays a major role in Lebanese society and politics and is opposed to Israel. The group, which is allied with Iran, is categorized as a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and a number of Sunni Muslim countries. Europe considers Hezbollah’s armed wing a terrorist organization.
At the same time that Israel is attacking from the air, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has also said a buffer zone will be set up inside southern Lebanon and that Israel will keep security control over it even when the Iran war ends.
Katz has said the area to be occupied by Israeli forces would go right up to the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (around 18 miles) from the Lebanese border with Israel. Katz also said all houses in Lebanese villages near the Israeli border would be destroyed.
In response, Lebanese Defense Minister Michel Menassa said Katz’s remarks showed Israel’s “clear intention to impose a new occupation of Lebanese territory, forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of citizens, and systematically destroy villages and towns in the south.”
A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of 10 European countries, alongside the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, urged Israel to respect Lebanon’s territorial integrity.
‘Nowhere is safe’
But for Lebanese locals impacted by the Israeli invasion, those words bring no comfort. They feel there is nowhere safe for them at the moment.
“We fled [our homes] but we know that there’s nowhere that’s really safe. But there’s nothing more we can do,” Fatme explains.
Only a few weeks ago, Fatme and her family were living at home in Ouzai in the south of the city. It’s a dense, mixed-use neighborhood that belongs to the part of Beirut known as Dahiyeh.
‘Nowhere feels safe’: Beirut hit by ongoing Israeli strikesTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Dahiyeh — in Arabic, the word simply means “suburb” — is an area that is almost as big as central Beirut itself. Over the past few decades, Dahiyeh has grown thanks to migration and displacement. A lot of people have moved here simply because they couldn’t afford to live in other parts of the increasingly expensive city. Others arrived thanks to war, political crises or a lack of state support elsewhere.
For some outsiders and for Western observers, Dahiyeh is often only seen as a Hezbollah stronghold, a political and military space. But for the people who actually live there it is also a totally normal, often bustling area, filled with shops, restaurants and supermarkets. And above all, it is their home.
“We had a normal family life there,” Fatme recounts. “My daughter went to school, my husband worked as a carpenter and I ran the house. Our life was good there.” The family felt secure and stable, she adds.
No real ceasefire
But in late February the US and Israel began attacking Iran and killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Hezbollah is supported by Iran and had pledged allegiance to Khamenei. At the beginning of March, the group joined the war, explicitly linking their participation to Khamenei’s assassination. They began firing rockets and drones into neighboring Israel and Israel has responded with aerial sorties. Since then, violence and fighting in Lebanon has only escalated.
Fatme’s family managed to get two tents inside buddings in central BeirutImage: privat
After fighting started, Fatme’s family got in their car and left. They managed to return to their home twice and stayed there for two nights. But it was clear things were getting more dangerous.
“We were just afraid,” Fatme says, explaining that they decided to leave again, mostly for their daughter’s sake.
“It took me five years to get pregnant,” Fatme continues, saying she was worried about losing her only child. “And my daughter is still suffering from the war in 2024. She is often afraid and scared to go anywhere alone. Whenever there’s any loud noise, she covers her ears.”
Even after the official ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was arranged in November 2024, there was still violence with continuous Israeli attacks, explosions and ever more insecurity.
According to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, and the Lebanese government itself, there were more than 15,400 ceasefire violations by Israeli forces, and more than 370 people killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon by February 2026 — that was despite the November ceasefire.
“The continuing Israeli attacks don’t just destroy houses and infrastructure; they erode the pillars of daily life and recovery,” Jeremy Ristord, head of programs in Lebanon for the group Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement in late February.
That was why Fatme’s daughter was still so scared. The explosions and frightening loud noises never stopped, nor did her fear. For Fatme’s family it was clear they had to leave. They packed only necessities. As they drove away, they still didn’t know where they were heading. They just left.
They ran into heavy traffic jams because other people in the area had had the same idea. At first the family slept in their car but then they managed to find some accommodation in the Azarieh buildings, which have been turned into accommodation for displaced locals.
“I really miss my own home,” Fatme says. “My life, my things, my routine. Just a month ago, everything looked so different. Our lives have been turned upside down.”
Even inside the buildings, Fatme’s daughter still gets scared at loud noises and cries a lot. When that happens, Fatme pulls her closer. “That’s when I forget my own fear and try to comfort her,” she says.
Uncertain future
It’s unlikely that things are going to get better any time soon. At a March 31 meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Tom Fletcher, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said 1,240 people had been killed and a further 3,500 injured in Lebanon. That number included women, children and first responders.
At the same time, over 1.1 million people have been displaced, including hundreds of thousands of children.
“A cycle of coercive displacement is unfolding,” Fletcher warned. “Displacement is not a solution, but a painful last resort […] a temporary way to preserve dignity.”
During these difficult days there are still moments when Fatme can see some hope for the future, for instance, as she watches the children here playing. When her daughter is among them, relaxed, laughing and without a care even for a few minutes, Fatme feels positive. “When I see her playing, that’s when I think everything will be OK.”
But that feeling often doesn’t last long. The sound of Israeli drones over Beirut, the explosions in the distance — they all bring her back to the present and a view of what is left of their once happy lives: a family, two tents, a makeshift life.
“We are not the first, and we won’t be the last family that has had to flee,” Fatme says. “We’ve just got to hold on. And I just want the people out there to know this: That we had it good here, and that we lived with dignity.”
This article was originally written in German.
Israel strikes Hezbollah sites in BeirutTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
#Displaced #Lebanon #Lives #turned #upside](https://i2.wp.com/static.dw.com/image/76533511_6.jpg?ssl=1 "Displaced in Lebanon: ‘Lives turned upside down’Fatme A. is trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life in between the improvised tent shelters, stacked mattresses and all the other families sheltered close by.
She is staying in the Azarieh buildings, in the middle of Beirut’s commercial center — the buildings have become a shelter for hundreds of displaced Lebanese. Around 250 families are living here in makeshift tents. There’s water, a communal kitchen and goods distributed by aid organizations. But there’s not much space, let alone peace or privacy.
In early March, Fatme (right) and her family left their home in the Beirut suburbs under attack by IsraelImage: privat
Fatme spends most of her time inside her tent. She isn’t even that keen to go to the bathroom here. “You have to queue and everybody looks at you,” she confides. “I get embarrassed.”
That’s why she sits inside her cloth shelter, amid bags, blankets and the small number of personal belongings she was able to carry with her when she was forced to flee home.
She lives here together with her husband, their 7-year-old daughter and her mother, sharing what little space they have. Her husband, a carpenter, has been helping others in the building. He repairs, builds and organizes. “Because he is able to help, we managed to get two tents,” Fatme explains.
During the day she tries to carry on as usual. But the nights are more difficult. “The explosions are so loud,” she tells DW. “A lot of people here are afraid and sleep fully dressed.”
Conflict expanding in Lebanon
The Iran war arrived in Beirut some time ago, and lately it has moved from beyond what are recognized as conflict zones to other parts of the Lebanese capital.
Israel has expanded its targeting and has also started hitting areas that are beyond what are known as neighborhoods that support the Lebanese group, Hezbollah — that includes central city areas. Sometimes the Israeli attacks come without any warning.
Hezbollah has both a military and political wing, plays a major role in Lebanese society and politics and is opposed to Israel. The group, which is allied with Iran, is categorized as a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and a number of Sunni Muslim countries. Europe considers Hezbollah’s armed wing a terrorist organization.
At the same time that Israel is attacking from the air, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has also said a buffer zone will be set up inside southern Lebanon and that Israel will keep security control over it even when the Iran war ends.
Katz has said the area to be occupied by Israeli forces would go right up to the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (around 18 miles) from the Lebanese border with Israel. Katz also said all houses in Lebanese villages near the Israeli border would be destroyed.
In response, Lebanese Defense Minister Michel Menassa said Katz’s remarks showed Israel’s “clear intention to impose a new occupation of Lebanese territory, forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of citizens, and systematically destroy villages and towns in the south.”
A joint statement signed by the foreign ministers of 10 European countries, alongside the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, urged Israel to respect Lebanon’s territorial integrity.
‘Nowhere is safe’
But for Lebanese locals impacted by the Israeli invasion, those words bring no comfort. They feel there is nowhere safe for them at the moment.
“We fled [our homes] but we know that there’s nowhere that’s really safe. But there’s nothing more we can do,” Fatme explains.
Only a few weeks ago, Fatme and her family were living at home in Ouzai in the south of the city. It’s a dense, mixed-use neighborhood that belongs to the part of Beirut known as Dahiyeh.
‘Nowhere feels safe’: Beirut hit by ongoing Israeli strikesTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Dahiyeh — in Arabic, the word simply means “suburb” — is an area that is almost as big as central Beirut itself. Over the past few decades, Dahiyeh has grown thanks to migration and displacement. A lot of people have moved here simply because they couldn’t afford to live in other parts of the increasingly expensive city. Others arrived thanks to war, political crises or a lack of state support elsewhere.
For some outsiders and for Western observers, Dahiyeh is often only seen as a Hezbollah stronghold, a political and military space. But for the people who actually live there it is also a totally normal, often bustling area, filled with shops, restaurants and supermarkets. And above all, it is their home.
“We had a normal family life there,” Fatme recounts. “My daughter went to school, my husband worked as a carpenter and I ran the house. Our life was good there.” The family felt secure and stable, she adds.
No real ceasefire
But in late February the US and Israel began attacking Iran and killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Hezbollah is supported by Iran and had pledged allegiance to Khamenei. At the beginning of March, the group joined the war, explicitly linking their participation to Khamenei’s assassination. They began firing rockets and drones into neighboring Israel and Israel has responded with aerial sorties. Since then, violence and fighting in Lebanon has only escalated.
Fatme’s family managed to get two tents inside buddings in central BeirutImage: privat
After fighting started, Fatme’s family got in their car and left. They managed to return to their home twice and stayed there for two nights. But it was clear things were getting more dangerous.
“We were just afraid,” Fatme says, explaining that they decided to leave again, mostly for their daughter’s sake.
“It took me five years to get pregnant,” Fatme continues, saying she was worried about losing her only child. “And my daughter is still suffering from the war in 2024. She is often afraid and scared to go anywhere alone. Whenever there’s any loud noise, she covers her ears.”
Even after the official ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was arranged in November 2024, there was still violence with continuous Israeli attacks, explosions and ever more insecurity.
According to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, and the Lebanese government itself, there were more than 15,400 ceasefire violations by Israeli forces, and more than 370 people killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon by February 2026 — that was despite the November ceasefire.
“The continuing Israeli attacks don’t just destroy houses and infrastructure; they erode the pillars of daily life and recovery,” Jeremy Ristord, head of programs in Lebanon for the group Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement in late February.
That was why Fatme’s daughter was still so scared. The explosions and frightening loud noises never stopped, nor did her fear. For Fatme’s family it was clear they had to leave. They packed only necessities. As they drove away, they still didn’t know where they were heading. They just left.
They ran into heavy traffic jams because other people in the area had had the same idea. At first the family slept in their car but then they managed to find some accommodation in the Azarieh buildings, which have been turned into accommodation for displaced locals.
“I really miss my own home,” Fatme says. “My life, my things, my routine. Just a month ago, everything looked so different. Our lives have been turned upside down.”
Even inside the buildings, Fatme’s daughter still gets scared at loud noises and cries a lot. When that happens, Fatme pulls her closer. “That’s when I forget my own fear and try to comfort her,” she says.
Uncertain future
It’s unlikely that things are going to get better any time soon. At a March 31 meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Tom Fletcher, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said 1,240 people had been killed and a further 3,500 injured in Lebanon. That number included women, children and first responders.
At the same time, over 1.1 million people have been displaced, including hundreds of thousands of children.
“A cycle of coercive displacement is unfolding,” Fletcher warned. “Displacement is not a solution, but a painful last resort […] a temporary way to preserve dignity.”
During these difficult days there are still moments when Fatme can see some hope for the future, for instance, as she watches the children here playing. When her daughter is among them, relaxed, laughing and without a care even for a few minutes, Fatme feels positive. “When I see her playing, that’s when I think everything will be OK.”
But that feeling often doesn’t last long. The sound of Israeli drones over Beirut, the explosions in the distance — they all bring her back to the present and a view of what is left of their once happy lives: a family, two tents, a makeshift life.
“We are not the first, and we won’t be the last family that has had to flee,” Fatme says. “We’ve just got to hold on. And I just want the people out there to know this: That we had it good here, and that we lived with dignity.”
This article was originally written in German.
Israel strikes Hezbollah sites in BeirutTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
#Displaced #Lebanon #Lives #turned #upside")
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