Through the Window of Life
By Suzanne Freeman
Synopsis: This book is about a vision of the last days as experienced by the author during a near death experience. It is a sequel to her earlier book, Led by the Hand of Christ, which is an account of her near death experience in the spirit world. But this sequel is about the things that are to come for the world in the last days previous to the Second Coming, which she claims to have been shown by Christ during her spirit world visit. She saw all of these events through a viewing apparatus in the spirit world called the Window of Life, hence the title of the book. Apparently she experienced the vision partially as a viewer and partially as though she were a participant, but the entire story is related as though she were a participant to make it more seamless and less confusing for the reader.
Strong Points: This is a fascinating book which provides a large amount of detail for the reader. There are many common themes with the also-interesting Visions of Glory book, including a desolating sickness, severe weather, natural disasters, collapsed government, an invading foreign army, and a journey to Zion (New Jerusalem). So I suppose if Visions of Glory is reliable, I see little reason why this book wouldn’t be as well. The book also has a lot of tie-ins with scriptural concepts and is a faith-inspiring story.
Weak Points: So there are some things that remain unexplained in the book that bother me. For instance, she discusses her family and her children, but she never gives the ages of her children, which would have given us a clue about the timeline of how soon the Second Coming might be. Instead, we’re left without any of those details, and we’re even left to wonder whether she was experiencing a hypothetical vision utilizing her family as it then existed in 1999, or whether she saw her family in a future time, or what. No answers there. Also, while a lot of it seemed very plausible, some was hard to accept, like the appearance of “the Lost Ten Tribes” after having been “hidden away” (p. 115-116, where, we are not told) with ancient-style armor (p. 104-105), and super technology (p. 105-108), including energy beam weapons (p. 107-108); these supermen appeared basically to escort struggling travelers (with their handcarts) to the New Jerusalem in Jackson County, and to live there with them as well.
Interesting: 4/5
Must Read: 3/5
Overall: 3/5
Selected Quote: “While Kurt ate, he told us more of the invading army. ‘After they came, it seemed as if they wanted to help us,’ he said. ‘They’d heard about all our disasters. They’d had some, too, but I guess not so bad. They stocked our big stores with food, the ones that were still standing, anyway. They were almost like the Red Cross or something. They said we could have whatever we wanted out of their stores, as long as we let them implant a tiny microchip under the skin on the back of our hand.’ Kurt raised his fist, slashed and spotted with multiple scars, and turned it towards us. ‘They said it wouldn’t hurt. We’d never lose it, and we could get all the food we wanted. It sounded good to me. Their words were sweet, their reasoning sound. If you were robbed of your wallet or purse, you could still get food, because no one could steal your microchip. But we had to have the microchip to get anything from the store.’” (p. 45-46).