- 5/28/2025
Mike McKinsey shares the story of his Near-Death Experience, occurring during an emergency operation to remove his appendix. Mike describes seeing Jesus in the operating room and being led into a place that changed everything he thought he knew about Heaven. After returning to his body, Mike shares his journey of making sense of her Near-Death Experience and how it changed the way he lives his life.
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00:00They get me ready for surgery, they start the IV, wheel me down the hall, I say goodbye to my wife.
00:07They burst open the doors of the surgery room, and I thought, man, it's freezing in here, but, you know, I'm still 104 fever.
00:16They slide me over onto the surgical table. I look to my right, and out of nowhere, Jesus is standing there.
00:26The physical person, and everything else just kind of disappeared.
00:33There were no other people in the room, and I look, and I'm, like, really confused.
00:38I'm thinking, what is going on here?
00:44And then I thought to myself, did I die?
00:50And I thought, you know, I've heard of people when they die, they see themselves floating up above their body.
00:56And I thought, I didn't do that, so I must not be dead.
00:59But what's going on?
01:02It wasn't like it was a dream.
01:04It was like heightened reality.
01:07And it started right when Jesus stood there.
01:11Everything was different.
01:14It found hope.
01:28And it was like it was recently or when he climbed up above their Shelter from now.
01:38My name is Mike McKenzie.
01:45I grew up in Lodi, California, the Zinfandel capital of the world.
01:50When I got married, we moved down to Southern California.
01:55I was working as a salesman for a tile company, and I did really well.
02:03I mean, I was like one of the top salesmen in the company.
02:07And so they gave me a store of my own in Anaheim.
02:12So that's what I did.
02:14Until my wife got pregnant, then we decided to move back up to Central California and raise
02:18a family up there.
02:21We ended up raising four kids, and they were all real athletic.
02:26They all played sports, did a lot of coaching of soccer and football and baseball, especially.
02:33I think over about a 19-year coaching career, I coached over 30 different teams, everything
02:41from T-ball to high school.
02:42My oldest son, Ben, was going to school in Santa Barbara.
02:49He graduated, he got his license to be a nuclear medicine technologist, and he met someone
02:57in church, and they decided to get married.
03:02It was the last weekend of summer before the younger kids had to go back to school.
03:07Wedding was set for a Saturday.
03:09We thought we'd go down there on a Wednesday because, you know, we wanted to kind of make
03:13it a short little mini vacation, say goodbye to summer before the kids go back to school.
03:19So we got there on a Wednesday afternoon.
03:23And, of course, my two younger boys brought their willful balls and bats, and they saw this
03:29big park right next to the hotel.
03:33So the kids said, hey, Dad, we're going to go play some home run derby.
03:36Why don't you come and join us after you get checked in?
03:38So I said, yeah, okay, sounds good.
03:41And we played baseball, just hung out and played for probably a couple hours.
03:46That night, I started to feel like I was getting sick, like I was coming down with the flu.
03:53And I thought, yeah, great time to get a flu right before your son's wedding.
03:59Didn't think much of it because it wasn't that bad.
04:01But then Thursday, I just kept thinking, man, my stomach's getting worse and worse.
04:09This ain't good.
04:11Friday rolls around.
04:12By now, I'm running a little bit of a fever, and I'm starting to sweat.
04:17We made it through the rehearsal dinner, and I was joking around with some of the guests.
04:22I said, you know, I'm getting the flu, but this thing's costing me a lot of money.
04:27So I'm going to have one of every dessert.
04:29I'm having your leftovers, and, you know, I'm getting my money's worth.
04:33We left.
04:35We went back to the hotel.
04:36My son and I are sitting at the bar.
04:39He's in the medical field, so he's trying to diagnose what's going on with me.
04:43And he says, have you had your appendix out?
04:45And I said, well, you know, I don't think it's my appendix because they always say you have that point tenderness, you know?
04:51Like, when your appendix swell up, there's one spot on your abdomen that you push on, and it hurts really bad.
04:58That didn't happen with me.
05:00But I thought, you know, it just didn't make sense.
05:03I decided at about one in the morning to go to Quick Stop and get some Tylenol to kind of break that fever.
05:11So I came back home, took the stuff, and it didn't work.
05:15The Tylenol cut the pain a little bit, but I was still running a pretty good fever.
05:19But, you know, now I'm sweating pretty bad.
05:22I didn't sleep at all that night, not one week before my son's wedding.
05:26I was starting to look pretty pale.
05:27Until we get through the whole wedding, and then a few of the guests started leaving, and I said, guys, I've got to go get checked out.
05:36I mean, something's really bad wrong.
05:39So we drove to the hospital.
05:42I finally get back to see the nurse in the ER, and she takes my temperature.
05:47It was 104.3.
05:49I was feeling just miserable.
05:51I mean, miserable.
05:52I hadn't slept in over 24 hours.
05:54And she's poking around in my abdomen.
05:56She says, does that hurt?
05:57And I said, no, it doesn't.
05:59And she takes out this little mallet, like what they check your reflexes with.
06:03She taps on the bottom of my foot, and she says, does that hurt?
06:07And I kind of laughed.
06:08I said, no.
06:10And she tapped the other foot, and, man, the pain in my abdomen made me scream.
06:15And she says, okay, that's your appendix.
06:18I'm going to call a surgeon.
06:20She says, have you done any physical activity lately?
06:22And I said, oh, you know, I played baseball with the kids Wednesday afternoon.
06:27And she, her expression changed.
06:30She says, Wednesday?
06:32This is Saturday night.
06:34And she's thinking Thursday, Friday, Saturday, three days.
06:39If my appendix ruptured when I was playing baseball three days later, I'm in trouble.
06:45About a half an hour later, a surgeon comes in.
06:47He says, your white blood cell count is really high.
06:51So I think your appendix is probably ruptured.
06:55And he says, if they ruptured, you know, Wednesday, we got to get in there quick.
07:02They get me ready for surgery.
07:04They start the IV.
07:05They wheel me down the hall.
07:07I said goodbye to my wife.
07:09They burst open the doors of the surgery room.
07:13And I thought, man, it's freezing in here.
07:15But, you know, I'm still 104 fever.
07:18And I was sweating.
07:19But I thought, gosh, it's so cold.
07:21I mean, how do these people work in this condition?
07:23They slide me over onto the surgical table.
07:26And I thought, this thing is tiny.
07:28You know, I'm going to fall out.
07:28I felt like I had nowhere to put my hands.
07:30I looked to my right.
07:33And out of nowhere, Jesus is standing there.
07:38The physical person and everything else just kind of disappeared.
07:45There were no other people in the room.
07:47And I look, and I'm really confused.
07:50I'm thinking, what is going on here?
07:56And then I thought to myself, did I die?
08:00And I thought, you know, I've heard of people when they die, they see themselves floating up above their body.
08:08And I thought, I didn't do that.
08:10So I must not be dead.
08:11But what's going on?
08:14It wasn't like it was a dream.
08:16It was like heightened reality.
08:19And it started right when Jesus stood there.
08:23Everything was different.
08:25His skin was much darker than I'd seen as a kid.
08:32He almost looked like an Arab man.
08:35He was wearing a white robe.
08:38He had like wavy brown hair.
08:40And he had these dark, greenish-blue eyes.
08:46And when those eyes looked into my eyes, he looked into my soul.
08:50I could just feel this love emanating from this man.
08:56That was what convinced me that it was Jesus.
08:59Everything about him just radiated love.
09:02He holds out his hand and he says, I want to answer your prayer.
09:08And I'm thinking, my prayer, what the heck?
09:14I didn't make the connection right away.
09:18But I thought, I used to pray as a kid that Jesus would show me heaven.
09:23I remember my grandfather passed away.
09:28And he was a Catholic.
09:29So we went to his funeral.
09:31And there was a priest up there.
09:32And he was holding this ball on a chain.
09:34And it had holes in it.
09:35And there was smoke coming out of it.
09:37And the smoke's going up.
09:39And the priest says, the smoke represents our prayers going up to heaven.
09:45They were talking about, grandpa's in heaven now.
09:48There's no more pain.
09:49There's no sadness.
09:51There's no tears.
09:51And I remember thinking as a kid, wow, sounds like a great place.
09:57You know, I'd like to see that.
10:01I reached out.
10:03I took his hand.
10:05Immediately when I took his hand, we were standing on a hill.
10:10Everything around me is white, like the whitest white I've ever seen.
10:14It's almost blinding.
10:16But I look down at my feet and I'm barefoot.
10:19I'm still in a nightgown, you know, the surgical gown.
10:24And I see this beautiful green grass.
10:27It's like it's manicured.
10:30It's perfect.
10:30It's bluish green.
10:32The prettiest grass I've ever seen.
10:34And my senses were heightened to the point where I could count every single blade of grass under my feet.
10:41I could feel every blade of grass, I could feel every blade of grass, I knew how many blades of grass were touching my feet.
10:46It was, it was crazy.
10:47And I look around, I'm trying to adjust my eyes to this white so I can see.
10:53And I look and off to my right is another brighter white, but this is like a light.
11:01And I look at that light and I think, wow, that's really cool, you know.
11:06And all of a sudden, out of that light, it starts sending these light beams.
11:12They're like, they look like fluorescent light tubes, you know, like you've used in your shop, you know, the four foot things.
11:18But they're only about two feet long.
11:21They're about this big around.
11:22They're smooth and they're glowing like the light.
11:26And so they start flying by me here.
11:29And everything is white, but these things are glowing white, almost like shimmering.
11:34It's weird.
11:35When I was looking at this, I was just in, in awe and, you know, obviously confused still.
11:44I spent a lot of time confused because I'm thinking, what is this?
11:50Where am I?
11:52And I'm watching these things and one of them is coming straight at my head.
11:57And I'm looking at this thing and I'm like, what am I supposed to do?
12:02You know, should I dodge this thing or what?
12:05You know, it hits me right in the forehead.
12:08And as it does, it makes this kind of buzzing sound, a light buzzing sound as it goes through me.
12:13And it warmed me like all the way down to my feet.
12:17So that cold that I felt in the surgical room, now is replaced with this beautiful, warm feeling.
12:26All of a sudden, it's like somebody is pulling a curtain from my right to my left.
12:31And the white, whatever it was, the white fog or veil or just the whiteness just gets pulled to the side.
12:40And now I'm looking at this beautiful scenery.
12:44I see that I am standing on a hill.
12:47Below me are these little flowers.
12:52They're almost like, describing like sweet peas.
12:56You know, like they have like these little, they're like little petals, little soft petals.
13:03But they're all like a pastel color.
13:06They're purples and yellows and orange and pinks and just beautiful.
13:12And they're, they're moving like they're dancing in the wind, but there's no wind.
13:19So I'm thinking, well, why are they, why are they moving?
13:22And then at the bottom of this hill, the white that was pulled away from, from me is now settled in the valley.
13:33And there's a great big city down there, but I can only see the rooftops because it's like, it's, it's like there's fog on top of the city.
13:41So I can't see the whole city, but I can just see the rooftops.
13:45And there's, there's one real big gold dome, like a Capitol dome.
13:50And there's other smaller gold domes.
13:54I mean, the city's huge.
13:55It's like miles apart.
13:58And there's some other white things sticking through, almost like church steeples, like spires.
14:10Behind that city, on the other side of the valley, there's another mountain.
14:15And it's pretty big and it's covered in these pine trees, but they're like perfectly shaped pine trees.
14:23They're all beautiful green.
14:25And then above that is like the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen.
14:30Right above the trees, it was like reds and oranges and, and yellows.
14:35And then it turned into the purples and greens and blue, like bright blue at the very top.
14:40And so now these tube lights are still bouncing around, going by me, but now they're going across the valley.
14:50And one of them goes and it hits the edge, the tip of one of the trees.
14:55And it's like it had a diamond on it because when that thing hit the tip of the tree, it burst into hundreds of tiny little light streaks.
15:05And pretty soon the whole mountain is lit up with these, these bursting white beams of light.
15:12And they kept going to, they would go all over the place.
15:16I mean, it was just like, it was like a big giant firework show, but it was all white, like glowing fluorescent white.
15:25You know, I'm just looking at it, just going, this is amazing.
15:28And when I, when I look back at the light, where they were starting from, emanating from, Jesus says to me, it's the glory of the Lord.
15:46And when he said that, I just got weak in my knees and I couldn't, I fell to my knees.
15:56And with the instant my knees hit the ground, they shocked me and they brought me back.
16:07So now instead of this beautiful scenery, I've got a doctor leaning over me, wearing a mask.
16:13And he says, do you know your name?
16:17I opened my mouth to talk and my mouth was just so dry, but I was able to get out the words Mike.
16:23And he says, oh, good.
16:24He says, do you know where you are?
16:29And now I'm confused again, because I'm thinking, well, I, you know, where's Jesus?
16:35Where's heaven?
16:36Where's the scene?
16:37You know?
16:39And he says, again, do you know where you are?
16:43And I'm running through my mind.
16:45Okay.
16:46Oh, the wedding.
16:47Oh, yeah.
16:47I'm in Ventura.
16:49So I said, Ventura.
16:51And he looks at me and he says, okay.
16:53And he says something to the people in the room.
16:56And now I realize that there's like five other people in the room, all dressed in scrubs.
17:01He says, he's going to be okay.
17:05Or he's back.
17:05Something like that.
17:06And I'm just, and he says, let's get him up to ICU.
17:12I looked over and I saw the crash cart.
17:16And I saw that one of the paddles was kind of laying aside and the cords were hanging down.
17:23And it was obviously, obvious that they had used it.
17:27Somebody was over there putting them back together.
17:29And I thought, oh boy, you know, I did die.
17:35The surgeon came in to see me the next day.
17:38As he's kind of checking out the stitches and, you know, poking around and checking my temperature.
17:44He says to me, that's the worst case I've ever seen.
17:47And I said, you're kidding.
17:48And he starts to walk out of the room and he comes back in and he says, I've seen worse, but they didn't live.
17:56And he says, yours was the worst case I've ever seen where the patient lived.
18:02My wife came in to see me a couple hours after that.
18:06She said, how are you feeling?
18:07And I said, well, not so good yet, you know.
18:11But I said, you're not going to believe what happened.
18:14She goes, really, what?
18:15And I opened my mouth to tell her and I just started crying.
18:21And I thought, I'm not even going to try and tell her about this whole thing with Jesus yet.
18:28So the next day she comes in and she says, so what happened?
18:34And I opened my mouth to tell her and I cried again.
18:37And it took me three days before I could finally tell her the whole story.
18:43And, you know, makes me cry at this point.
18:48It was, it was really just a super emotional, emotional thing.
19:00When I told her, of course, she starts crying.
19:03And I thought, you know, it's really, it's really an amazing thing that happened to me.
19:09It's an emotional story for me because I think that really started a relationship with Jesus.
19:22I would describe myself as kind of a Sunday Christian.
19:26You know, I went to church on Sundays.
19:28I just didn't really get it.
19:30After that incident, I knew he's a real guy.
19:34He's a real physical person.
19:36I mean, that changed everything that I know or thought I knew about heaven.
19:42And I thought, well, maybe it really is a physical place like right now.
19:48God could just hide it from us.
19:50I mean, God could do anything.
19:56I was on a liquid diet for probably six days.
20:01I was still running a fever.
20:03And until you get down to normal, they're not going to let you go.
20:07And so at some point, the doctor said, okay, put him on semi-solid food and see how he does.
20:13So one of the first things he gave me to eat was a banana.
20:17And I thought, okay, you know, finally I get something other than beef broth.
20:22Because I spent 12 days in the hospital.
20:25I lost 34 pounds.
20:26I mean, I was a rail.
20:28So I was so happy to get that banana.
20:30And as I start peeling this, this banana, I'm just like, it's like God's creation just hit me like a ton of bricks.
20:38And I started bawling.
20:40And I'm thinking, I'm eating something that grew out of the ground, out of the dirt, from thousands of miles away.
20:48And it's going to help me get healthy again.
20:51It was like the weight of that creation just hit me.
20:53Walking's big in the hospital.
20:58After you've had surgery, they want you on your feet.
21:00And I remember the nurse comes in and he says, I need you to get up and walk.
21:06Today's the day you're going to walk.
21:07So he helps me out of bed.
21:09And I had four different tubes on the IV stand.
21:14You know, I had tubes coming out of me that I didn't know they could put tubes in.
21:19It was crazy.
21:21So I get out of bed.
21:23I take my little IV stand.
21:25And I start walking down the hall.
21:27And the guy's helping me, the nurse.
21:29And I walk by a couple of pictures.
21:32And this was a beach town.
21:35So there's pictures of the ocean.
21:37And there's pictures of sunsets.
21:40And man, I remember looking at those and I'm thinking, what have I been missing?
21:47I'm just so stressed out.
21:51And it just changed everything.
21:56Changed the way I look at life.
22:00Here's the way I describe my life before the NDE.
22:04I'd go to work early in the morning.
22:06Very stressful job.
22:08I was a superintendent for a real estate development company.
22:11And I had between 30 and 35 houses at different stages of construction.
22:17I would come home.
22:19I would throw the baseball equipment or whatever in the back of the truck, race off to a baseball
22:25game or practice.
22:27And somewhere along the line, try and figure out where we're going to get dinner because
22:31we'd get done at 6, 6.30.
22:33Kids had homework, you know, that I had to help them with.
22:36And it was just lather, rinse, repeat every day.
22:40Same old thing.
22:41Stress.
22:44One of the biggest changes for me after that NDE was I put into practice what I noticed in
22:52the hallways while walking back and forth and looking at those pictures.
22:56I thought, I'm just going to slow down.
22:58I'm going to stop.
22:59And I'm going to enjoy every moment of my life.
23:03I'll be walking through a park or something.
23:05I'll see a flower.
23:07I'll bend down and smell the flower.
23:08I don't care who sees me or if they think it's weird or whatever.
23:13My phone is full of sunset pictures, full of pictures of flowers.
23:19I think I'm more like seeing the world through the eyes of a kid.
23:25Jesus didn't give me an assignment, but I think that's what he wants me to do is tell
23:30everybody, you know, slow down, man, just appreciate the beauty of his creation.
23:36I think that's why we're created, to spread God's love.
23:44I'm nothing special.
23:46I'm not loved more by God than anybody.
23:51I always tell people now, ask God to reveal himself to you, and he will.
23:57But be patient, because this one took 40 years.
24:00This prayer took 40 years to answer.
24:04But what's 40 years to God?
24:06Definitely not afraid of death.
24:14I always think now, when I do die for the final time, and don't come back, I think Jesus
24:22is going to meet me on that hill.
24:25And he's going to say, let's go see what you didn't get to see that day.
24:31Let's spend some time in the city.
24:32I'll show you around.
24:36But I always say, but not today.
24:40Not yet.
24:41Because there's a lot of life to live, you know.
24:44I mean, I have, now I have 13 grandkids.
24:48If I would have died back then, I wouldn't have met any of them.
24:51But I think that's probably why he let me live.
24:56But I'm going to see you as in it.
24:59Okay.
25:00Same work, thanks.
25:03I'm really sorry.
25:04Because you live in the city, I know I'm interested in the Come on in a walls.
25:10Bye.
25:11Bye.
25:14Bye.
25:16Bye.
25:16Bye.
25:18Bye.
25:18Bye.
25:18Bye.
25:18Bye.
25:19Bye.
25:20Bye.
25:21Bye.
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