I was reading this book on a Tuesday night, alone in my kitchen, the kettle boiled and I forgot to pour. I had picked up 18 Days in Heaven by Gabe Poirot because I am afraid of death. Not in a dramatic way. In the quiet way. The way that keeps you up at 3 AM wondering if consciousness just stops. I wanted answers. I wanted certainty. But honestly? I also wanted to be skeptical. Because most near-death experience books feel like they are selling you something. A product. A reassurance. A ticket. So when I opened this one, I asked myself: is this book actually different? Or is it just another story dressed up in light and angels?
Gabe Poirot was twenty years old when he flatlined after a brutal accident. He lay on the pavement, blood coming from his ears. His spirit left his body. He traveled through a tunnel of living light. He stood in the throne room of Heaven. He met Jesus face to face. And then he spent eighteen days in a coma, his body alive but his mind somewhere else. The book describes what he saw: the colors that have no name on earth, the sound of worship that never stops, the feeling of being loved without condition. Gabe comes across as humble. He doesn’t claim to be special. He just says he saw what he saw. But the core of the book is not the visions. It is the life review. In that review, Gabe saw every moment of his life, not judged by God but bathed in mercy. That moment changed him. But did it change me? I will be honest. I felt a strange mix of comfort and unease. The comfort was real. The unease was harder to name.
A Sapphire Floor and a Closed Door
The core theme of this book is not heaven. It is the nature of divine love. Gabe says God loves us with the same love He has for Jesus. That is a big claim. And the key imagery that stuck with me was the sapphire floor of heaven. Gabe describes walking on it, and it felt solid and real, more real than anything on earth. The author’s craft here is simple. He does not use fancy language. He describes what he saw in plain terms. That plainness is actually powerful. It makes you feel like you are there too.
But here is the thing. The book also makes it clear that this love has a condition. The condition is belief in Jesus. Gabe says hell has no claim on you because the blood of Jesus secured your destiny. That sentence is the one that made me pause. Because if I am honest, I am not sure I believe exactly that way. And the book does not leave much room for people who are still figuring things out. It is a book for believers. It is a book for people who already know what they believe. For someone like me, who is more of a questioner, it felt a little like being locked out of a party where everyone else is dancing.
Comfort for Believers, Silence for Skeptics
This book will not make you less afraid of death if you are not a Christian. Let me say that more clearly. It will not convince you. What it will do is show you what one person experienced with such clarity that you cannot dismiss it as a hallucination. Gabe Poirot is not trying to convert you. He is just telling you what he saw. And that is the book’s greatest strength and its biggest limitation. For believers, this will be a fire that reignites faith. For doubters, it will be a beautiful story that leaves you still standing outside the door.
I finished the book and put it down. I still do not know what happens when we die. But I do know this: the book made me feel less alone in my wondering. And maybe that is enough. I recommend this book to anyone who is a Christian and wants to deepen their faith. I do not recommend it to skeptics who are looking for proof. But if you are somewhere in between, like me, you might find it worth reading. Not for the answers. For the questions it raises.
