Gomah the Fifth Heaven

By Anne Johnson

“And there will be strange signs in the sun, moon, and stars. And here on earth the nations will be in turmoil, perplexed by the roaring seas and strange tides.”
Luke 21:25 (NLV)
“Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.”
Revelation 3:3 (NLV)
Privileged to visit before death, a child of God is transported to the Fifth Heaven. There she learns through mysterious supernatural friends how a Triune God truly cares. She explores this kingdom of wonder and finds out what exists in other ‘heavens’.  Going back and forth, she learns how mankind will fall prey to an unimaginable force. She witnesses the raw terror of a spiritual war. The reality of Armageddon hangs in the background, threatening all the sanctity of life…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: May 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528995504

Anne Johnson

ANNE JOHNSON has been a Londoner for fifty years. She is a professional storyteller and songwriter who is committed to bringing live storytelling and music into schools as the Director of Everyday Magic, which every year fires the imaginations of over 1,500 children at London schools.

Book preview

Beginning

About the Author

Anne was brought up in Liverpool. She became a Christian in 1980 whilst living in Toxteth shortly before riots there. Having once experienced homelessness herself, she went on to spend her adult working life managing services for the homeless throughout the UK and in organisations that adhered to Christian principles and values such as the YMCA and Salvation Army. One of her prolific hobbies has been in the composition of Christian and secular poetry that reflected much of her own life experiences. Later she advanced in the composition of Christian fiction based on Scriptural fact for the advancement of the Christian faith. She has three children and five grandchildren.

Dedication

To my loving children, Christopher, Nicola and Jenny, who have inspired and encouraged me in all my literary efforts, for being there when I needed them most and for helping me see that life should be lived to the fullest and fired by Christian love and generosity.

Copyright Information ©

Anne Johnson (2021)

The right of Anne Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781528995498 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781528995504 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank my husband, Vic, for listening to endless passages of verse and for my beautiful daughter, Jenny, who read every blessed thing I wrote for correction of spelling and grammar. I also wish to pay tribute to Revd David Thompson, who was the instrument God used to lead me to a life of spiritual fulfilment. His honesty, tenacity to teach and evangelistic insight helped to form my Christian character as it is today. He never gave up on me and I hope I too will never give up on helping others to find Christ through my poems and fictional creations based on sound Christian doctrinal teaching tested and aligned by the Holy Scripture.

Foreword

It would be entirely remiss of me if before you embark on this fictional journey into a supernatural realm, the reader understands that what I have presented in Gomah the Fifth Heaven is not the retelling of prophetic dreams, but that which is simply the product of my own imagination as they appeared to me at a specific time in my life.

For a season or more, I used such dreams as a coping mechanism to help me sleep and overcome crippling clinical depression that I suffered, and it worked every time. No mortal possesses the sort of imagination that can clearly envisage what Heaven is really like, so what I present in these pages is merely a very dim and poor ideological reflection of how I imagine God’s realm to be. To be frank, I truly believe it to be the case that no one has the human capacity to fully comprehend all that God has in store for those who trust and believe in Him.

The places, characters and imagery are all fictional, the real aspects lie only in my character and that of my dog, Buddy. Occasionally I reflect on real life to help with the context to the fictional storyline. I have been careful to include Scriptural references because Gomah has an important message that I believe the world needs to hear. That message will be realised the deeper one gets into the many storylines.

Apart from God’s infallible promises as described throughout the Bible, none of us are immortal and the only guarantee we have in this life is the inevitable day when we will one day leave this mortal plain and face judgement. Promises of a new life can only be secured through taking Jesus Christ into one’s life as their personal Lord and Saviour through His death and resurrection. That my dear reader is only the beginning, God is not a bargaining tool.

I hope and pray that the reader will realise that one is either for or against the Lord. There is no in between and God despises those who think they can guarantee their place in Heaven by having a preverbial foot in both camps. Take heed reader!

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Rev 3:16-16 NIV

Chapter One

The Journey

Death – we know it comes to us all one day. For those of us unafraid, we merely fear the pain or circumstance of death, but not death itself. For others, death is a merciful release from a lifetime of heartache and suffering. Such souls have endured their own personal hell through a life blighted and affected through unfortunate circumstance. They may have waded through a world obsessed by selfish ambition, materialism, power, oppression and terror. An unforgiving world, faithless and deceptive, can for some be the daily burden they carry or their cross that comes too heavy for them to bear. Those who are fearful of death are in turmoil as their limited lives pass through the years. Some are frightened – even of the grey hairs that appear, often at quite an early age – a youthful reminder of what is soon to come. Age and faded beauty, loss of strength and vitality, onset of illness and a dread of dementia and loneliness – all take their toll. Yet our lives are limited: ‘Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away’, as the writer of Psalm 90:10 suggests.

We are here for the merest breath of time after all. Skeletons – well, I see them all the time. They are bones, and bones that once held flesh and sinew, blood and water – all of which once constituted a life force, a person, a human being with a character, a personality and a soul.

Yet now rendered into lifeless bones with no soul, no life force and which will, in time, turn to dust, which according to Genesis, was the substance we are made of anyway. But tell me, where does the soul go once life has expired?

One reads of near-death experiences in books, online or see it transposed on film – testimonies of people who claim that at the point of their own death, they seem to have an ‘out of body’ experience and travel, some would say, through a tunnel of sorts – towards a small bright light that seems to be beckoning them, growing larger the nearer they get to this light.

Many claim to experience a sublime sense of peace – even joy, and a sincere reluctance to return to their mortal body, which many witness seeing lifeless wherever death assailed them.

Some describe personal encounters with a living being, who after receiving a message from this being, are sent back into their bodies – an apparently changed personality, one that is far better in character to the person they left a short while earlier, and one who inevitably has a new mission in life said to be a directive from the Lord himself. Yet, who am I to doubt their claims; surely one day I too will experience this same journey?

My life has not been especially wholesome and as time progressed, I found myself carrying crosses that at times I loathed. Yet I loved God. I loved him before I met his son. I loved him because he first loved me. I loved him because he gave me hope, even in the depth of despair – in the hardship of deprivation and in the midst of abuse. He could have made my life sweeter during these times, but God had a better plan for me. So it was that my life was spent helping others who like me had endured hardships very similar to mine. God helped me to overcome and blessed me. Yet, notwithstanding his divine intervention, I found sleeping difficult. So God gave me a way of coping and in this he used my own imagination and I would venture night after night to a special place called ‘Gomah’ in a dimension known as the Fifth Heaven.

The sound of gentle waves stirred my soul back into being. Waves lapping onto a pure white sandy beach turning the water into pearlescent froth as it cascaded and dissipated back into the sea. This beach, and the sea that was surrounding it were unlike any I had ever seen before.

Dark blue, like sapphire; the sea made frothy waves, brilliantly white, dynamic and proud. So dark was the sea that it appeared to be without depth, bottomless – yet as the waves washed over my form, I did not feel the profound coldness I had anticipated. Instead, the water was wonderfully warm and greatly comforting. I felt myself rinsed through with a clear feeling of wellbeing and utter peace. I could breathe beneath this water! I could see the wonders of the deep and the myriad of marine life in all their spectacular shapes, sizes and colours. Each of them swimming amongst some of the most extravagant sea plants, rocks and corals. Together they all lived in harmony, one with the other, in their unique and magical underwater environment.

My body felt rejuvenated, young and vibrant, and astonishingly, my hair had returned to its long length and in my original dark auburn. I noticed too that I was draped from my neck to my feet in an extraordinary full-length garment that billowed in the water as I swam towards the shoreline. I felt young again. As I emerged from the water, my hair, body and clothing were astonishingly and quite inexplicitly bone dry. The garment had been created in one piece and woven with a textile that was both luminous and as white as the brilliant snow. I felt alive in a way I had never felt before.

For a moment, I pondered where I was and how I got here. There was a deep blue/black sky above me with no sun or moon or any other orbital object to lighten the world below, yet this place was incredibly bathed in a mysterious and fantastical light, a more beautiful and softer light than that which the earthly sun or moon reflected. The sky was cloudless with a depth I could not begin to fathom. It was strangely not mysterious to me, nor was it foreboding.

Encompassing and protective, it appeared to form a barrier safeguarding that which is outside from coming within. A cloaking phenomenon that created a chasm between this world and its dimension and whatever lay beyond the stratosphere of its celestial space.

Looking from the perspective of the beach, I could see the waters teeming with life – sea life, sea creatures – they danced within the confines of this great fluidic mass. Sharks, great whales, dolphins and massive terrapins were those I had recognised – together with other creatures I did not recognise or ever knew existed – all playing together, emerging and submerging, diving and dancing on the waves and leaping into gigantic spirals before disappearing back into the fathomless deep. A myriad of marine life and not one seeking to threaten or devour another. It was a mystical and breath-taking sight, absolutely incredulous. I could even see beneath the waves and there observed the teeming life within the multitudes of shoals of fish of every size, shape and colour. Marine plant life and crustaceans of every form abided in their watery home in perfect harmony. Coral reefs, unlike any that were formed on earth, provided a spectacular marine garden – alive and growing with tentacles and floral shapes and flowers – each spectacularly different and glorious in their vivid vibrant colours, waved with every tidal movement. Squid, octopus, eels and sea serpents meandered in and out of the coral formations. The scene was reminiscent of an underwater city made majestic through its cultured forms and dimensions, colours and lifeforms. Whilst I had observed some of this from my recent swim in this sea playground; I could not, at this point, understand how I could visualise all this from my perspective here on this beautiful beach.

Scattered along the shoreline was the most remarkable and stunningly exquisite array of shells; natural treasures of the deep. Large and small shells – different in shape, size and texture – all of which shone in this strange light that intensified their pearlescent pastel shading, causing them to glitter, casting enchanting, coloured reflections on the sandy shore. Amongst the many rocks, I could see turtles, crabs and numerous sea mammals all bathing peacefully in the warmth of this exclusive place and curiously appearing to live with no animosity between them or rivalry for partners or territory. They lived at peace not wanting to eat one another, so unlike the creature life on earth. I too felt no fear of them, as if I knew they were of no harm to me.

The periphery of the shoreline was lined with a forest of elegant trees of every shade of green, some reddish and others that had bluish-silver tones; still others presented tinted shades of yellow through to rich copper tones. They were trees of stupendous size and geometrically shaped, some with complete flat tops, others square or round whilst some others were simply odd.

Most were in blossom and many others heavy with fruit and seeds. I had never imagined such a bounty of produce nor had I ever imagined the beauty and colours of the flora and fauna that beheld my awestruck eyes. A huge mountainous backdrop added a panoramic setting to this sea of splendid forestry. The accents of these mountain systems were crowned with snow shimmering like diamanté under the clear pristine sky. Below and about them, creating a motion of rhythmic beauty, I observed periodic waterfalls – powerful, awesome and spell bounding.

Exploding rainbow prisms sprang from the mist, a sublime phenomenon created when the falls reached the rivers below. It was as sensational as it was exciting and awesome.

There was so much to take in, and I became conscious of various sounds, melodious, chattering and echoing. I looked up and could not take in the full splendour of the flocks of birds flying above me. They were absolutely stunning, with plumage so enthralling that taken as a whole, they created a gargantuan masterpiece of colour that no earthly artist could imitate. They ranged in size from tiny flocks of miniature birds like the Bee Hummingbird, the beautiful Blue Throat and the White-winged Crossbill, Wrens, Thrushes, Swallows and Skylarks to great flying birds – Eagles, Albatross, Falcons, Swans, Herons and Cormorants. I noticed Owls, Condors and Geese; so many varieties, some very tropical in colour such as parrots, toucans, and kingfishers. Still there were other species completely unknown to me whose plumage caused the known species to fade into insignificance; such were their elaborate colours and wingspans.

These too flew the skies in peace, gliding and soaring gracefully with wings outstretched, immense and bold but non-threatening and their collective flights were like watching the most astonishing sky-dance orchestrated and conducted by an invisible hand. This was all so mesmerising – where am I?

Welcome, Child, a voice so quiet and soothing spurred me out of the awe and wonderment of the moment and I turned to find an entity of sorts standing beside me. My name is Eöl and I am one of the two sentinels that guide the souls of Gomah. The other part of me is called Maeko.

I was a little puzzled as I could not see how I could hear this creature talking. It appeared to me that the words Eöl spoke, emulated from within my mind and not from the mouth of this entity. In fact, the entity did not possess a mouth!

Very tall and slender, the sentinel stood some nine feet tall and was draped in a garment of white translucent material that billowed and undulated gracefully about its form as it appeared to hover over the sandy beach. Although I could see its large hands, that incidentally had seven lengthy fingers and no thumb on either hand; I could not see feet as the garment fully enveloped its form. When it moved, it was as if it was floating on thin air. Its face was heart-shaped, radiant and pale as if it had no material substance to its makeup; spirit-like. It possessed great soulful eyes, crystal iris in colour and perfectly round in shape. They were framed with extremely long feathery silver eyelashes. Despite having no mouth, this sentinel was an extremely attractive entity. Its long willowy hair, matching the colour of its eyelashes was perfectly straight and fluttered about in the strangely atmospheric breeze. I had assumed the sentinel was male but in truth, I did not know. I felt no fear in Eöl’s presence, on the contrary, I could detect in this entity, a love that was so strong, it was almost tangible.

"Here, on Gomah, we communicate telepathically, and all creatures and souls communicate in this way with one another. You too, Child. Though you alone, as a visitor, can choose whether or not you wish to see the inhabitants of Gomah. Only you have this choice, because you are a guest of the Most Highly Esteemed. Your time here is at his behest, for as yet you have not transcended through the finality of earthly life. Whilst you have this privilege, the souls who reside in eternity here, cannot see or hear you. You will not be able