Heaven is for Real Review

Rotten Tomatoes: 50%

Opening: Today!

Rated: PG
Sexual Content: 2/10
Profanity: 1/10
Violence: 2/10 (medical situations)
Drugs/Alcohol: 0/10

IMDb: A small-town father must find the courage and conviction to share his son's extraordinary, life-changing experience with the world.

Heaven is for Real is based on a book written about actual events that took place in a small Nebraska town.  The book was published in 2010 and was a New York bestseller.  It was written by Todd Burpo (The little boy's father) and Lynn Vincent.  The book tells how the boy began saying he had visited heaven.

Have you ever been afraid?  I recall instances when I was young and finding myself in the dead of night, scared hoping for something to soothe my nerves.  I've grown out of that kind of thing now, but as an adult I have experienced different kinds of fears.  My thoughts turn to times of great need, when life seemed to be out of my control and there was intense uncertainty of my future.  Right now my life seems to be a little more balanced. I look back at those times of uncertainty and fear, and I almost feel like much of the fear that I was experiencing was unnecessary.  As long as I take a stand and march through those storms, I eventually make it through, and everything turns out okay.  At least it has so far.

I think faith is a wonderful thing, but it takes work to obtain.  As a child, I was afraid at night because of some unforeseen thing and it just seemed like morning would never come.  The hours slowly passed and eventually I would see the first rays of sunshine and know that everything was okay.  These were faith building moments.  I came to know that although it might seem that the sun would never rise, it always did, and I could trust that. 

Heaven is for Real is about the trials of developing faith in Christ.  A father asks his son if he will be afraid, and his son replies, "as long as I am with you, I wont be afraid".  The little boy already had faith in his father.  Later in the movie, after his near death experience, the boy will help his father through those trials of developing faith in Jesus Christ.  He tells his dad, "we don't ever have to be afraid".  Why? Perhaps through his near death experience he realized that heaven is like waiting for the sun to rise in the dead of night.  Whether you are afraid or not, Heaven is there so why be afraid?  It was interesting to see what trials the father had to go through to cement his faith in Christ.

I give this one a 6/10