Divine Encounters Episode 094 | Near-Death Experience Story
Elizabeth Krohn was 28, married eight years, and home with two small boys when, she says, lightning struck her umbrella in a synagogue parking lot and she found herself hovering in the lobby while her body lay outside. In this Divine Encounters episode she tells Alex Ferrari what she says happened next: a garden with colors that do not exist on Earth, a voice she believes was God speaking through her grandfather, and a conversation that lasted what felt like two weeks. The episode explores time, choice and the children we may choose before we are born.
Key Takeaways
- Elizabeth says she was 28 and walking two small sons into a synagogue in a storm when lightning struck the umbrella she was holding.
- She describes finding herself in the lobby, unnoticed, hovering six inches off the floor, then seeing herself in the parking lot.
- She says she realized “I can’t get up, I’m dead,” and followed a living light to a garden.
- She describes a voice that was first her late grandfather, and that she believes was God using his voice so she would not be frightened.
- She says they talked on a bench for what felt like two weeks, and that she learned time is not linear.
- She says she was shown a choice: stay beyond the mountains, or return to a painful recovery and a changed life.
- She says she chose to return when she was told a third child, a daughter, had already selected her as mother.
| Guest | Elizabeth Krohn |
| Episode | Divine Encounters 094 |
| Age at the time | 28 |
| What Elizabeth says happened | Lightning struck her umbrella outside a synagogue |
| Where she says she went | A garden with a stream, flowers and an ornate bench, and a path to a mountain range |
| Who she met | A voice she first took for her late grandfather and believes was God |
| The message | Time is not linear; we choose our families before birth |
| Time away | About two weeks, in her experience |
A Life Full of Good Things
Alex asks his first question, and Elizabeth answers with a snapshot. She was 28, married for eight years, with two young children, a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Her husband’s career was taking off. She had finished college and gone to law school but was home with the boys. Things, she says, were going great.
It was the first anniversary of her grandfather’s death in the Jewish faith, a day when the name of a loved one is read at synagogue. Her whole family would be there. Her husband was away on a business trip, so she planned to take the boys herself.
A Photograph and a Different Look in the Eyes
She got herself and the boys cleaned up and dressed. They looked so good, she says, that she took a picture of the three of them before they left the house. When she looks at that photograph now, she sees a totally different person. There was a look in her eyes that does not exist in her anymore. People close to her have said the same thing: you don’t even look like yourself.
The Black Cloud in the Parking Lot
It was a sunny day when they drove to the synagogue. As they turned into the lot, Elizabeth says, a black rain cloud seemed to sit right above the car, and rain came down in sheets. She parked and they waited a couple of minutes, but she worried they would miss her grandfather’s name being read, which was the whole reason they were there.
She told her four-year-old to run to the awning and wait, and he did. She climbed over the seat to lift her two-year-old from his car seat, grabbed her umbrella, which she calls a big mistake, and stepped out into the storm. She could not carry him, the umbrella and her purse, so she put him down and held his hand with her right hand. The shaft of the umbrella was held close to her head, with her wedding ring touching the metal.
Lightning
Then came thunder and lightning. She remembers thinking she should not be carrying an umbrella and telling herself to just let go. A witness told her later what happened. A large bolt of lightning had a tiny tine coming off it, and that tine touched the metal tip of the umbrella. It hurt, she says, but it did not knock her out. It did paralyze her arm and froze her hand around the shaft.
Then a larger bolt hit the top of the umbrella, and that, she says, was the sledgehammer. She says the lightning burst both her eardrums and her little boy’s, and he let go of her hand and clamped his hands over his ears, screaming. Her four-year-old, Jeremy, saw it all. He ran back out toward them, took his brother’s hand and pulled him to the building.
In the Lobby, Unseen
Elizabeth followed the boys into the lobby. Services had begun. A man who knew them came to see why the boys were screaming, and Elizabeth thought, this is strange; why is he ignoring me? I’m here. She wondered where her umbrella was, and looked out a narrow glass window in the door.
She could see it, burning or smoking, nothing left but the metal skeleton. Her gaze moved to the right, and about twenty feet away she saw herself lying in the parking lot. She could not wrap her head around it. She noticed that the soles of her brand new, expensive shoes were gone, her feet sticking out. That upset her. Then she looked down at her feet in the lobby, and the shoes were fine. She was not even wet. The only problem, she says, was that she was hovering about six inches above the floor.
“We Need a Doctor”
The man ran into the service, and from the back of the room called for a doctor. The synagogue was about half a block from the Texas Medical Center, Elizabeth says, and about forty men stood up. She says she somehow saw that happen. She decided the boys would be fine because her parents were there, and she wanted to see what was happening outside.
The moment she thought it, she was out there, above her body, looking down at herself and willing herself to get up. You’re ruining your clothes. What are you doing? And then, she says, it dawned on her: “I can’t get up, I’m dead.” Her next thought was that she had wasted 28 years. She had not learned anything, and here she was, dead and yet conscious.
The Light and the Garden
A light appeared to her right and a little above her. It felt alive, she says, as if it wanted her to follow it. She figured she had nothing to lose. The light led her to a place she calls the garden, which was not like any garden on Earth. The colors were from a spectrum that does not exist here. There were flowers, a stream, and a very ornate bench that looked hand carved from glossy wood. If you would like to read how others describe such places, see our complete guide to near-death experiences.
In the garden she felt overwhelming, unconditional love. She thought she knew what that was, since she loved her children unconditionally. But this was a different level entirely. There are no words, she says, for the depth and breadth of it. It was overwhelming in a good way.
A Voice on the Bench
A voice told her to sit on the bench. It was her grandfather, who had died a year earlier, and she says that when your late grandfather tells you to sit down, you sit. He sat down beside her and told her they would have a conversation, that he would put the information into her head, and that she would not hear his voice anymore.
Now she says she does not think it was her grandfather. “I do believe it was God talking to me.” She believes he used her grandfather’s voice so she would not be terrified. She never turned to look at him. She was afraid to, which she finds strange, since she knew he was right next to her.
Two Weeks on a Bench, and Time That Is Not Linear
She and her companion, whom she believes was God, sat on that bench and talked for two weeks. One of the things she learned is that “Time is far from linear.” She calls it something like a calendar, because it kept track of time. People ask why, if time is not linear, it had to be kept at all. She says the calendar was three orbs in the sky, and she simply understood that the way they moved in relation to each other marked the passage of time.
She calls it a download. All the information arrived instantly. Suddenly, she says, she understood physics. While she was there, all of the answers were there. A lot of the conversation was about her family, her husband, her kids and her parents, personal and, she says, mundane to anyone else.
A Choice: Beyond the Mountains or Back
She was told she could stay if she chose. There was a path through the garden leading to a mountain range off to her right, and the light she had followed had moved behind the mountains, so they were backlit. If she decided to stay, she would go beyond the mountains, and that is permanent, until you decide to come back into a different life. If she decided to return, that was fine, too.
He would help with the decision, she says, by telling her some things about her life if she came back. It would be physically very painful. She had burns from the lightning all over her, especially the bottoms of her feet. And it would be difficult to get into her body, because “my soul had expanded, and it was much larger than my body.” She would have to be squeezed very tight.
Hard News About Her Marriage
She was also told that she would end up divorced if she came back. She says you do not argue with God, and she still tried. They had been married eight years and were happy. She did not see how it could happen. She was told that if she returned, she would not be the same person she was when she left.
She says she answered that if there was going to be a divorce, she would need to be the one to raise her kids. So she had better go back and finish that job.
A Daughter Who Had Already Chosen Her
He told her that it was not just two children. She would have a third, a girl, and “she’s already selected you to be her mother.” Elizabeth says that if anyone had told her before this that reincarnation was real and that you pick your parents before you are born, she would have said they were full of it. She says it is true, and that it was a tough lesson. She decided to go back, curious to meet someone who would pick her as a mother.
For a short overview of this idea of memory from before birth, see our glossary entry on pre-birth memory.
What She Learned About God
At the end of the two weeks, she says, she was told that God is the pinnacle, the apex, “the spirit that runs through all of us.” God is the unifier, she says, who brings together all of humanity and beyond.
Many people who describe near-death experiences mention a light that seems alive, deep love, a conversation with a presence and a decision about returning. Elizabeth’s account has all of those, plus a sense that time itself behaves differently. The glossary entry on near-death experience offers a short overview of the common themes.
Questions to Sit With
- Elizabeth says the look in her eyes changed after that day. What would a photo of you five years from now reveal?
- She was told she would be different if she returned. What in your life changed you in a way you could not take back?
- She says her third child had already chosen her. How does it feel to imagine that your family was chosen with love?
This week, take a photo of yourself and then write one sentence about what you hope your eyes will say next year.
Spiritual Takeaways
- Elizabeth says unconditional love can be on a level we have no words for.
- She says time is not linear.
- She says a person is told information in a download, all at once.
- She says we choose our families before we are born.
- She says God is the spirit that runs through all of us, the unifier.
Please enjoy my conversation with Elizabeth Krohn.
Guest Links: Connect With Elizabeth Krohn
- Elizabeth Krohn’s official site
- Eyewitness to the Afterlife by Elizabeth Krohn on Amazon
- Full NDE story with Elizabeth Krohn
Listen to the Episode
- Watch this episode ad-free on Next Level Soul TV
- Download the MP3
- More episodes: Divine Encounters
- Listen to Divine Encounters on Apple Podcasts
- Listen to Divine Encounters on Spotify
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Elizabeth Krohn?
Elizabeth Krohn is a near-death experiencer who was 28 and a mother of two small boys when, she says, lightning struck her umbrella outside a synagogue. She tells her story to Alex Ferrari on Divine Encounters.
What happened to Elizabeth Krohn?
She says she was walking her two-year-old toward the synagogue in a torrential storm, holding an umbrella, when lightning struck. She says she found herself in the lobby, hovering, and then saw her body in the parking lot.
What did Elizabeth see when she died?
She says she saw her body from above, followed a living light to a garden with colors that do not exist on Earth, and sat on an ornate bench.
Who spoke to Elizabeth in the garden?
She says it was first her grandfather’s voice, but that she believes it was God using his voice so she would not be frightened.
How long was Elizabeth in the garden?
She says they talked for what felt like two weeks, though she learned that time is far from linear.
What was the calendar of three orbs?
She describes three orbs in the sky whose movements relative to each other marked the passage of time, which she understood instantly as part of a download.
What choice was Elizabeth given?
She says she could go beyond the mountains and stay, which would be permanent until she chose another life, or go back to a painful recovery.
Why did she return?
She says she was told she would have a third child, a daughter, who had already chosen her as mother, and she wanted to raise her children.
What did she learn about God?
She says God is the apex and the spirit that runs through all of us, the unifier of all humanity and beyond.
Is Elizabeth’s story proof of an afterlife?
Next Level Soul shares near-death experiences as personal accounts in the guest’s own words. Researchers continue to study and debate them, and nothing here is medical advice or a medical claim.
Keep Exploring
- The complete guide to near-death experiences
- A short entry on pre-birth memory
- What a near-death experience is
- Dannion Brinkley on being struck by lightning and meeting God
- Sharon Milliman describes a heavenly tour after a lightning strike
- Jane Thompson on why we come to Earth to be human
- Amber Cavanagh on timeline versions of herself
- Julie Papievis on meeting God after a crash
- Browse more free masterclasses and the Divine Encounters podcast.
Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.
Elizabeth Krohn 0:08
I was 28 years old, and I was married, and I had two young children, and my husband's career was really taking off. I had finished college and had gone to law school, but I was not working at the time because I had a four year old and a two year old, and I was staying home with them, and things were going great. My husband and I had been married at that point for eight years, so it was the first anniversary of the death of my grandfather in the Jewish faith, on the anniversary each year, the anniversary of the death of a loved one, they will read their name services in synagogue. So I decided I was going to go to hear my grandfather's name read. My entire family was going to be there. My parents and my sisters and my husband was actually out of town on a business trip, and so I decided to take my two little boys and go to services. And so I got myself and the boys all cleaned up and dressed up. And in fact, we looked so good. I took a picture of the three of us right before we left the house. And when I look at that photo, now, I see a totally different person. I mean, there was a look in my eyes that does not exist in me. Now, it's so strange. And people that I'm very close to have said the same thing, like, you don't even look like yourself. Anyway, I got the boys in the car, we drove to the synagogue, and it was a sunny day, and we turned into the parking lot, and suddenly there was this black rain cloud, and it felt like it was right up for my car, and rain just started coming down in sheets. I mean, it was torrential, this rain storm. And I parked the car, and we sat there for a couple of minutes, and I thought, you know, if we sit here, we're going to miss his name being read, which is the whole reason we're here. And I didn't like going to services anyway, so let's just go in and get it over with. And so I told my four year old to get out of the car and run to the door to the awning and wait there for us, and he did, and I watched him, and he got there, and then I climbed over the seat of the car to get my two year old out of his car seat, and I got him out, and I grabbed my umbrella, big mistake, and opened the car door, and we stepped out into this horrible storm, and I realized I couldn't carry my two year old. I couldn't carry him and handle the umbrella and handle my purse, and it was just a lot, and I figured I was going to put him down and hold his hand and hold the umbrella. I was holding his hand with my right hand. I had the shaft of the umbrella like all the way up the umbrella, and had it down real close to my head, so my wedding ring was touching the metal shaft of the umbrella, and we started walking. And being two, he didn't have real long legs, so we were taking short steps, and suddenly there was lightning and thunder, and I glanced at my hand holding the umbrella. I shouldn't be carrying an umbrella. There's lightning. And before I was like telling myself, just let go. Just let go. You'll get wet. That's not the end of the world. Just let go. And before I could let go of the umbrella, this was told to me later by someone that witnessed it, there was a large bolt of lightning with this tiny, tiny little tine coming off, and it was that tiny little tine that touched the tip, the metal tip of the umbrella, and that didn't knock me out. It hurt, but it didn't knock me out. And but what it did do was like paralyzed my arm. I couldn't move my arm. I couldn't open my hand. My hand was now frozen around the shaft of the umbrella, and then a larger bolt hit the top of the umbrella, and that did it. That was the sledgehammer. And he started screaming. I didn't realize what had happened. It did burst his eardrums, and it burst my eardrums, but he was he was in a lot of pain, and he had let go of my hand, I guess, and had clamped both of his hands over his ears, and was screaming. And Jeremy, my four year old, had witnessed the whole thing, and Kate started running back out toward us. And I was thinking, What is he doing? I told him to stay by the door, and he got to us, and he grabbed his brother's hand and started pulling him toward the building. And I thought, well, that's weird. They were both screaming at that point, and so I followed them to the building, and we got inside the lobby, and. And services had already begun, and there was a man walking through the lobby, I guess he had come from the restroom or something, and it was someone that knew us, and we knew him, and he came over to us to see why the boys were screaming. They were just screaming. And he came over and he was talking to the boys, and I thought, This is so strange. Why is he ignoring me? I'm here. Why is he talking to them? And my next thought was, where's my umbrella? I knew I had had an umbrella, and I didn't see it anywhere in the lobby. And I'm thinking, What is going on here? And I looked out the the door in the lobby there have a narrow glass window, and I looked out the window and I saw my umbrella, and it was like on fire or smoking, and it was just the metal skeleton of an umbrella, and smoke was coming off it. And I my gaze kind of shifted to the right, and about 20 feet away from the umbrella, I saw myself in the parking lot from the lobby of the building. I could not wrap my head around what was going on. It was too strange. And I noticed that my feet out there in the parking lot, that the soles of my shoes were gone, and my feet were like sticking out the bottom of my shoes, and I got really upset because they were brand new shoes, they were expensive. And I thought, oh my god, what? What is happening? So I looked down at my feet there in the lobby, and my shoes were fine. They were perfect. I wasn't even wet. Everything was great. The only problem was I was hovering about six inches off the floor, and at this point, the man that had been talking to the boys had run into services that were going on, and from the back of the room, he said, We need a doctor. And this being a Jewish synagogue, and about half a block from the Texas Medical Center, about 40 men got up toward the back of the room, and so I figured, and I saw that, it's like somehow I had seen that happen. And I decided, okay, the boys are going to be fine, because my parents are here, and they'll take care of them. I need to go back outside and see what's going on out there. And as soon as I thought it, I was out there, over my body, looking down at myself, and I'm willing myself to get up. You know, just get up. You're ruining your clothes. What are you doing? And then it just dawned on me, I can't get up, I'm dead. And my next thought was, You're so stupid. You wasted 28 years. You didn't learn anything, because here you are dead yet conscious. And a light appeared to my right and kind of above me, and this light, it felt like it was alive, like it was a living thing, and it wanted me to follow it. And so I thought I got nothing to lose here. I'll follow it. And this light led me to a place that I call the garden. The garden was not like any garden here on Earth. The colors were very different, like they're not colors that exist here. They must be from another spectrum, or, I don't know, but they don't exist here. There were flowers and a stream and a bench, and it was a very ornate bench. It looked like it had been hand carved out of some Glossy wood. I don't know it was very ornate. Once I was in this garden, I had this overwhelming feeling of unconditional love. It was overpowering, and when I say unconditional I thought I knew what unconditional love was. I had children. I loved them unconditionally. But this was whole different level. This was something completely different. There just aren't words to describe the depth of it, the breadth of it, the whole thing, it was overwhelming in a good way. Then a voice told me to sit down on the bench. The voice was my grandfather, who had died a year earlier, and when your dead grandfather tells you to sit down, you sit so I sat down on the bench, and he sat down next to me, and he told me that he was just going to we were going to have a conversation, and that he was just going to put the information into my head. I wouldn't hear his voice anymore. I don't think it was my grandfather. I do believe it was God talking to me. I believe that he was using my grandfather's voice so I wouldn't be terrified. I never did turn and look at him. I. Was afraid to look at him, which is strange. I mean, I know he was sitting right next to me, yet I never turned and looked and so we proceeded. So my companion, who I believe, was God, and I sat on that bench for two weeks, and we had a conversation for two weeks, one of the things I learned there was that time is not linear. Time is far from linear. I don't want to say it was a calendar, but it was kind of like a calendar, because it was keeping track of time. And people ask me a lot, well, why did you need to keep track of time, if it isn't even linear. What difference did it make? So this calendar was actually three orbs in the sky. I don't know if they were planets or what they were, but there were three of them, and I knew, I just understood, that the way they were moving in relation to each other. Was marking the passage of time, and it was, I say, it's a download. It was like all of this information was just instantaneously downloaded. Suddenly I understood physics. But while I was there, everything was all of the answers were there. And so we had this extensive conversation for two weeks. A lot of it was about my family and just personal stuff about me, my husband, our kids, my parents, just stuff that would be mundane to anyone else. Well, I was told that I could stay there if I chose to, and if I chose to stay, I would follow this path. There was like a path through the garden, and it led to a mountain range that was off to the right, and that light that I had followed to the garden had moved behind the mountain range, so the mountains were backlit by this light. And I was told, if I decided to stay, I would go beyond the mountains, and that's permanent, until you decide to come back into a different life. And if I decided to go back into this life, that was fine, too. He said he was going to help me make the decision by giving me information about certain things about my life if I chose to come back, he told me that it would be physically very painful, because I had burns from the lightning all over me, especially the bottom of my feet, and also that it would be very difficult, from a pain standpoint, to get back into my body, because when I left my body, my soul had expanded, and it was much larger than my body at that point. So he said he was going to have to squeeze me very tight and to get me back into my body. And he told me things about my marriage that I would end up getting divorced if I decided to come back, and you don't argue with God, not not advisable. But I didn't understand why he was saying that. Because we had been married for eight years at that point, and we were happy. I mean, I just I didn't see this happening. And I said, No, no, I don't think that would happen. And he said that that would happen. And he said, because look, if you go back, you're not going to be the same person you were when you left. And I said, Well, if there's going to be a divorce, possibly I need to be the one to raise my kids. I don't want him raising the kids, so I guess I better go back and finish that job. He said, Well, it's not just two kids. You're going to have a third one, and that one will be a girl, and she's already selected you to be her mother. And again, if anyone had told me that reincarnation was a thing, and you pick your parents and you make all these decisions before you even come into this life, I would have said, you're full of it. No way that is not true. And yet it is true. And so that was that was a tough lesson for me, but I figured, you know, if someone has already decided they want me to be their mother, then I'm going to go back. I want to meet this person. I you know, who would pick me to be their mother? And at the end of a couple of weeks, he said, Okay, God is the pinnacle, the apex, the spirit that runs through all of us. He's the unifier. He's what brings it all together, all of humanity and beyond humanity.
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