The ‘Five People You Meet in Heaven’ by Mitch Albom has been on my ‘to-read’ list for some time. Someone mentioned the book to me recently as being one of their favorites; so, I decided to read it now. The story centers around Eddie, a wounded war veteran who has lived many years in the same town, working at the same job at an amusement park, going through the same daily motions. What he feels has been an ‘uninspired life’.
On his 83rd birthday Eddie is killed in a tragic accident while trying to save a little girl from falling off a ride at the park. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not just a destination but a place where your life is explained to you by five different people. Those five people could be someone important in your life to someone you randomly dealt with one-time or another. Each one takes Eddie back to a particular time in his life when they connected with each other; whether as a small child, a soldier, or an old man. The trip back in time reveals mysteries within his so called ‘meaningless’ life and tries to answer the question of “Why am I here on Earth”?
The author brings you right into the story with beautifully written characters. He includes words of wisdom throughout the story and reminds us that God has a purpose for each of us. That purpose may be something major such as leading a group of soldiers through tragic wars or as simple as the clerk bagging groceries at the local grocery store. Every one of us has a reason to be here, we just need to live life to find it.
