What would you do if you were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to receive a phone call from a loved one who had passed away perhaps six months to over two years’ ago? Would your reaction be one of excitement, fear, acceptance, or denial? Would you keep it to yourself or tell others?
In “The First Phone Call From Heaven” by Mitch Albom, a small town in Michigan is given such an opportunity when one of its residents receives a phone call from her dead sister. Several calls follow but always on a Friday. A “few chosen” individuals also begin receiving phone calls as well from their loved ones. A minister’s faith will be tested after one of his congregants tells about her experience during a Sunday morning service. Some of the individuals in attendance that morning will become “new believers”; while others will choose to deny and react by protesting the events that begin happening in their small town, calling it a well thought-out, executed hoax. As news travels about the phone calls, hundreds flock to the town where they begin purchasing all of the cell phones in the electronics store to see if they will begin receiving calls as well.
With extensive dialog between the residents and flashbacks into the past of one non-believing man, the author weaves this superb, faith-inspiring story. Through a series of events in the lives of just a few chosen people, and of one man’s struggle to disprove both the existence of the phone calls and of heaven itself, lives are and will be changed forever.
The equally surprising and uplifting conclusion will leave you examining your own heart and challenging your own beliefs. This book is definitely a must-read for 2014.
Happy reading,
Yvonne