Beverly Brodsky had abandoned God at age eight and spent the next twelve years convinced that no divine being existed anywhere in the universe. She had her reasons for this conviction, and those reasons haunted her throughout her childhood and teenage years in Philadelphia. But lying in unbearable agony after being discharged from a hospital without pain medication, she found herself doing something she never expected. She called out to the God she had rejected.

What happened in the moments after that desperate prayer would shatter everything Beverly thought she understood about death, divinity, and the nature of existence itself. Her encounter with what she believes was God would reveal a being so different from biblical descriptions that she struggles to find adequate words even decades later. And her transformation from committed atheist to devout believer would become one of the most documented near-death experiences in modern history.

A Motorcycle Crash That Left Battlefield-Level Injuries

Beverly’s world changed forever in 1970 when she was just twenty years old and living in Los Angeles. A motorcycle accident near Sunset Boulevard left her with injuries so severe that doctors at UCLA Hospital told her they typically only encountered such trauma on actual battlefields. She had fractured her skull in the crash, and the right side of her face had been torn away from the impact.

Medical staff at UCLA treated her wounds for two weeks using salt-soaked bandages wrapped around her damaged flesh. Every day brought fresh agony as doctors worked to save what remained of her face and prevent infection from claiming her life. When the hospital finally discharged her, they sent her home without any pain relief medication to help manage her recovery.

Beverly felt utterly hopeless as she lay at home with her wounds still raw and her body screaming for relief that would not come. She had survived the accident only to face what seemed like endless suffering with no end in sight.

From Jewish Upbringing to Rejecting God Entirely

Growing up in a conservative Jewish family in a mostly Jewish neighborhood in Philadelphia had given Beverly a foundation of faith during her earliest years. But that foundation crumbled when she was just eight years old and learned about the Holocaust for the first time. How could a loving God exist and permit such horrors to happen to innocent people, including children no older than herself?

Beverly turned against any belief in the divine and embraced atheism in 1958, carrying anger toward the concept of God through her entire adolescence. She went through her teenage years without prayer, without faith, and without any expectation that death would lead to anything other than simple nonexistence. Her central question about how God could allow such suffering remained unanswered, and she assumed it would stay that way forever.

Floating Above Her Own Body as Pain Vanished

Lying in agony without medication, Beverly did something that surprised even herself when she cried out words she never imagined speaking. “God, if you’re out there, you can have me now because I’m finished,” she said in desperation. What followed defied everything she believed about the universe and her place within it.

All pain vanished from her body in an instant, and she found herself floating near the ceiling above her bed. Looking down, she could see her own unconscious physical form lying below while she hovered in some kind of ethereal state above it. A radiant being bathed in shimmering white light appeared beside her, and Beverly felt reverent awe wash over her entire being.

Love and gentleness emanated from this figure so powerfully that Beverly sensed she was in the presence of someone far greater than an ordinary angel or spirit. He took her hand gently, and together they flew right through the window without any wings to carry them.

A Journey Through Darkness Toward Brilliant Light

Below them stretched the beautiful Pacific Ocean as Beverly and her companion flew upward toward something she could barely comprehend. A large circular opening appeared above them, leading to a path that angled upward and to the right through what seemed like a deep passageway. White light poured through from the far end, spilling out into the surrounding darkness with brilliance beyond anything she had witnessed in her physical life.

Beverly traveled through this small, dark passageway for what felt like a long distance, though time seemed to have no meaning in this realm. She believed she was moving very fast, yet the journey felt both instant and eternal at the same time. When she finally emerged from the other end of the passageway, she realized that the being who had guided her there was no longer at her side. But she was not alone.

God Was Nothing Like the Bible Describes

Before Beverly stood what she would later describe as the living presence of the light itself. Within this light, she sensed an all-pervading intelligence alongside wisdom, compassion, love, and truth that seemed to encompass everything that ever was or could be. But what struck her most powerfully was how different this being appeared from anything she had read about or imagined.

“There was neither form nor sex to this perfect being,” Beverly would later explain when sharing her experience with author Kenneth Ring. She compared God to white light containing all the colors of a rainbow when passing through a prism, a pure essence rather than any humanoid figure sitting on a throne. Deep within herself came an instant recognition that she was facing God, despite this encounter bearing no resemblance to religious descriptions she had grown up hearing.

Her Mind Became Naked Before a Universal Intelligence

Beverly did not approach this divine presence with reverence or humility in those first moments of contact. Instead, she immediately challenged God with every question that had tormented her since childhood, including the injustices she had witnessed and the suffering of her people during the Holocaust. She discovered that God knows all thoughts immediately and responds through direct telepathic communication rather than spoken words.

Her mind felt completely exposed and naked before this Universal Mind that clothed itself in glorious living light. Beverly described becoming pure mind without any ethereal body, her personal intelligence confronting something vast beyond human comprehension. She received answers that made perfect sense in that realm, causing her to wonder how she could have ever forgotten truths that now seemed so obvious.

All Knowledge Bloomed Like Infinite Flowers at Once

Beverly received far more than simple answers to her individual questions during this extraordinary encounter with the divine. “I was given more than just the answers to my questions; all knowledge unfolded to me, like the instant blossoming of an infinite number of flowers all at once,” she explained when describing the overwhelming nature of what she received.

She learned that everything happens for a purpose and that purpose is already known to our eternal selves, even when we cannot perceive it from our limited physical perspective. While Beverly was filled with complete understanding in that divine realm, the specific insights did not travel back with her when she returned to her earthly existence. She retained the certainty that answers exist but lost access to many of the details that had seemed so clear moments before.

A Divine Tour of the Universe

God then treated Beverly to an extraordinary voyage through the entire cosmos that defied any experience possible in physical form. They traveled instantly to the center of stars being born and watched supernovas exploding with power beyond human imagination. She witnessed celestial events so magnificent that she has no adequate name or description for what she saw.

Space and time revealed themselves as illusions that hold human beings to their physical realm while obscuring the true nature of reality. Outside the physical world, Beverly perceived that all events exist simultaneously rather than unfolding in linear sequence. She described the universe as one grand object woven from the same fabric throughout, with every star and galaxy connected in ways that human science has barely begun to understand.

Her final external vision before everything faded was a glorious fire burning at the core and center of a marvelous star, which she interpreted as a symbol for the blessing that was about to transform her forever.

Returning to a Broken Body Filled With Bliss

Beverly returned to her broken physical body without knowing how or why the transition occurred. Despite coming back to a severely injured form that should have been screaming with pain, she brought the love and joy of her experience back with her. Ecstasy beyond her wildest dreams filled every part of her being, and she remained in this blissful state for two full months after her return.

All pain had vanished from her experience even though her physical injuries remained present and visible. She felt as if she had been made completely anew by what had happened to her during those timeless moments outside her body. Everything around her appeared alive and full of energy and intelligence, with wondrous meanings visible in the most ordinary objects and events.

From Atheist to Devout Believer

Beverly’s transformation from committed atheist to devout Christian happened not through gradual persuasion but through direct experience that she could not deny or explain away. She joined a church and has spent decades sharing her story with anyone who wants to understand what might lie beyond the boundary of physical death.

Author Kenneth Ring included her account in his book “Lessons From The Light” and described Beverly Brodsky’s testimony as “possibly the most moving in my entire collection.” Her story has reached audiences around the world through profiles in McCall’s magazine, a BBC documentary called “The Human Body,” and the first near-death experience interview ever broadcast on Israeli public radio. She ran groups associated with the International Association for Near-Death Studies for fifteen years in both Philadelphia and San Diego, helping others process similar experiences.

Why Her Experience Still Matters Decades Later

More than thirty-five years after her encounter with the divine, Beverly has never forgotten a single detail of what she experienced during those moments outside her physical body. Skeptics have questioned her account and suggested explanations ranging from hallucination to oxygen deprivation affecting her brain, but she has never wavered in her certainty about what happened.

Beverly considers her entire earthly life to be a passing fantasy compared to the permanent reality she glimpsed during her near-death experience. She believes the union she experienced with God cannot be broken and exists eternally, regardless of whether she is currently inhabiting a physical body or not. Her experience answered the question that had tormented her since childhood, showing her that suffering has purpose even when that purpose remains hidden from human understanding.

For Beverly Brodsky, sharing this mystery with others has become her greatest honor and the central purpose of her remaining years on Earth. She went into that motorcycle accident as an atheist convinced that God did not exist and emerged knowing that divine love permeates every corner of the universe, even the corners filled with what appears to be senseless suffering. And the God she met looked nothing like the bearded figure on a throne that religious art had taught her to expect, appearing instead as pure light containing all possibilities within its infinite brilliance.

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