Ian McCormack Died, Saw Heaven & Returned
The Perfect Wave Film Is His Story
Exclusive Interview!

[Note: Part One featured an interview with Rachel Hendrix; Part Three will feature Cheryl Ladd on Tuesday, 9/16]

In 1982, off the island of Mauritius, surfer Ian McCormack was stung by five box jellyfish multiple times. The box jellyfish is one of the most deadly creatures in the world, and just one sting can kill a person in minutes. Ian quickly died after he was stung multiple times, despite being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Some time later, while his body was being stored in the morgue, he miraculously came back to life.

The event, amazingly enough, is indeed a true story. You can see videos here of family members and a nurse testifying that Ian has told the truth. A full, detailed account of his story — told by Ian himself — can be seen here.

Yet all of that is just the beginning of the story.

The incredible things that happened to Ian while he was dead — which included seeing Heaven and meeting Jesus face-to-face — and the fascinating worldwide surfing trek and love story that preceded his death, are the subjects of the new film The Perfect Wave, starring Scott Eastwood (Fury, son of Clint Eastwood), Rachel Hendrix (October Baby), and Cheryl Ladd (Charlie’s Angels). The film comes out on DVD this Tuesday on September 16, 2014. My full review of the film is here, and you can preorder or purchase it online at WalMart.com or learn more about the movie at its official site.

I had the wonderful joy of asking Ian about his miraculous experience via email interview:

You’ve had over 30 years now to reflect on your experience of dying, encountering Jesus in Heaven, and being raised to life by Him. You mentioned having childhood innocence restored in your heart just from being in the Presence of Christ. Has he also helped you maintain a childlike wonder in these past decades? Has he helped that experience stay fresh in your heart?

Yes, I have felt that [childlike wonder] each time I relive the experience — I go back there. It seems outside of time. Eternity steps into my world again. God has helped me by also taking me back into the heavenly realm to see more over the past 30 plus years. It is like Paul said in 2 Cor 12:2-5 — whether I was in my body or out of my body, God knows I was caught up into the third heaven.

When you saw Jesus in Heaven, your stunning descriptions matched Scripture perfectly even though you had never read those Scriptures at that time. And then after you were raised back to life and returned home, you read the Bible cover-to-cover in six weeks. Was it an intense hunger to know more about the One you had just met in person that drove you to read so quickly?

Yes, when the Lord told me to read the Bible I was amazed by what was in it. I had never read one before that day. Once I opened it and started reading I couldn’t put it down. I fell asleep with it in my hands only to awake and continue to read. Day and night. I didn’t even want to leave my room. My mother would bring food to me. It was life-changing. It is God’s words and all of it is true.

I imagine you must get so incredibly homesick for Heaven after seeing Jesus and the new heavens and the new earth. You even remarked that, while with Jesus, you had said, “I wish I had been born there,” referring to the new earth. How does God help you cope with having to be back in this fallen world when you’ve seen Paradise itself?