LuAnn VanBuskirk, 61, has spoken out about the near-death experience she says transformed her life decades ago.
The Michigan woman was just 18 when she was struck by a truck while riding her bike, an accident she now describes as the moment everything changed. VanBuskirk, who believed she had the right of way at a four-way turn, told God Encounters host Janie DuVall in a YouTube interview that the impact sent her flying to the ground before things turned “strange.”
She found herself hovering above the accident scene, looking down at her own body below.
What followed, she claimed, was a terrifying supernatural encounter. VanBuskirk said she felt “gnarly” fingers wrap around her arm and pull her toward a city shrouded in yellow fog. She could not resist the force dragging her, but something above took notice.
Suddenly, thunder cracked and a sound unlike anything she had ever heard began to speak. She understood it was God.
VanBuskirk said she had spent years mocking the word of God, and he was not pleased. In the interview, she recalled him questioning her loyalty and showing her where she would end up if she did not accept him into her life. She resisted at first. Then came the warning that broke through: “My word says.”
The thunderous voice confronted her with her past choices. VanBuskirk said she gained clarity about her drinking and marijuana use, realizing she was “going to hell based on my own free will choices.” She tried to defend herself, telling God she knew Jesus.
The response, she claimed, came with the same cracked, thunderous sound that “shook” her “like a dead man twice.”
“This sound said, ‘Even the very demons believe in Jesus. How do you say you do better?'”
VanBuskirk called it the “moment of truth that I could not argue,” She said God walked her through her sins one by one, offering her chances to accept him, only to turn his back on her each time she refused. The breaking point came when she was thrown into what she described as “spiritual” pain inside her physical body.
Before the crash, VanBuskirk admitted she had wondered, “if God is real why would he let this happen to me?” The experience gave her a different answer than she expected.
Afterward, she said she began receiving signs. She met a born-again Christian named John, whom she believed was John the Baptist from the Bible. She also encountered a nun she thought was Mary.
The experience set her on a new path. VanBuskirk said she eventually connected with her paternal family after running away from home, finding a Christian uncle and his wife who took her in. When she heard the gospel from them, she felt there was a “string” pulling her toward God from that point forward.