I recently viewed an episode of Twilight Zone entitled The Purple Testament. In all the decades of watching reruns, I had not seen this particular show, about a World War II platoon leader, who saw a glow, in the faces of his comrades, shortly before they died.
Each time he looked at a soldier, whose face became illuminated, that man would soon be dead. The last face he saw glowing in front of him, was his own, in a mirror. And he was later killed in battle. This art, is obviously imitating life, because there are individuals, myself included who have seen the glow of death.
A former Palliative Care employee often saw a glow on cancer patients faces before they passed way. A woman who wrote to Guldepost Magazine said her mother told her that her father emitted a glow just hours before he died, in a fall from the roof.
One Sunday in 1997, my then pastor shared how he had been visiting his grandmother in the hospital, just before she passed away. He said he had no idea she was about to die. And all he remembered is seeing a glow on her face.
A few months after telling this story, we were closing out Wednesday noon day prayer. As I looked around at the people gathered, I saw a glow on the face of one of the senior Deaconess. It was the same way Patrick Swayze was illuminated in the movie Ghost, and how the angels on Touched by an Angel often appeared.
I recalled my pastor’s story, and raised my hand to alert him, but he caught it on his own. As he looked at the Deaconess, a frown came upon his face, and he asked, “Do you all see that, she’s glowing just like my grandmother!” He rebuked the spirit of death, and spoke long life over the Deaconess. That elderly woman is still living today, over 16 years later.
On the first Saturday in October 2003, we were having a church meeting, when my pastor’s mother entered the sanctuary. She walked to the front, and she and her son embraced. When they turned around to face us, I was startled. There was a glow all over her, and I had a sad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Three weeks later she suddenly died of a heart attack.
The following August, my pastor was preaching about King Saul, being fired by God but still on his throne as king. He told the church leaders, that some of them had been fired by God, and there were people in the audience waiting to take their positions, the same way David took over Saul’s kingdom.
I looked around the church at various leaders, wondering who was about to be fired. And when I looked back up at my pastor, I got my answer. That glow, that he himself said represented death was now on his face. And it startled me.
The glow he had seen on his grandmother, that we both saw on the Deaconess, and I had also seen on his mother, I was now seeing on my spiritual leader. As my husband and I drove home I shared it all with him, and told him to prepare himself because God was going to take our pastor away from us. 2 1/2 months later, our pastor dropped dead in church.
I have a cousin, who says she has accurately seen death on the faces of numerous people just before they passed away. And there are other testimonies of individuals who see a golden glow around those close to death.
Rod Serling’s daughter Ann, has written a book, As I knew him, my dad Rod Serling. In it she says that her father suffered nightmares after World War II. She does not however indicate if he knew an soldiers, or if he himself had the gift that is written into The purple testimony. I can’t help but wonder.