The Girl Who Saw Heaven: A Fateful Tornado and a Journey of Faith

by Lisa Reburn, Alex Tresniowski Narrated by Nancy Peterson, Stephanie Einstein

Overview

A remarkable true story of one child's journey into the afterlife after surviving a super tornado.

When Ari Hallmark was in kindergarten, her family was caught in a powerful tornado in their hometown of Arab, Alabama. On April 27, 2011, Ari and her parents, Shane and Jennifer Hallmark, were putting the finishing touches on their new home, which Shane had built from scratch. Shane's last-second decision to drive to his parent's house put the Hallmarks directly in the path of a devastating EF4 tornado.

Moments after the Hallmarks arrived at the home, the mile-wide tornado ripped the house off its foundation and flung it in the air. When Ari regained consciousness, she began sharing the extraordinary story of what happened to her during the tornado: she met her guardian angel and followed her family to heaven. The full story of what Ari went through-the six months of reoccurring dreams that foretold the tragedy, and the unexpected challenges she faced from the legal system after the storm-delivers a powerful message to the world: you will see your late loved ones again.

Ari Hallmark is now a high school senior determined to share her hopeful message with the world. The Girl Who Saw Heaven is a uniquely poignant addition to near-death experience and heavenly encounter classics. Ari's story will leave you with a different perspective of death and more hopeful of what lies beyond.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

An absolutely beautiful story. Ari’s near-death experience is a gift for all of the world, showing the connectedness we share with our loved ones beyond death. Highly recommended!”—EBEN ALEXANDER, MD, former Harvard neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven, The Map of Heaven, and Living in a Mindful Universe

“This unbelievable story will break your heart, enthrall you, and challenge your views of an afterlife, but in the end, Ari’s glorious shared death experience will inspire and affirm your faith. Read it and be transformed. Required reading for anyone who’s going to die!” —WILLIAM J. PETERS, author of At Heaven’s Door and founder of the Shared Crossing Project

“The Girl Who Saw Heaven is unique, inspiring, and healing. It’s a story for your heart and your soul that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. Ari has a spiritual assignment to share it with as many grieving adults and children as possible. Her story fills people with comfort, hope, and tears of joy! I’m one of only a few people who heard Ari’s account originally, and I’m delighted you’ll finally know it too. Please read it yourself and share it with others—they’ll thank you deeply for doing so.” —BILL GUGGENHEIM, coauthor of Hello from Heaven!

“A relatable yet eye-opening account for anyone coping with grief. Lisa Reburn’s carefully researched and beautifully written book thrusts the reader into a complicated yet compelling story. The Girl Who Saw Heaven highlights the power of relying on your faith and the Lord without feeling preachy or stiff and leaves you with hope and peace.” —CHRISTINE KILLIMAYER, WHNT news anchor and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary 10 Years After the Storm

Kirkus Reviews

2023-05-23
A spiritual memoir about a near-death experience that offered a young girl a glimpse of the afterlife.

Ari Hallmark was 6 years old when a tornado lifted the house where she and her family were sheltering and sent it spinning through the air. Ari survived, but her other family members did not. Ari emerged from this terrible ordeal with an incredible story, narrated by Reburn and Tresniowski. Ari remembers being ripped from her father’s arms and spun up by the tornado; then, she says, “I got to walk with my whole family up to Heaven.” Much of the imagery she describes sounds like a child’s vision of heaven, but the text struggles to communicate the ineffable—e.g., how angels fly, colors that don’t exist on Earth, a peaceful sense of perfect rightness. Ari believes that she was returned to this world to deliver a message: “You are going to see your loved ones again. Your time on earth with them is not your last time with them.” Ari’s first-person account of her experience takes up 13 pages. This is one of the only times we hear her voice, as most of the tale is related by Reburn, a retired educator who became close to Ari in the days after the storm. Much of what the authors write about seems superfluous. There’s backstory filled with details that clutter the narrative rather than illuminate it, and there is far too much repetition—including a chapter in which Ari describes her time in heaven once again. There is no doubt that some readers will be so inspired by Ari’s story that they will read the book in one sitting. Other readers will find that this could have been a long-form article rather than a 300-page book.

A balm for Christians but unlikely to move or inspire nonbelievers.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176890570
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	05/09/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Sixteen Days Out SIXTEEN DAYS OUT
April 11, 2011

Vestavia Hills, Alabama

It began, simply enough, as air.

Air caught between the higher atmospheric pressure near the earth’s surface and the lower pressure in the surrounding atmosphere, a tension of warring meteorological forces that spun the air into wind.

Winds that grew stronger over the tropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico and began whirling in a counterclockwise circle, propelling themselves out of the Gulf and toward the US coast, where electrical energy and booming shock waves transformed them into thunderstorms.

A long, sturdy, rolling line of thunderstorms, weak as they swept over Mississippi, but intensifying as they crossed the border into central Alabama late in the afternoon of April 11.

Thunderstorms that rumbled fourteen miles northeast into Vestavia Hills, a quiet Birmingham suburb, where, at 7:29 p.m. (central time), their peak winds were measured at 100 mph—powerful enough to earn them a new meteorological designation.

The storms were now a tornado.

A tornado that touched down somewhere behind the Vestavia Hills Police Department building on Montgomery Highway, and from there ripped through the playground and picnic table area in nearby Byrd Park, snapping or uprooting thirty towering pine trees, knocking over numerous large hardwoods on the grounds of the Vestavia Country Club, and dislodging drywall fasteners on a home next to the club, one of several houses damaged by the winds or falling trees.

And then—the tornado was over. It lasted one minute. It had a small impact area—one hundred yards wide by a half mile long. Its 100 mph winds made it an EF1 tornado, the second-least-dangerous type on the EF Scale, which rates tornadoes from zero to five based on wind strength and damage. The EF1 on April 11 did not, luckily, kill a single soul, and it was seen, for the most part, as a relatively minor weather event.

Only later would meteorologists look back on the tornado and see it as something else altogether—a harbinger of what was yet to come.

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