This story mentions drug overdoses. If you are struggling, please reach out to a crisis line in your country or someone you trust today.
Randy Draughon was 22 and just out of the Navy when he took about eight times more acid than he was supposed to. Sometime in the middle of that night, he says, his heart stopped.
His next moment of consciousness, he was standing in a pit in hell with flames over him. He knew where he was, and he knew what had brought him there. Before the terror took over, he felt regret, and he said out loud, “I’m too late.”
He meant too late to repent. That is not how the night ended.
In this interview, Randy, a Navy veteran from Texas who works in the furniture industry, tells Justin Gilpin how God protected him before he was born, showed him heaven at 14, pulled him out of hell at 22, and answered a whisper at 40. He says each time, it was all because of Jesus. What follows is his account.
Spared before he was born
Randy’s mother was about eight and a half months pregnant with him and sitting in a bar in Pasadena, Texas, with her mother, waiting for her stepfather to finish his shift as a security guard, when two men in the next booth started arguing. One fired at the other, missed, and shot her in the neck. The bullet passed about an inch from a major artery, and a Houston trauma hospital saved them both. Randy believes God was protecting him even then.
He grew up in Spring, Texas, in a home that was not religious, and his adoptive father abused him physically and mentally. In the 1970s, Sunday school buses picked up the neighborhood kids for church, and that became Randy’s escape, a little peace from the terror at home. At eight, he said a prayer and accepted Jesus as his Savior.
A glimpse of heaven at 14
At 14, Randy went with his grandmother and her second husband, Willie, a godly man, to a big non-denominational church, nothing like the little Southern Baptist church he grew up in. When a guest speaker gave an altar call, Randy went forward with Willie because he felt guilty and wanted to ask God for forgiveness.
He watched the speaker pray for people one by one, maybe 40 or 50 of them, he guesses, and each one fell back unconscious. When the speaker prayed for Willie in Jesus’ name, he fell back with such force that his thick glasses shot off behind him. Randy was last.
As soon as the man touched him, Randy says, he was standing in heaven, in the purest white light. “This light is alive and it’s pulsating and vibrating with this power beyond comprehension.” He knew God was on the other side and started walking through it, but before he got there, he was back in his body, lying paralyzed on the church floor, feeling warmth and love and complete joy.
Randy believes God gave him that glimpse because He knew what Randy would face later, and wanted him to know heaven is real.
The night his heart stopped
In his teens Randy started drifting away. He joined the Navy at 17, was sent to the Philippines, near Subic and Clark, and by 18 was living the wild life in the bars. He got out at 22 and went home wanting to experiment. A friend gave him acid and told him to take one and save the rest. Randy got impatient and took all of it.
In hell, he says, he could hear the deafening roar of the fire. Then he looked across the flames and saw a giant demon, and he knew in his spirit it was assigned to him. Their eyes locked, and he understood he was its prey. On the edge of going insane with fear, he screamed the name of Jesus.
Randy says the Lord heard him through all that roaring fire, and he was instantly back in his body. Randy told Justin the effects of the drugs were instantly gone.
For almost a week afterward, Randy says, God let him hear the roar of that fire again, so he would know he had really been there. He rededicated his life to the Lord and quit drugs right away. He told Justin, “I know 100% that when I was there in hell, if I didn’t have the knowledge to scream Jesus, I would still be there.”
A few years ago, he told this story to a man he worked with who had battled addiction for years. The man texted to thank Randy for opening his eyes, and three days later he overdosed and died. Randy hopes he cried out to Jesus in his last moments. That is why he shares his testimony.
A whisper at the foot of the bed
By 40, Randy had his life back together with the Lord. One night he was sleeping next to his wife, with their youngest daughter between them, when terrible nightmares woke him up. Standing at the foot of the bed was a very big, black demon. He could feel cold and death coming from it, and the room grew darker as it pulled the light into itself.
Randy was paralyzed with fear. He couldn’t move his legs, he could barely breathe, and he felt cold creeping up from his toes. He tried to scream Jesus like he did in hell, but his lips wouldn’t move. The second time, all that came out was a J sound. “The third time, with all my effort, it came out a whisper.” As soon as he said Jesus, he says, the thing vanished and the light came back into the room.
Justin asked if unconfessed sin was behind it, and Randy said no. He believes God allowed it so he could tell people that these things are real.
His mother’s last day
At 47, Randy’s mother had a massive stroke that left her right side paralyzed, and doctors also found cancer. Randy helped take care of her until she passed at 57. She watched church programs and said her prayers at night, so he assumed she was saved.
Near the end the cancer had taken almost everything from her, and Randy asked God to take her so she wouldn’t suffer. About a week before she died, his old boss Frank and Carol visited her in hospice. Frank asked if she was saved, and she told him she didn’t know. Frank led her in a sinner’s prayer, and she accepted Christ. Randy remembers thinking, “God, that’s why You didn’t answer my prayers.”
On her last day, Randy held her right hand while his aunt Teresa asked if she could see her angels yet. Not yet, she said. A little later Teresa asked again, and his mother’s eyes lit up. She said yes, she could see them, and started laughing as she described two big, muscular angels. Shortly after, she took her final breaths. Randy believes God let her hold on long enough to accept Christ, and that the angels carried her home.
Randy’s word to you
Justin asked what Randy would say to someone who feels far from God.
Randy says to take the Bible seriously. He believes Jesus came to die for us, but salvation is a gift each person has to choose, and Jesus will not force Himself on anyone. “You have everything to gain, nothing to lose by trusting in Jesus Christ.”
He pointed to the thief on the cross, who trusted Jesus at the last moment. As long as there is breath in our lungs, Randy says, there is time, but we’re not promised tomorrow.
Justin asked Randy to pray for anyone who needs a touch from God. He said a person can simply pray, “Lord Jesus, I need You in my life.” He says it is that easy. In that prayer he called himself nobody special, and said of everyone listening, “Time after time, You’ve helped me, and I know You love them just as much as You love me.”
If Jesus did it for Randy, He can do it for you.
Watch the full interview
Hear it in Randy’s own words. Press play at the top of this page to watch the whole conversation.