TB: There’s nothing that hasn’t changed. If anything, we have moments where we try to be normal as a family, we do our work, I’m still doing my job, my wife still works with children, but there are moments where you just have to stop. You write, you stop, you speak, you stop, you go home and we try to be mom and dad just like any other family. My youngest son last week had surgery, he broke his arm in football and now we’re helping to nurse him and we’re praying for God to heal that arm.

In some ways, I went from being unknown by most people — you don’t live in a town of 2,000 people and preach there for 20 years if you’re seeking attention — and so, “Heaven is for Real” thrust us into a spotlight we never anticipated. We knew God wanted us to write the book, but we never saw the success of the book coming, that surprised us. Yet at the same time, we said, “God, this is your plan, and we’re going to make the best of it.” But, we really fight for our normal time. My wife, she’s the keeper of the calendar, and her nickname is Mama Bear. She tries to protect the family time and does a great job at it. So, most people when they need us would never guess we’re different, because we’re really not.

TB: We always will have skeptics, there’s no way to get around that. Colton’s response is the best: I remember when he was 12, he was asked by someone who was interviewing him about Stephen Hawking’s book “There is No Heaven.” This person on a major news channel said, “Colton, what do you have to say about that? He doesn’t agree with you.” Here’s my 12-year-old talking about a well-known scientist. He said, “He can believe what he wants to, but it doesn’t’ change what I saw. I know what I saw.” And that’s where we stand. People have their right to make their own decision, God gave us all that right. But we know what we saw and heard and our experience.

Praise God; we never thought our story would help and encourage so many people, but God has given us the chance to do that, and and as long as He keeps giving us the chance to keep encouraging people and point them to Him, we’re just going to keep right down that road. He sent my son back to me from Heaven, He talked to me about my daughter in Heaven (we had a miscarriage) and that kind of hope — it just isn’t right to keep it to yourself, you have to share it with other people. And as long as we get to do that, we’re grateful.