For thirty-five years, he searched for proof. Not through scripture or sanctuary, but through science—studying more than a thousand near-death experiences, looking for patterns in what people claimed to encounter on the other side.
What he found stopped him cold.
He came to Belóved Gallery as a researcher. He left as a witness.
Standing before Prince of Peace, this agnostic-turned-scholar said something stopped him that he hadn’t expected—not an argument, but a recognition. Across more than a thousand accounts of people who described being in the presence of Jesus, Akiane had captured something he had only heard in words. The love. The compassion. The unmistakable reality of a face both fully human and fully divine.
“I think people can come into this place and be surprised by experiencing an encounter with God.”
His story began at a bedside table—his father dying of cancer, a book about near-death experiences left there by a stranger. He read it in one night. That single encounter set the course of three decades of research, and ultimately led him here: to a painting created by an eight-year-old girl, in a gallery in the Texas Hill Country, that looked exactly like what a thousand people said they saw in Heaven.
At Belóved Gallery, we believe the Prince of Peace painting is more than art. It is a doorway. And sometimes, after a lifetime of searching, the most unlikely people find themselves walking through it.
Experience John Burke’s full story in the video above. Then come see the painting for yourself.
Visit Akiane: The Early Years, the only place in the world where to stand before these original works.
I was an agnostic I thought Jesus was probably just a legend and my dad was dying of cancer and someone gave him the very first research on near-death experiences and I saw the book by his bedside table and picked it up started thumbing through it and I read it in one night and I thought to myself wow this might be actual evidence that this God Jesus stuff is real these millions of near-death experiences they overlap and they are pointing to the god who’s revealed himself through scripture and so for the past 35 years I’ve studied well over a thousand of them seen the Prince of Peace I had seen it in books and other places but gosh it’s hard to express in words I think Akiana captured what I’ve heard so many times from near-death experiencers who’ve claimed to be in his presence and she did an amazing job of blending the love and the kindness and compassion with also the reality of his Humanity he experienced the evils of this world the sufferings of this world and yet he was from the light of heaven and and he was fully human and yet he was fully God I believe God is giving increased testimony of his reality and his goodness and so I think people can come into this place and be surprised by experiencing an encounter with God and the presence of God not that he’s in the artwork but he’s everywhere and he’s here with people as they come through this is a gift from God God has given her a gift to share with the world because I think it tells of the reality of the hope of heaven and we need hope. #iam_beloved belovedgallery.org
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