Shortly preceding Baxter’s scheduled family vacation, she was called to a meeting with her supervisor and a member of human resources. In the meeting Baxter was told by her supervisor that she was being terminated ten weeks later. Although she was “given the rest of the week off,” her supervisor asked her to refrain from taking her vacation. She was given 21 days to consider the termination agreement, and she was to continue reporting to work. All while these facts were being communicated to her, Baxter remembers sitting stunned, experiencing the conversation as occurring in slow motion while she observed calmly from outside her body, above and behind herself. The “outside of body” experience continued as she drove home, singing praise and thanksgiving to God. Though a devout and deeply spiritual woman, Baxter remembers thinking while singing, “Why am I doing this? This is very strange.”

A clinical psychologist advised her to journal, and her earliest entries reflect her disbelief, chronic inability to sleep, waking in “terrified sweats,” and being “strangely at peace” despite her concerns for health insurance and making car payments (Baxter’s personal journal). A web designer, Baxter developed a personal web page entitled “My New Life” in which one of the first entries is Psalm 25, in which the first verse is:

To you, O lord, I lift up my soul;
in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
No one whose hope is in you
Will ever be put to shame,
But they will be put to shame
who are treacherous without excuse.