Think on These Things
​
One of the hardest things about losing a loved one is the constant "what ifs." What if I had been there? What if we had noticed something wasn't right? What if we had been better parents? What if, what if, what if?


Then there's the "whys."


God, why did You allow this to happen? Why did she have to die? Why couldn't You have stepped in and stopped it? Why do I have to live the rest of my life in total pain and misery, longing for my daughter? Why didn't You love us enough to protect us from such trauma and loss?


Then the begging begins.


"God, please let me know she's okay. Please let me know she is with You. Please give me a dream or a vision and let me have just a glimpse of her in heaven with You. Then I know I would have peace."


The problem with all of these questions is that we rarely get an answer. But the more we question ourselves and God, the more depressed we become. And the more we begin to place the blame upon ourselves, the deeper into that dark pit we fall.


The thing we must remember is this: Jesus doesn't condemn us. But there is one who does, and his name is Satan. He loves to hurt us, hurl false accusations at us, place blame on us, disrupt our peace, cause us to question our faith in God, His goodness, His very existence, and ultimately turn us away from God entirely. After all, John 10:10 tells us the thief (the enemy) has come to steal, kill, and destroy.


This is why we continually long for confirmation from our Heavenly Father when painful things happen that we can't wrap our minds around. We feel that if we could just see our loved one, hug them, speak to them, and ask them questions, we would have perfect peace. We feel as if we deserve answers, or if God truly loved us, He would grant us this simple request.


Several people send me words of encouragement every day. There hasn't been one single day since we lost Hannah that someone hasn't texted me, messaged me, or sent a card of encouragement. That means so much to me. I just can't express how much that simple act of just checking on me warms my heart.


Many times I receive videos, blogs, or posts from others who have experienced the same kind of loss. I recently received one from a well-known individual who had recently lost a child. This individual had written a long post about how God had granted him the opportunity to go to heaven in a dream or vision and see, talk to, and hug his lost child.


I know it was meant to be encouraging, but honestly, it upset me. Not just for me, but for many other parents out there begging God for dreams and visions of their children. My immediate reaction was, "God, do You love him more than me? I have begged and pleaded with You to give me a dream or vision of my Hannah in heaven with You, but nothing! Why can't You do this simple thing for me? Is she in Hell?"


I hurt for myself, and I hurt for thousands of others who have prayed that same prayer with seemingly no response. And once again, I hold no animosity toward the individual who wrote that post, and I have been praying for his family because our loss happened right before his did.


I hurt for everyone who would ever have to endure such pain. And I praise God for giving them peace in any way He chooses to do so. We also know God doesn't do things the same for every person. He is God, and it's His business how He deals with His children. We need not expect cookie-cutter results.


I'm no neurologist, but I know from experience that when we have lost someone extremely precious to us, our minds want two things: answers and an opportunity to see that loved one again.


And maybe God does grant some people grand visions, dreams, conversations, hugs, and experiences with their loved ones after a devastating loss. But that probably isn't the case for the majority of us, and that can often contribute to even more questions.


So, as I was throwing my little hissy fit about not getting what I wanted, I finally sat down and just wept. Why wouldn't God give me this one thing that would be so easy for Him to do?


And in the stillness, His sweet voice spoke to me again:


"Donna, have I not already assured you that Hannah is with Me? I have shown you in My Holy Word, as just the right words have leapt off the page at precisely the right moment. I have spoken confirming words to you through devotionals you have read that answered your specific questions in remarkable detail immediately after you asked them.

I have given you peace when you have laid your head on your pillow and asked Me how you would ever survive this. And I have given you rest when the stress from your many questions and fears seemed unbearable.


But this I have asked of you, My daughter: walk by faith, not by sight. Cling more tightly to Me and My Word than to your condemning thoughts. Embrace the fact that I AM a good Father, and I AM working all things together for your good. I have asked you to trust Me because you know Me, and I know you.


You need not see what I'm doing now, because you will see it and fully understand everything when we stand face to face. So I ask you to have faith, trusting in the things that are not seen, because the things that are seen are temporary and will still leave you with questions.


Trust Me with all your heart, and remember what you know to be true about ME. Believe that I have promised to never leave or forsake you. I've always been here with you, and I always will be. You will never walk alone, and I will quiet your questioning heart with My love."


Not only did those words comfort me, they caused me to search within myself. For lack of a better phrase, "I know in my knower" that Hannah is with Jesus.


Do I still have moments of doubt and questioning? Absolutely. Because I'm not a superhuman who is above all doubt and fear. I'm just a normal human being like everyone else.


But now when those debilitating thoughts come, I don't start begging for dreams or visions. I spend time with Jesus and time in His Word, allowing Him to correct my faulty thinking, tear down the lies and condemnation of the enemy, and pour peace back into my heart all over again.


We must quickly shut down the lies of the enemy and set our thoughts on what we know to be true about our Father. We must take every thought captive and think on good things, true things, and most often, unseen things. That's what faith is!


Now, scroll back up to that part where God spoke to my heart. Replace my name with your own. I believe He is speaking the same thing to you today. Trust in God. He will carry you through every storm and every trial, no matter how impossible it feels. Though we may have feelings that cause us to question whether God really loves us, you "know in your knower" it's true!


Love and blessings,
Donna


“…The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
1 Phillippians 4:5-8 (NIV)


“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”   
2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)


“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)


“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV)

Preaching Through Pain
​
I know this blog may not be for everyone. Some of you may find it very depressing. But I have always tried to be as real and transparent as possible. That’s all I have ever done, and it’s all I will ever do.


I sincerely pray that it is helping someone out there who may be walking this same horrible journey. But if not for anyone else, I know it is helping me. Along with my personal journaling, prayer, and reading the Bible, many devotionals and books dealing with grief have been a source of strength for me.


My heart truly goes out to anyone who is walking this lonely road of traumatic loss and devastating grief. It’s lonely because we all experience grief in our own personal way. I’m sending you virtual hugs right now. We’ve never experienced pain like this.

                                  _________________________


Sometime around the end of October last year, I felt something begin to shift in my world. It wasn’t a good shift. I began waking up around 3:00 a.m. every morning with a heavy sense of dread. It was a panicky feeling that wrought fear in my heart.


I would immediately begin to pray. I asked God to please protect my whole family, keep us safe, and keep us out of harm’s way. But it continued to happen several times a month. I finally began to feel like something ominous was hovering over our lives, and I had no idea when it was going to descend upon us. I continued to pray.


Then God began to give me powerful sermons about being refined. I began to preach on “The Refiner’s Fire,” linking it to the fiery furnace and to Joseph’s unfathomable journey from the pit to the palace, back to the pit, and back to the palace again. God was moving powerfully through those sermons, but now I wonder if those messages were intended mostly for me.


Still, the dread and fear continued to wake me in the early morning hours, and I continued to pray for protection for my family and all of my loved ones. I felt as if an “enormous thing” was going to happen.


A few hurtful things happened during that time. Certainly, they were not devastating things, but they were discouraging and unexpected. I wondered, “Is that what the dread was about?” No. The nagging feeling remained.


One after another, events began to happen that caught me off guard and caused deeper distress as they increased in severity. After each occurrence, I would think, “Well, that surely must have been the enormous thing!” But no, the feeling of dread continued.


                                   Warnings or Preparation?

For the past few years, I have been attending the Acts 6:4 Conference in Texarkana, Texas. It’s always held during the first week of January. With all these issues happening and the continuing sense of dread, I almost decided not to go.


At the last minute, and after some relentless tugging from the Holy Spirit, I decided I needed to be there. When I arrived, I soon learned the theme of the conference was “Preaching Through Pain.” Coincidence? Maybe. Hopefully...


As each speaker took the platform and began to minister on how God empowered them to preach through some of the most mind-bending pain of their lives, I got the overwhelming feeling that this conference was for me. Not because of what I had been through, but because of what I was about to go through.


Then Pastor Sam Rijfkogel, pastor of Grand Rapids First Assembly in Wyoming, Michigan, took the platform. He began to speak of his precious daughter, Sarah, and her battle with Stage 4 colon cancer at the age of twenty-seven.


Sarah was a worship leader with a powerful anointing and a beautiful voice, much like my Hannah. Their worship styles were similar. Sarah fearlessly led worship until she physically couldn’t do it anymore.


Sarah fought cancer. Hannah fought depression. It might appear to some as though cancer won in Sarah’s battle and depression won in Hannah’s. But death did not win! I definitely believe they are both worshiping today before the throne of God.


I wept like a baby through Pastor Sam’s entire message. I couldn’t believe how powerful it was and how anointed he was in sharing such a heart-wrenching experience. What a devastating loss! How could he even go on after that?


But even then, I still had no idea.


On the way home from the conference, I told my friend Sue, “I think that whole conference was meant for me. I feel like I’m about to go through something really, really hard, some enormous thing, and God is going to ask me to preach through my pain.”


I honestly thought I was going to be diagnosed with some life-threatening disease. I didn't want to be caught off guard, so I made sure I got all my physical exams taken care of. Nothing was wrong. My doctor said everything looked good, and all my test results were perfect.


In mid-January, God gave me the vision for a camp meeting with the theme “Unshakable.” I organized it, and registration filled up almost immediately. But I had no idea my faith was going to be shaken to the core. My whole world was about to be shaken by a 9.5-magnitude earthquake.


Our dearly loved and cherished daughter, Hannah, took her own life. This was the enormous thing.


Though my whole family and I were shaken, God wasn’t. Nothing surprises God or catches Him off guard. He intentionally gave me that theme and the Scripture He wanted me to use for this year’s camp meeting, and He knew exactly what I would go through before it even arrived.


When we lost Hannah suddenly and unexpectedly, I didn’t think I could survive it. I had to make a decision: blame God and turn away from Him, or run into His arms for comfort and healing.


This was the moment when Satan had attempted to sift me. Did I truly believe what I preached about God? When the unthinkable happens, is God still good? Is He still a loving God?


Now it was up to me. Would I be able to preach through my pain? And if so, how? I can’t even see through my own tears most days.
This was definitely the most enormous thing I had ever encountered. This was the reason for all my dread. All along the way, I had this horrible feeling of fear and sorrow. And this was why... our precious Hannah.


I asked God, “Why would You allow me to have this horrible sense of fear and dread and not allow me to see something, do something, or prevent this? Why didn’t You do something?”


He softly whispered, “I did. I had you pray, not only for yourself, but most of all for your family and all your loved ones in preparation for the pain you were all going to go through. My Holy Spirit prayed through you, for you, when you didn't have the words nor knowledge of what was to come. And I have not left your side for one second of this pain. Even though you might not have felt Me there. Even when you wanted to push Me away, I stayed. And I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere.”


Though I had hundreds of questions and admittedly ran to Him again and again, pounding His chest with my fists and demanding that He tell me why, this one thing remained true: my world, my life, my joy, and my heart might have been shaken, but my faith in God my Father and my faith in His truth were not. He had been there all along, silently preparing me for the unspeakable pain to come, and then wrapping His loving arms around me through it all, and even now.


So...I must continue to preach what I know to be true about God. I might have to walk through excruciating pain and heartbreak for the rest of my life, but He is walking with me, carrying me when I can’t walk, and nothing I do for Him will ever be in vain.


I have determined to remain unshakable in my faith in God because He is unshakable in His love and faithfulness to me.


Yes! I will preach through my pain, just as you will. Even though you may or may not stand behind a pulpit or speak to huge audiences of people, your life is still preaching. People are still watching to see whether you stand strong through your “enormous thing” and continue to believe in God.


They will wonder: Has your foundation been shaken to the point of crumbling beneath you, causing you to fall away from Him? Will you still trust God after He allowed such tragic pain to befall you or your family? Will you even survive?


My prayer for you, for all of us, is that we will always hold fast to the One who cannot be shaken, our God, who knows all the details when we can make no sense of them at all. May our actions and our love for Him speak even more loudly as we preach through our pain.


“...my loved brothers and sisters, you must stand firm, unshakable, excelling in the work of the Lord as always, because you know that your labor isn’t going to be for nothing in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 15:58 CEB (emphasis mine)


“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (NIV)
​

Preach through your pain, and if necessary, use words.
Love always,
Donna

A Whole Lotta Questions


I cannot tell you how many questions I've asked God since we lost Hannah. Over and over and over, the questions rise up like tsunamis of unrelenting grief and pain. They bombard my mind constantly. One of the hardest things I've had to accept is that I will never know the answers on this side of Heaven. It is really hard to be okay with that.


I've prayed for both of my girls all their lives. I have pleaded with God to keep them safe and never let any harm befall them. I've asked Him to guard their hearts from deception and keep them in His will. I've begged Him to give them peace of mind and help them always know and remember their worth.


I have prayed for God to send them the spouses He handpicked for them. I trusted that He would do all those things and more. Since my girls were born, I've never once doubted His love for me, my girls, and Bryan. Through every hardship and difficulty in life, I've seen His goodness and stood firm, with no fear of the future.


Until one day.


In one moment, it seemed my whole view of God was shattered.


How?


God, why would You allow this to happen to my baby girl? To us? To our whole family?


GOD, I TRUSTED YOU!


As I said before, I have prayed for Hannah her entire life. We have loved her with every fiber of our being. We tried our best to provide everything she could possibly need or want. We always affirmed her and told her how beautiful and gifted she was. We smothered her with affection. We sent her to Christian schools, and when she wanted to attend The Ramp School of Ministry in Hamilton, Alabama, to pursue her calling as a worship pastor, we made it happen.


God, what did we do wrong?


SILENCE


So God, why pray to You? What good does it do to pray if You are going to do whatever You want regardless? If You are going to allow the enemy of our souls to touch our lives? Why couldn't You just heal her depression and take away every negative thought? Why couldn't You allow us to see her depression so we could do something to help? Why were we blindsided?


I'll admit that my pain has been so great that I even began to yell, "God, are You even there? Do You even exist? Do you see me?"


I'm ashamed to admit that I even accused Him of not loving or caring for me.


And still...


SILENCE


Tears and more tears. Uncontrollable sobs. Sitting for hours, staring out the window, wishing I could hold my baby girl just one more time. Devastated. Crushed. Desperate. Begging God to let me wake up from the nightmare and see her walking through the door saying, "What's for dinner, Mom?"


NOTHING


Then I look at the end table next to the loveseat where I'm sitting.


My Bible.


Angrily, I snatch it up. I want to toss it across the room in a fit of rage. But instead, I open its pages and begin to read.


I can't begin to tell you what I was reading or where I was reading, but the Holy Spirit began to speak.


Even in our anger and harsh questioning, God doesn't get mad at us. We might as well let it out, scream it or shout it. He knows our thoughts anyway.


YOUR TURN. BE QUIET.


Sometimes we have to quiet our hearts and just listen.


In the midst of our pain, in the millions of swirling questions, we must stop and breathe.


After reading for just a little while, I quickly grabbed a pen and began to furiously scribble out the words that were coming to my heart and mind. I'm sharing them with you now in the hope that they will comfort you in your questioning as well.


Run to Jesus


In our hurt and grief, it's often hard to spend time in the Word and with Jesus. But it is only with Him that we gain peace, heart healing, and clarity of mind.


Truth steps in and shines a light where hurt, anger, bitterness, and despair lurk in the dark hours, seeking a way to creep into our hearts.


I've never felt the darkness struggle so relentlessly to break into my mind and thoughts until now. But at the same time, I've never seen my Savior glare so fiercely at the darkness.


He stands as a Champion over the darkness, overpowering it with one tiny stray beam of piercing light.


The darkness gasps as He sweeps me away from all harm and quiets me with His love and compassion. He shelters me, comforts me, and cries over me with empathetic tears.


He whispers confirmations of His ever-present power to show mercy and give grace, and He covers me with hope, love, and peace beyond my ability to comprehend.


I'm confounded by how He deals so fiercely with the enemy and so gently and tenderly with me.


Finally, my thoughts are stirred to remember His great love that He has lavished upon us all. That same love that drove Him to willingly endure unimaginable pain, even death on a cross. And as we drove in the nails, He looked beyond it all and asked the Father to forgive us because we didn't know what we were doing.


His one desire was to destroy the works of darkness, and that unfathomable separation called death and the grave.


HE PAID IT ALL.


And through His all-sufficient sacrifice, He defeated that once-foreboding darkness and eternal separation to which we all were destined.


His blood has covered all our sins. We were bought with a price. We are His, and nothing can separate us from His great love.


So now He glares at the darkness when all Hell seeks to wreak havoc in our minds and provoke pain in our souls. His heart burns with anger at the darkness because He knows, better than all of us, that death is a liar.


The debt has been paid. The victory has been won.


Jesus IS the Champion.


Satan, and his companion death, are both liars. Satan loves to torment God's children. He drives us to question the One who truly loves us, sees us, and feels the pain we feel.


Satan wants us to remain angry with God. He wants to keep us from God's Word, lure us into the darkest nights, and prevent us from experiencing the peace that comes from truth.


Jesus has given us hope, and Satan has set out to steal it. He attempts to make us blame God instead of realizing he, Satan himself, is the source of our pain and suffering.


So in our striving, our questioning, and our wrestling with God, Jesus deals with us so tenderly. He sings over us and speaks peace, reminding us of the hope we have in Him and the promise that we will be with our loved ones who have gone before us for all eternity.


So yes, it's okay to question God. Sometimes we need to wrestle with Him and with our questions.


He will never fail to love us. He paid far too high a price to adopt us as His own and then abandon us. He sympathizes with us in our weakness, and He knows us better than we know ourselves and loves us just the same.


Spend some time in His presence today. He can handle your questions.


But also remember: this life is just a vapor. We will be with our loved ones soon.


And oh, the times we will have.

"The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:37-39 (NIV)

Grief Is Not Linear. Now I Get It.
​
Right after we lost Hannah, many people told us, “Remember, grief is not linear.” What does that even mean?
All I knew was that my world had just fallen apart, and nothing would ever be the same again. We couldn’t see anything past our agony.


During Hannah’s visitation and memorial service, I was completely numb. I know that in those early days, Jesus was holding me because, looking back now, I have no idea how I survived it.


Bryan, Haley, and I stood beside Hannah’s casket and greeted the more than four hundred people who came to offer their condolences. It was astounding to see all who came to show their love and support. I couldn’t believe how many pastors and their wives had driven many miles to be there with us. It truly blessed our hearts.


Some of our former co-workers, high school classmates, church family, ladies I’ve ministered to in the jail, and people from various churches poured in and hugged and cried with us. A few of Bryan’s superiors flew in from different states to be there, as well as many of those he currently leads or works with.


Friends from Haley’s college came to be with her. Schoolmates, co-workers, and youth group friends all came in support. It was beautiful and comforting.


Add to that all the people who loved Hannah and had been impacted by her life. I soon realized that one of the most heartwarming gifts you can give a grieving family is your physical presence and the gift of sharing memories of how their loved one impacted your life.


Even though we were in complete shock, we remember every individual who came through that line. That also had to be God. I felt like I was in a clear plastic bubble floating above the whole scene—watching, seeing myself going through the motions, but not truly aware that the worst thing that could ever happen in my life had really happened.


Shock. Numbness. Derealization.


There are typically “five stages of grief”—often referred to as the Kübler-Ross model:

• Denial (shock, numbness)
• Anger (at God, at others, or even at the one who has left us)
• Bargaining (all the whys, what-ifs, what-should-haves, and what-could-haves)
• Depression (affects us not only mentally but physically)
• Acceptance (not being “okay” with it, but realizing it really happened; we’ll never get over it, but we have to learn to live in spite of it)

“Grief is not linear.” Now I get it.
It started with shock that immediately changed to bargaining before we even got off the plane. What if I hadn’t gone to Canada? What if she hadn’t been home alone? What if, what if?


Next, I found myself slipping in and out of, “God, why didn’t You do something? You could have prevented this!” There was anger at ourselves, anger at God, and anger over the circumstances as they unfolded. Those thoughts spiraled right back into the what-ifs.


Depression hit almost immediately. It has been woven through every moment of every day.


So yes, it all makes sense now. Grief is not linear. How nice it would be to move through each stage in a particular order and then be completely done with it. Unfortunately, we are never truly done with it.


The stages linger and circle like vultures—as if they are trying to decide what else it will take to destroy us. I can have decent days and then suddenly slip back into shock or denial. Sometimes I can almost convince myself that I’m okay. Yet I’ve found that if I have a good day, it’s often almost impossible to get out of bed the next.


Grief is extremely hard, and we all grieve in different ways. The stages are pretty much the same for all of us, but we do not experience them at the same times as others. There’s no finishing one stage, getting the certificate of completion, and moving on to another. It’s a constant, jumbled-up rotation.


Not experiencing the same stages at the same times has actually been a blessing for us as a family. I believe God has definitely managed that aspect for us. For instance, if I am having a really bad day, Bryan might be having a pretty good day and be strong enough to hold and comfort me—and vice versa.


(If you do not have a close companion, be sure to connect with a close, trustworthy friend or a counselor for support.)


Here’s a good thing to remember about grief: no one can tell you how to feel or when to feel it.


Many well-meaning individuals told me in the beginning, “You will grieve as deeply as you loved. If you loved her deeply, you will grieve over her loss deeply.”


In those first couple of weeks, I thought I would go insane. The shock, numbness, and complete dissociation put me in a state where I wasn’t crying nonstop. On the outside, it appeared that I was handling things much better than everyone else.


Then I started to worry. Did I not love her enough? Why am I not crying more than this? Why do I feel okay right now? Why do I not feel anything at all right now? If we grieve as deeply as we loved, what is this?


I was overwhelmed with guilt, thinking I didn’t love Hannah enough.
What was really happening was that God had kept me in a state of denial and shock for much longer in order to protect me. The initial shock, numbness, and feeling as though we are shut down is a way of emotionally surviving. The brain interprets profound loss as an existential threat to our own survival. So shock and numbness literally help us survive.


I loved—and still love—Hannah deeply and always will. I miss her so much that the pain often feels unbearable, and now that the shock has somewhat diminished, I’ve never been more certain of just how much I love her.


But because I was told—or perhaps because I expected—to grieve in a certain way, I thought I was a horrible mother. Honestly, I thought I was losing my mind.


When the numbness began to taper off, it was as if my heart was ripped wide open, displaying every ounce of love I had for her in the form of unrelenting weeping, even to the point of physical pain and total exhaustion.


So let me assure you: if you find yourself going through the tragic loss of a loved one, give yourself grace. Realize that we all grieve differently, and grief looks completely different for everyone. Grief is definitely not linear.


In speaking with one of my friends about the loss of her child, she told me:
“Grieving a child is like having an extra appendage. It doesn’t work and serves no purpose, but it’s still attached to you. You can’t put it down and leave it. It is part of you forever. So you learn how to carry it—for the rest of your life.”


Hannah consumes my thoughts. Everywhere I go, I find myself asking what Hannah would think of this or that. I imagine us laughing together over things we would have thought were goofy. Throughout the day, I want to text her. I long to go into her room at night and kiss her and tuck her into bed. 


So yes, I will carry her every day of my life. But I will hold on to all of those precious memories and cherish each of them until I see her again.
And I will fix my eyes, not on what is temporary, but on what waits eternally for our family in Heaven.


“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” — 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 NIV
​

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” — 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 NIV