The immediate shock and despair of a loved one’s passing can leave us feeling hopeless about the future. No matter how much we may think we are prepared, death is devastating. It is the perfect earthly definition of finality, and it’s why we sometimes doubt that we’ll ever feel hopeful again.

However, this is an issue dealt with in the Bible and it shares the solution to navigating our future journey of grief with hope as we get beyond our loved one’s death.

The passage is in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and the context is the Apostle Paul writing to the Christians at Thessalonica who were saddened that their deceased loved-ones would be left behind when Jesus returns.

What we have here in Scripture is the Apostle’s correction of that misunderstanding. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13 Paul states “we do not want you to be uniformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” (NIV).

What Paul is saying is that those who grieve without hope are those who have no expectation of seeing their deceased loved-ones again. For them, because they are not believers in the Lord Jesus, they grieve without the hope of being reunited with their family who have passed.

However, despite our grieving, we can have the very real hope of seeing our deceased loved-ones again. Initially we may feel hopeless, but when we realize we will see them again, hopefulness can strengthen us.

The truth is, a believer is going to grieve as an unbeliever when it comes to the pain of losing a loved one from their everyday lives. It hurts both believers and unbelievers that they cannot touch, talk to, or be with their deceased loved one. However, for the believer, there is a certain comfort in knowing that we will be united with our loved ones again.

Though grief is hard and sometimes seems unquenchable, there is an ever present hope in knowing that their death is not their end. The grief that we bear is only temporary until that day of reunion at the resurrection.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 Paul continues in his explanation that “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” (NIV).

The day of deliverance will also be a day of reunion in the air between those who are alive and those who have slept in the graves.

1 Corinthians 15:52-53 describes it this way, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality” (NIV).

So it will be that “those who sleep in death” will arise to immortal life at the resurrection just as Lazarus did in John 11:43-44 and similar to when we arise from a night of sleep to be greeted by a new day.

At death “the spirit returns to God” (Ecclesiastes 12:7 NIV) but at the resurrection God’s spirit returns to the dead in Christ to arise in the newness of eternal life.

This is why we often encourage one another at the bedside of a deceased loved one that they are in a better place and to be “absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8 NIV).

There is a verse in Psalms that says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants” (Psalms 116:15 NIV). God does not delight in death, it is the enemy of life, but God delights in the ending of our mortal journey so we can begin our new immortal one with Him.

There is a hope that lightens the sorrow of grief and it is the hope of being with our loved ones again. It is a hope in eternity and an eternal home where “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4 NIV).

That is a hope of being together again and it will pull us through the untravelled paths of grief that lie ahead.