1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not preceded 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 each other with these words.”

This quote in 1 Thessalonians shows us that we need to trust that those who die here on earth, who know the Lord, will not perish, but will receive life everlasting. Whitney’s grandma could not come to the burial or ceremony because Colleen, Whitney’s mother, forgot to pick her up. However, she was in no way angry to miss the service because she knows that the girl in the coffin was not Whitney. She did not know that the girl’s body actually belonged to Laura Van Ryn, but she meant that Whitney’s soul was already released from her body and was in heaven with the Father.