When someone you love dies, you naturally grieve, because you care deeply for that person. You feel sadness that is so intense that you may wonder if life will ever again feel worth living.

It’s okay to grieve. God created grief as an outlet of the emotions pent up inside us when we lose a dear one. If that person was a believer, however, we do not grieve the same way as those who have no hope of seeing their loved one again. For one day we will be reunited. What a world of difference between those two kinds of grief: grief because you loved someone who is now gone, and grief because you will never see that person again–ever.

Paul explained it this way:

“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 we will be with the Lord forever (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

God might have chosen not to let us know ahead of time what is going to happen. But he did tell us. And what a blessing that is! We know that one day we will be with our loved ones when we meet the Lord.

So today if you are grieving the loss of someone who loved the Lord and whom you loved very dearly, my heart goes out to you. Remember that one day soon we will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.