Latest / Therapy and Theology / S14 E3 | What the Bible Really Says About Death, Heaven, and Hell
Transcript
- DR JOEL MUDDAMALLE: Welcome to today's episode of Therapy and Theology, where we help you work through what you walk through. I'm your host, Dr. Joel Muddamalle, and I'm so glad you tuned into today's episode. This episode is going to be a little different. Let me give you the backstory. JOEL: In 2021, me and Lysa TerKeurst recorded an episode about death, dying, heaven, and hell on the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast. Fast-forward to today. As our team was brainstorming episodes for this current season of Therapy and Theology, we thought we'd resurrect that first episode because it fit so well into other topics we're discussing. And don't worry, while your favorite counselor, Jim Cress, isn't in the bulk of today's conversation, he is answering a question in the listener mail segment at the very end of the episode. So make sure you listen until the very end. JOEL: As you continue to process your questions with us this season about the spiritual realm, I hope today's episode will be comforting to you. And if you wanna dig deeper after listening, there's a free resource called A Scriptural Guide to Confront Your Fear of Death linked in the show notes just for you. Before we dive in, I wanna speak to those of you who are walking through a season of hardship. Often, what God teaches us through our own hard seasons becomes part of how we help someone else through theirs. I know that that's been personally true for me. JOEL: That's why we're so grateful for our friends at the American Association of Christian Counselors and Light University. Their fully online certificate program, Caring for People God's Way, is a biblical counseling program that teaches you how to use God's word effectively in caring for others well. And a special scholarship is available for our listeners, which brings the complete program down to just $99. Visit lightuniversity.com/proverbs31 to learn more and claim your scholarship today. Okay, now let's jump back into today's conversation LYSA TERKEURST: So first of all, I wanna say when you talk about topics like death, dying, heaven, and hell um, this is not something that I approach lightly. I understand that some of the deepest pain that people have ever gone through is because they've lost someone that they love very, very much. LYSA: And so when you talk about death and dying, you talk about eternity, um, it can stir up very painful, uh, maybe unresolved grief. And so I wanna acknowledge that. I know what that feels like. I lost a baby sister, um, and, um, it still, when the anniversaries come around of us losing her, when her birthday comes around, uh, w- I... LYSA: There are certain trigger points during the year where I just, even though it was many years ago, it's still so painful. And I still have questions, you know. What would she have been like today? What would her life have been like? How, how different would our family have been if we didn't lose her? LYSA: And, um, and then in some of my more honest moments, you know, I just think sometimes when I hear of, you know, another terrorist attack, I'll think, "Wow, God, why in the world, you know, did we have to lose Haley?" And yet there are people out in the world that are, uh, doing evil things, and she was so innocent and so pure and so beautiful. And so there's still those questions that I find myself bumping into. And so I say all of that because instead of us giving our opinion about some of the questions that we all have around death and dying, I thought it would be great to go straight into scripture. LYSA: And Joel, I know you have a very, um, personal and recent example of why this topic is, um, something that we wanna handle very tenderly. JOEL: Yeah. I was actually in the midst, like smack in the middle of studying, uh, death and dying and heaven and hell. Um, and, uh, you know, in the text and in scripture and the topics, and just a few days before Thanksgiving, um, I got a text message from my mom that, um, my cousin Ruthie, uh, was found dead in her car, uh, in a parking lot on her college campus at UIC. JOEL: And I remember thinking, "This isn't real. This can't be happening." I kinda thought it was a, a joke maybe initially. And, um, it was interesting because this thing actually, we end up founding, uh, finding out that she was actually murdered. And so horrific and tragic. She was just 19 years old. Um, had the rest of her life in front of her. JOEL: The sweetest girl. Um, she was a homebody, loved her mama so much. She had, um, two older sisters and a brother. And, uh, I remember just thinking, "This is something that you see on news," and it got on CNN and, and made national headlines, and, like, this was always somebody else having to deal with this and now this is our family dealing with the reality of this. And one of the things that I remember going through is the various questions that when I first started studying this topic, I didn't have, and now all of a sudden I'm faced with it, and I'm looking at the reality of death and dying, and what does that mean? JOEL: Um, and then also simult- simultaneously just feeling a sense of encouragement that there are certain things in scripture I remember feeling like all the time, "I just wish God would just deal with this one thing." And I'm just so grateful that God actually so graciously deals with the topic of death and dying in actually a, a decently clear way that we can begin to grasp. JOEL: And so, um, you know, this is a hard topic personally for me. LYSA: It is a hard topic, and not only is there a lot of grief when we talk about a topic like this, but there's also a lot of fear. And so today we cannot possibly on this one podcast get to all that we've been studying on death, dying, heaven, and hell. LYSA: But, uh, stay tuned for more information, if you will. But today, I think this is gonna be a really good introduction to give you some verses to really help you navigate this topic, whether you're navigating in conversation with other people, or whether you're wrestling through some hard memories, or whether you're wrestling through some fears that you have. LYSA: So let's jump right into God's Word, and let's see what we're gonna find here. The verse I wanna start off with today, it's a really good foundational verse, and we find it in Hebrews chapter two starting in verse 14. It says this: "Since the children have flesh and blood," so who are the children? We're talking about you and I. LYSA: “Since the children of God have flesh and blood, He too..." Well, who is the he here? It's Jesus. So I just wanna get our proper orientation as we jump into this verse. "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too," Jesus, "shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death-” That is the devil, “and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” LYSA: So that's Hebrews 2:14-15, and the verse is pretty self-explanatory when you understand who He is. That's Jesus breaking the power of him who holds, uh, death and, and almost can hold us in slavery because of our fear of death. That is the devil. So Jesus came not just to die on a cross to save us from our sins and to provide redemption, but part of that process was to break the power of death that has held so many of us in slavery and to free us from the enemy. And so Joel, I know when we were teaching this together, you had some really interesting perspectives about what exactly does this mean and what exactly happened. JOEL: Yeah. Um, one of the things that I think that we often question, I know I do all the time, is right around Easter, we've got the reality of Jesus's death, and then we jump to the resurrection, right? JOEL: Like, and Jesus conquers sin and death, and he raises victoriously. But then we kind of wonder, well, what happened in those three days? Like, where does Jesus go? And then we have this really unique conversation that Jesus has with the, the thief who's at his side, and he says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." JOEL: And one of the things that we need to kind of try to wrap our minds around is death, the way that the Hebrews, the Israelites would have thought of what is death and what's actually taking place. And in the Old Testament, one of the words that's used to describe death is the Hebrew word that's translated as Sheol. JOEL: Um, and it's really the way they would think about it is the underworld, that there's this place that begins to separate you from the presence of God, um, and it's a holding place. And there are certain people who lived in the Old Testament by faith that were not in the depths of Hades, the depths of hell, but they were in Sheol. JOEL: They were in this holding place. And when Jesus dies, w- what he actually does is he goes into the underworld, and he literally, through death, disarms the power of death, and then he breaks the gates of death. And he rescues those in the Old Testament that we think of the men of faith and the, the, the, the hall of faith that Hebrews talks about, Abraham, and Noah, and, um, Isaac, all these people that live by faith. JOEL: He rescues them from that place and brings them with him to live in eternity. And this is the stark contrast of the Old Testament and the reality of death for those that lived in the Old Testament, to the New Testament and the reality that you and I live in light of what Jesus has done on the cross. LYSA: So for me, when I hear all of that, I think, whoa, this is sounding a little mysterious, maybe even full of superpowers and the underworld and all of this. MERDITH BROCK: I mean, I'm feeling like some serious Greek mythology Zeus vibe right now. KALEY OLSON: Yeah. My, my mind went to Hercules MEREDITH: Like Zeus, like Zeus, yeah, like Zeus has departed- KALEY: Yes MEREDITH: and is down breaking gates. LYSA: Right. But- KALEY: Thank you for bringing this up. Right? Because I've always wondered. Like what happened? What all this means? LYSA: So let's jump into a couple more verses. Okay. And I think it will y- it'll start to become apparent that, you know, we're not gonna be able to unpack all of those answers today, but keep it, keep this Hebrews 2, uh, the purpose, verses 14 and 15, keep this in mind, that not only has Jesus provided, uh, a savior who, when we proclaim Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, we are told that we will be reunited with God. Like we, we now have an opportunity to enter into eternity, but there's some other verses that talk about this promise. LYSA: But, but one of the things that, that this Hebrews verse reveals is that we can have the peace of this eternal promise now. Because we're held in slavery now while we're still in our earthly body. MEREDITH: When we haven't been born again.. When we haven't become a believer- LYSA: Right ... MEREDITH: of, of Jesus Christ. LYSA: And the mystery of all of this is a tension to manage, not a problem to solve. So yes, there is some mystery around this, but I think when we give you a couple more verses, you're gonna start to find a little more peace and, and feel a little more settled and probably even hopeful in the midst of this topic. JOEL: So really quick, I know Meredith said, I know this happens all the time. You, you brought up the Zeus thing, and I just can't- MEREDITH: I can't help myself and I, JOEL: I've got in my mind all of these podcast listeners- LYSA: I knew this was gonna happen JOEL: that are like, hold up. Wait a minute. So you're like, Joel, just spit it out, all that kind of stuff. And I didn't hear one scripture reference. So let me just give us a quick orientation. LYSA: I knew this was coming. MEREDITH: And I love it.I love it. Let's do it. JOEL: Just quickly. Right? Okay. So, um, in the Old Testament, I said Sheol. Sheol is the place where the dead go, and, um, we look at passages like Genesis 37:35, that refers to Jacob, in Samuel, 1 Samuel 28:13-14, and then there's this idea that there's actually the wicked that go to Sheol, right? MEREDITH: Okay. Can I pause for a second? JOEL: Yes. MEREDITH: Our listeners don't know what you're looking at right now. So what are you reading off of? JOEL: Okay. So right now I actually did an Instagram story on my Instagram, and you can actually go. It's in the IG theology highlights. MEREDITH: Okay. Awesome. JOEL: My Instagram is @muddamalle, M-U-D-D-A-M-A-L-L-E, and you will find this entire thing that I'm reading off of. MEREDITH: That's awesome. That's wonderful. Just in case. That's a great resource for them to go, 'cause this is a lot to take in, y'all. Like this is a lot to, to try to digest in a short period of time. JOEL: So Psalm 31:17 identifies that there's actually a place that is separate from where the righteous are, and this is where the wicked are. JOEL: And so now we have these two locations where the righteous are and the wicked are. And we can call the one the depths of Hades, which is where the wicked are, and the other is called Sheol, right? Um, and so this is where you do kind of think of Greek mythology. And, um, but I think what's actually happening is the Greek mythology isn't actually, um, unique and brand new. JOEL: They're actually- MEREDITH: It's not an original idea. JOEL: It- they're, they're building, they're drawing from Biblical theology. Right? And so it all goes back to the Bible. Now, a couple quick references. You can check out Luke 16:19 through 20, uh, 31, where it, it talks about the wicked and where they suffer, and Abraham's bosom in Luke 16:22. JOEL: And it seems to be that there's a place of rest for the righteous as they awaited the Messiah. And this is what actually happens, that this great chasm or the divide between the two places that Luke 16:26 identifies, um, is this place where Jesus actually comes He rescues them, and He brings them to be with Him, and that's the hope that you and I have. MEREDITH: What a beautiful thing. LYSA: Yes, and simultaneously, those still living, so us right now, today we can be free of our fear of death because of the accomplished work of what Jesus has done. Death does not have a hold over us anymore. And so we have been, I think, sometimes even as Christians, living in the midst of a fear that if we only had this truth, then the reassurance that goes with the truth could help us at least settle with the hope because of what Jesus has already done. LYSA: So let me give you a couple other verses, and I think this will really help. Here's, um, another set of verses that I think are, are really powerful. Um, let's do John 11:25-26. For Christians, death is not a final reality, it is a trade for better life. LYSA: So I'm gonna have Joel read the verses, but I'm just giving you a teaching point. So for those of you taking notes, I know you've written a lot already, but I think this is one of the major reasons why we do not have to fear death, and that's this: for Christians, death is not a final reality, it is a trade for better life. LYSA: So Joel, if you'll read John 11:25 and 26. JOEL: "So Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he died, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?'" LYSA: Okay. And let's read one other section of scripture for this, Philippians 1:21, and then go through, uh, to 23 and 24. LYSA: So Philippians 1:21 and then verses 23 through 24. And for those of you taking notes, before Joel reads the scripture, I want you to imagine that the minute that you depart from being alive on Earth is the minute that you are now making that better trade. For those of us who know Jesus as our Lord and Savior, then it's instant. LYSA: It, it's it's like absent from the body, present with the Lord. So there, there isn't, for us, this nebulous middle period. It, it's a very instant thing. Okay, Joel, Philippians 1:21 and then 23 and 24. JOEL: I have to give a little bit of context. This is the Apostle Paul who's writing, and it's very likely that he has, uh, dealt with imprisonment. He has dealt with s- fierce persecution. He's been beaten. He's been really tore up, and this is what he says in light of all of that. LYSA: I love that a theologian just said, "Tore up." You know. Go right ahead. JOEL: Yeah. Uh, verse 21, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I'm to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I cho- which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account." LYSA: So I think this is very interesting, too, because it's, it's kind of this tension. Well, if, if it's a better trade, you know, to go and be with the Lord, if, if being with the Lord is gain, then why don't we just depart and go be with the Lord right now? LYSA: But the Lord has a plan, and He had an assignment for Paul. And so imagine if the Apostle Paul decided it was his decision of when the better would be for him to go. We would have missed out on so many of the beautiful and necessary letters. So God had a purpose and a plan. Paul said, "It's better for me. LYSA: Like, I want to go." It, it is a wonderful trade up to go to eternity and be with the Lord. But I recognize it's not my decision when, because the Lord has work for me to do now. And so I think that that's a very im- important distinctive. All right. Let's look at another, uh, principle that we find in scripture. LYSA: Um, when it is our time to go and be with the Lord, we will prefer to be with the Lord. So Joel, I'm gonna have you read second, uh, Corinthians 5:6-8. So 2 Corinthians 5:6-8. And I, I don't know if, if you've ever had this thought, but it's funny. I was sitting around talking to some of my, um, my staff that are in their 20s and even some of my grown kids that are in their 20s, and I made this point. LYSA: When you go to heaven, you will want to be there, and some of them honestly admitted to me I'm not so sure about that. Because when the praise and worship goes a little too long at church, I start to get really antsy, and I think, "Okay, when is it gonna be over?" And then she said she had a family member that said, "You better get used to this 'cause this is what it's gonna be like in eternity." MEREDITH: I know. When they be singing that chorus over and over. JOEL: On repeat. MEREDITH: It's like, ooh, boy. LYSA: But, um, th- and we'll get into this more later in our teaching. Of course, today we're just trying to keep it very focused on the comfort and the hope in the midst of what is fearful and full of grief for us, is this topic of death and dying. LYSA: But Joel, read this 2 Corinthians, uh, verse, the verses, uh, chapter 5:6-8, and let's find this truth that when we're there, we're gonna wanna be there with the Lord. JOEL: "So we're always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body, we're away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we're of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." LYSA: So when we are with the Lord in eternity, we will want to be there. It, we, we would say, "I would rather be here," okay? But that can be a very, very hard topic to even navigate because we all know that how many times have we had someone pass away and we kinda say, "But they passed before their time." LYSA: Or, "They were too young," or, "This was so unexpected." And any time those of us that are here, we are gonna walk through extreme grief. But those that are in eternity, they are fine. They, they, they prefer to be there. It's not that they don't wanna be with us but they're eager for us to get to them, not for them to get back to us. LYSA: Does that make sense? KALEY Yes. LYSA: Okay. But what about those really hard situations where we feel like someone was too young, it was too soon, it was too unexpected, and we've really asked those hard questions? So Joel's cousin, you know, doesn't it sort of feel like someone who's 19, it's like the, the ... how can that possibly be their time? LYSA: My sister was less than two years old. And, uh, she was given some medication that wound up set, uh, set off a chain of events in her life that, um, you know, it seemed like, was this, was this a mistake? Was it a medical error? Did the doctors do something wrong, you know? And so I think this verse will be really helpful. It's Isaiah 57:1-2, and what we're gonna find out in this verse is that when it seems like the godly die before their time, that it's really, we should look at it as a protection, that God, God protected them from evil that He saw was to come. So these verses, I think, in Isaiah are very comforting. So I have Isaiah 57:1-2. JOEL: "The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity, and he enters into peace. They rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness." LYSA: Okay, Joel, now I want you to read it in NIV, if you will. So Isaiah 57:1-2 in NIV, and I want you to take...I'm assuming that's ESV you just read from. Yep. Right. Yep. Joel and I have this thing, you know? KALEY Yes. But I think every now and then, and I... And this is why I think it's really helpful when you're studying the Bible. Go ahead and pull out different versions- MEREDITH: Oh, my goodness, yeah LYSA: ... you know, of the Bible, and, uh, ESV, NASB, uh, NIV, um, and look at even the King James and, and, and really look at how, um, the different verses present themselves. Because I think in this case we're gonna find even more, um, of a connection with the verses in NIV. JOEL: "The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." LYSA: So again, we may not understand what they're being spared from. We may not understand. It may not make any sense at all. But that's why we don't have to try to wrestle through these without the hope that God puts in his Word. And so I think this verse is very, very clear. Like, God knows something we don't know. LYSA: He sees something we don't see. And so we have to trust that this wasn't a taking, this was a sparing. Hmm. And I think there's a lot of comfort for that in us, that, that the world is not catching God by surprise or catching God off guard. God has a plan, and it is good, and we may not, and we probably will not understand what this sparing was or what this protection was until we get into eternity. MEREDITH: Wow. Yeah. That's really good. LYSA: So let's just go through a couple more verses, and then we'll wrap up today. Um, speaking of our appointed time, God knows our appointed time, and death does not surprise God. Joel, if you'll read Psalm 139 verse 16. Um, and what I will often say to myself, 'cause I have to preach a lot of these verses to myself, um, especially when my kids were getting their driver's license, and I remember one day my oldest son, uh, he got his driver's license and he said, "Mom, I wanna take my brothers and sisters to go get ice cream." I said, "Great. Let's go." And he said, "No, we wanna go by ourselves." And I watched the entire content of my heart, all five of my children get into one vehicle, and I remember standing at the window of my house wrestling. LYSA: I know the state said that he passed the driver's test. I know the ice cream store is just down the street, but I have watched one too many news stories where I know the reality of what can happen with car accidents and mistakes and, you know. There, there was just so much wrestling inside of me until I thought of this verse, and I thought of, okay, if today it's God's appointed time for any one of my children to be taken or all of my children to be taken, um, if they stayed at home or if they get in the car, it's God's time. LYSA: And again, this is something I say with so much sensitivity because it probably will not make sense to us. And it does seem like there's accidents and things surely catch God off guard. But I find great comfort when I read Psalm 139 verse 16. Joel, go ahead and read that. JOEL: "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." LYSA: So God knows our appointed time. He knows all of the days of our life, and all of them are written and, uh, and recorded. So we can add to the quality of our life. But we don't add to the quantity, the number of days of our life. So is it important that we make smart decisions? I mean, sometimes we read verses like this and it kinda feels like, well, shoot, then let's just- MEREDITH: Let's just do what we wanna do and just go wild. KALEY: Yolo. LYSA: let's just do it and go, right? KALEY Yeah. It's not a thing anymore, but okay. LYSA: But, but the, but the Lord gives us these instructions so that we do lead a life that is well spent. And that, that we, um, follow his instruction today and, and be obedient to exactly how God says that we'll live our life because every day counts. LYSA: Every hour counts, every minute counts, and I don't think we'll understand the full impact of why our life matters and why the decisions that we make to honor God here, why it matters so much until we get to eternity. But one thing I know, any decision we make here on earth that honors God, we will never regret in eternity. MEREDITH: That's right. That's right. That's great. LYSA: And so let's wrap up with, um- With one last comparison, if you will. These verses that, uh, I want Joel to read, uh, 2 Timothy 4:7-8 and James 1:12. So 2 Timothy 4:7-8, and I want you to listen to something in this, this comparison. Listen to how life on Earth is described, and then listen to how eternity is described. So Joel, go ahead and read 2 Timothy 4:7-8, and sometimes you wanna add verses, so if you do, that's fine, too. JOEL: Yep. Um, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award for me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing." JOEL: Um, a quick commentary on that. The race that he's talking about is not a sprint. He's got the, the Greco, ancient Greco-Roman Olympics in his mind, and it is a, a race of endurance. Um, and so you've got this sense that he is actually living out the very thing that he's admonishing, um, the church and you and I today, um, to do. LYSA: And so if you paid close attention, uh, life on Earth is described as a fight, a race, a trial. But eternity is described as the reward. And so to me, you know, sometimes when we, when we think about eternity, we think of it being a finality, but we don't always refer to that finality in positive terms. LYSA: Because for those of us here left on Earth, we're grieving that separation of someone passing before us, right? But when we think about them, we can think they really have fought the good fight and run the good race. And their trials are over. And if, I'm sorry, but today, Meredith, if I was running a 5K let's just be conservative here. Okay. If I was running a 5K and I expected you to be cheering me on, when I cross that finish line, I would not want you to say, "But wait, wait, I want her to run some more." MEREDITH: Yeah. Can we do another five? LYSA: Yes. MEREDITH: You would- LYSA: And I would say, "No." 'Cause I have been given my reward. MEREDITH: Yes. LYSA: I don't wanna- MEREDITH: You've accomplished the tasks LYSA: I don't wanna enter the fight anymore. I don't wanna enter the trials anymore. I, I don't wanna run the race. I've run my race. And now is my season of reward. And so that to me is so full of hope. And, um, so Joel, read one more verse, James 1:12. And, um, if, if you're familiar with James chapter 1, um, leading up to this in, starting in verse two, it says, "Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, uh, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance, and pers- perseverance must finish its work so that you can be mature, complete, not lacking anything." LYSA: Okay? So that's all life on Earth. The trial and learning to persevere and trying to, you know, persevere through this so that we can gain maturity. So you can sense some of those same words we read in 2 Timothy chapter 4. It's like the fight, the race, the trial, but then listen to James 1:12. JOEL: "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." LYSA: And so that's, that's all we wanna do for today. Yeah. I think that's a lot to take in. There's so many verses, but I do wanna end, um, with a Spurgeon quote. This is a nod to Joel. Theologians love Spurgeon, so- JOEL: We do. He's my favorite. MEREDITH: He's amazing. Right? He's amazing. LYSA: So Spurgeon said this: "Depend on it, your dying hour will be your best hour you have ever known." Your last moment will be your richest moment. Better than the day of your birth will be the day of your death. It shall be the beginning of heaven, the rising of a sun that shall go no more down forever." JOEL: And Lysa, I love that when we first started, we talked about fear, and when we ended, um, we're left with this assurance of hope. And that's one of the things for me personally as you've taught this, as we've studied this, that I'm able to process the reality of the tragedy that my family and that I have experienced, is that I can know that there's a good and sovereign God who's fully in control. JOEL: And because of that- My cousin Ruthie ran her race and she ran it well and faithfully, and she rests in the arms and the presence of God today. And that fills me with hope. MEREDITH: It reminds me of that song, um, In Christ Alone. And the line that says, "No guilt in life, no fear in death." LYSA: Um, and what I, I, I don't wanna pretend like we've tied a bow on this subje- subject today 'cause we certainly haven't. We've just really barely dipped our- LYSA: Scratched the surface ... toe in the water of the idea of death and dying and heaven and hell, if we dare to say it, and eternity. MEREDITH: What, what... It's a big subject, and I can imagine- LYSA: And there's more to come. MEREDITH: Right. I can imagine LYSA: So, you know,that's why I say today is just, we're just laying some groundwork. Because at Proverbs 31, you guys know, you know, we, we want to equip you to know the truth so that you can process life through the lens of scripture and not through our own opinions or our own fear- MEREDITH: That's right. Mm ... LYSA: or even our own grief. We wanna process using truth because that's what will set us free. JOEL: And now it's time for my favorite segment, listener mail, where we respond to your questions. Today's listener mail is brought to you by Compassion International, which I'm so excited to tell you more about. Compassion is fighting child poverty in powerful and practical ways through the work of local churches and the generosity of sponsors like you and me. Compassion is releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name. JOEL: We've seen the impact of sponsorship firsthand through education, medical care, healthy food, clean water, and the love and the hope of the gospel. And now we wanna invite you to join us in sponsoring a child. When you sponsor, you'll receive a copy of the Proverbs 31 Ministries study guide titled Keep Holding On as our thanks for investing in the life of a child. You can go to compassion.com/lysa, L-Y-S-A, to choose a child to sponsor today. JOEL: Okay, friends, let's hear today's question. This listener asked, "On the anniversary of someone's death, how do I honor them and also my own journey of grieving them? Any best practices are appreciated." I'm actually gonna pass this one off to my friend Jim Cress to answer the question. JIM CRESS: Well, again, this is another great question. So the question being, on the anniversary of someone's death, how do I honor them and also my own journey of grieving them? Now, part of that is, is this, in my mind thinking, is this the first anniversary where you may have gone through all the first, all the seasons, the holidays? Or just as important, is it maybe a fifth anniversary? Some people say, "Wow, it's the 10th anniversary. They've been gone that long." JIM: Either way, I'm always thinking of the remembrance we have in the Lord's Supper, in communion, "This do in remembrance of me." It's not a morose or morbid kind of thing, but to honor a person well, and, and quite frankly, a lot of people in our American culture, uh, don't know how to face death, mortality, and even grieving, or they believe, well, the stages of grief are over in nine months or a year, and you move on. JIM: So how do I honor that person? I would say, first of all, and this is true in my own life, I wanna honor someone who has died by living the best, most abundant life, healthiest life that God has called me to live. Imagine if they were saved and they died, and they were in heaven cheering us on, as Hebrews 12 talks about, that they would wanna see me running a race that is honorable to God and to myself and, quite frankly, even honoring to that loved one's memory. JIM: And how do I also honor my own journey of grieving them? Well, just remember, again, the grieving process is cyclical. Usually, you're not going to go through a one and done. So part of that is journaling can be really helpful to sit down and say, "Okay, it's been one year. It's been a five-year anniversary of their death. What do I, what do I remember about them?" Keeping them alive in your memory. JIM: You could look and say, "Where am I? What is different in this anniversary of their death than maybe it was two years ago?" if that's the case. And the idea of your own journey is giving yourself permission time and time again to not think, "Man, I thought I was over this. The death is still impacting me." It might be a song. It could be a sound. In trauma, we talk about the olfactory senses. Could be the, the aroma of something, and you're remembering them once again, or in a movie or something like that. And I think that part is just to smile and say, "Yeah." It's not necessarily I find that you have more grief to do or more grief work to do. It's just, yeah, there it is again, and I wanna stop and give time and space to remember that person. JIM: Now, everybody's gotta pick how they do this, but I work with a lot of people when there's been the death of someone close to them. Sometimes It was the death of their grandparent or their own sibling when they were very young. And I'll ask the question very tenderly, "Do you know where that person is buried?" If they were, had a funeral and were buried. "Well, yeah." "Have you been back, sometimes 25 years later, have you ever been back to that cemetery? Just a place to go and remember." And often it'll be, "No, I've not been back there." And I'll say, "Well, you could give yourself permission to literally go back and to go find, even if it's 10 hours away one day, to that cemetery and remember. And you could also pull out a picture of a loved one and say, 'I just wanna sit for a moment,' and maybe I weep, maybe I smile or laugh and think about some good times." And again, journaling would be very helpful for you to journal and remember that person. JIM: Big, big important here, be gracious and patient with yourself because the prepositions matter, and you are getting through this grieving process, and one size does not fit all. Hope something there will be helpful to you, and I know that your words are very important. You will be honoring the person who has died, and you'll be also honoring yourself.