How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back! She said not to me but to the chaplain, 'I am at peace with God.' She smiled, but not at me. Poi si torno all' eterna fontana.

[Death] is a safety-device because, once Man has fallen, natural immortality would be the one utterly hopeless destiny for him.

Tears can be good. They can cleanse us form our misery.

Viruses were evil incarnate that added to the world's suffering and created useless deaths.

Oh! The second Eden will be far better than the first! In the first Eden the door was not shut; our joy was just for a moment. But blessed be God, in the second Eden the Lord will shut us in.

When sin entered the world, it broke the goodness of God's design. And sin absolutely breaks God's heart. But in no way did sin affect the goodness of God. He has a plan, a good plan to rid this world of every effect of sin.

All I have to do is stand at the gravesite of my sister who died way too young and in way too much pain to be reminded that none of this is easy or tidy. Some things won't be fixed on this side of eternity; they just have to be walked through.

Memories are both our greatest treasures and our greatest sorrows.

The piercing angst of disappointment in everything on this side of eternity creates a discontent with this world and pushes us to long for God Himself—and for the place where we will finally walk in the garden with Him again.

In Heaven, it is always Autumn.

Grief is a form of validation; it says the wound mattered. It mattered. You mattered.

Lest we despair, God has given us a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT) and to be specific, it includes the restoration of every precious day of our lives. Heaven is not a memory wipe. it is the time and capacity to truly relish the story of our lives, to see the hand of God in it all (how many times angels rescued you), to be vindicated, and even rewarded.