Grief & Loss
I need to know where she is right now. Not the theology, just: is she alright? What does the Bible actually say about this?
“For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:”
Job says this from the ash heap, in the middle of the worst argument of his life, having lost his children and his health: he insists there is someone alive who will stand up for him, and that he will see God himself. It is not a serene statement. It is a man holding onto something he cannot prove while everything visible contradicts it. Scripture's oldest hope is spoken from your exact position.
“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
Paul writes to Corinth about the body as a temporary tent, and says he would rather be away from it and at home with the Lord. He is not detailed and he does not speculate. The entire weight of the sentence rests on one small word: with. Scripture says considerably less about the geography of the afterlife than it does about the company.
A path forward
Read 1 Corinthians 15 slowly, in one sitting. It is the longest sustained answer the New Testament gives to precisely the question you are asking.
Take the questions Scripture does not answer to God in prayer instead of to the internet at midnight. Some of them will not close, and he can hold them.
Ask your pastor to sit down and go through what the Bible does and does not say. Half remembered funeral phrases cause far more distress than plain teaching does.
Closing verse
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
- 1 Corinthians 15:55
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