Chapter 6

"Are They Okay?" — The Question Behind Every Grief

The father sits in his daughter's bedroom three weeks after she died at twenty-six. He has not changed anything. The bed is still made the way she left it. A green sweater hangs on the back of the chair. On the dresser there is a stuffed bear she had since she was four. He is staring at the bear. He has been staring at it for almost an hour.

When the pastor knocks softly and steps in, the father does not stand up. He does not even turn his head at first. The pastor sits down on the edge of the bed. They do not speak. After a long while, the father turns and looks at him. His eyes are red. His face is exhausted. He has the look of a man who has not slept in three weeks.

He has many questions he could ask. He could ask why God allowed it. He could ask whether he should have noticed something sooner. He could ask whether he will ever feel anything again besides this hollow weight in his chest.

But he asks only one question. The pastor will remember the way he asks it for the rest of his ministry. The father's voice is small and tight, almost a whisper.

"Pastor — is she okay?"

1. Honor the Question

Before we say anything, we have to honor the question itself.

"Are they okay?" is not a small question. It is not a polite question. It is not the question of a tidy churchgoer who wants a Bible verse to settle a quiet curiosity. It is the master question of grief. Every other question — Where are they? Can they hear me? Will I see them again? Did they suffer at the end? Did they die alone? Were they afraid? — is a small piece of that one big question. Are they okay?²

If you are reading this and you have not yet asked that question out loud, do not feel ashamed. Some grievers cannot get the words out for a long time. The question is too big. They are afraid the answer might be no. They are afraid the pastor or the friend will give them a thin answer that breaks them further. So they hold the question silently and stare at a stuffed bear.

The first thing a careful pastor or a faithful friend does with this question is honor it. We do not deflect. We do not say, "Oh, you don't need to worry about that." We do not rush to a verse. We do not say, "Well, only God really knows," and call that humility. We sit with the question. We let it be heavy. We let the griever feel that we, too, take this question with the weight it deserves.³

And then, after we have honored it, we answer it. Because the question deserves an answer. And by God's mercy, we have one.

2. The Biblical Answer for Those Who Died in Christ

If your loved one trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, the Bible's answer to "Are they okay?" is not a hopeful guess. It is not a vague comfort. It is a confident, repeated, multi-witnessed promise: yes. They are okay. More than okay. They are home.

The apostle Paul writes:

That word picture is the heart of the Christian answer. To be "away from the body" is not to be away from self. It is to be away from this tent of flesh that aches and ages and finally fails. And the very moment the believer leaves the body, the believer is "at home with the Lord." Not asleep. Not in a holding pattern. Not in some unconscious storage room of the universe. At home. With Jesus.⁵

Paul says it again in Philippians: "My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" (Philippians 1:23, ESV). Three states. Living in the body and serving Christ here. Living in the body in heaven (he is not yet thinking of resurrection here). And, in between, departing and being with Christ. That third state — what theologians call the "intermediate state" — is "far better" than fruitful earthly life. That is staggering. (We worked through these passages carefully in Chapter 2; here it is enough to remember what they say.)⁶

So when the pastor sits on the bed in that quiet bedroom and the father whispers, "Is she okay?" — and we know she trusted Jesus — the pastor has Scripture's permission to say this:

"Yes. She is with the Lord. Right now. She is conscious. She is herself. She is at peace. Her body is here, in the ground. But she — the part of her that loved you and laughed with you and called you Daddy — she is with Jesus."

That is not pious wishing. That is the apostolic word. We can say it tenderly, but we can say it with confidence.

3. What the NDE Evidence Adds — A Preview

Most grieving Christians have heard verses like 2 Corinthians 5:8 in Sunday school. What many of them have not heard is that, beyond Scripture's primary witness, there are now thousands of carefully studied accounts from people who came right up to the threshold of death and were sent back. We will look at these accounts in detail in later chapters. Here I want only to preview the convergence — to show you that the picture Scripture paints is matched by the testimony of those who have stood at the door.⁷

Consider three brief examples.

Pam Reynolds. In 1991, Pam underwent a rare procedure called "standstill" surgery to remove an aneurysm at the base of her brain. Her body temperature was dropped, her heart was stopped, her brain waves were flattened, and the blood was drained from her head. By every clinical measure, she was dead. During this period she had a deeply detailed near-death experience, including verifiable observations of the surgical instruments and conversations in the operating room. The cardiologist who studied her case, Michael Sabom, found her observations "uncannily accurate."⁸ We unpack her case more fully in Chapter 4.

Vicki Umipeg. Vicki was born blind. She had never seen anything, not even in dreams. After a car accident, she had a near-death experience in which, for the first time in her life, she saw — saw the hospital below her, saw her own body on the table, saw deceased friends, and saw a figure she immediately recognized as Jesus. She described his appearance in detail. Researchers Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper studied her case (and many other blind NDErs) and concluded that her observations could not be explained by sensory perception or by a functioning visual cortex.⁹

Eben Alexander. Dr. Alexander is a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon. In 2008 a rare bacterial meningitis shut down his neocortex — the part of the brain that produces conscious thought. According to his medical training, no experience of any kind should have been possible. Instead he had what he calls a profoundly real journey. Before his illness he had dismissed his patients' near-death stories as pure fantasy; afterward he could no longer deny that something is at work in those reports that medicine cannot explain.¹⁰

I do not cite these cases as Scripture. They are not Scripture. But across thousands of NDE accounts now collected in peer-reviewed studies, certain features keep showing up: deep peace, freedom from pain, full and clear awareness, the presence of Christ or a being of overwhelming love, reunion with deceased loved ones. In Jeffrey Long's large NDERF database, more than three out of four experiencers reported "incredible peace or pleasantness."¹¹ That is not what people make up for fun. That is what they testify to when they came as close to dying as a human can come and live.

4. What the Deathbed Evidence Adds

If NDEs are reports from those who came near the door, deathbed experiences (DBEs) are reports from those who walked right up to it. We met them briefly in Chapter 5. Here I want to underline only one finding.

In a major study at Hospice Buffalo, Dr. Christopher Kerr and his team interviewed dying patients about their end-of-life experiences. They found that 88.1 percent of patients reported at least one meaningful end-of-life dream or vision in the final days. Most of these visions involved being met by deceased loved ones. Most were described as deeply comforting. Most were experienced by patients who were lucid and oriented, not delirious or sedated.¹²

That convergence matters. It does not replace Scripture. Scripture is and remains our final authority. But it does mean that when a grieving father whispers, "Is she okay?" we are not standing on a single thin verse. We are standing on the apostolic witness, and on the consistent testimony of those who have come to the threshold and been turned back, and on the testimony of dying patients across cultures who have seen things at the end that the doctrine of materialism cannot account for.

5. Where the Evidence Converges — and What It Says

So what does this convergence say about the father's question? Five things.

First, your loved one is not unconscious. Scripture treats death not as a blackout but as a homegoing.¹⁴ NDE accounts describe heightened awareness, often clearer than normal waking consciousness. DBEs document patients in the final hours having organized, meaningful, lucid encounters. Whatever death is, it is not the lights going out.

Second, your loved one is not alone. The biblical picture is that Jesus Himself receives His own (Luke 23:43; Acts 7:55–56, the latter discussed in Chapter 10). NDE accounts describe being met. DBE accounts describe being welcomed by deceased relatives and, often, by a figure recognized as Christ.

Third, your loved one is not afraid. Peace is the most common single descriptor in the entire NDE literature.¹⁵ Peace is also overwhelmingly the dominant emotion in deathbed visions in the hospice studies. Whatever fear they carried in life, that fear has been answered.

Fourth, your loved one is not in pain. The body that was dying is gone. The pain that came with the body is gone with it.

Fifth, your loved one is themselves. They have not been absorbed into a cloud of light. They have not lost their personality. They have not become someone unrecognizable. Across the literature, experiencers describe deceased loved ones as fully themselves — sometimes more themselves than they were in this life. This matches the biblical pattern: at the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah were recognized; in Paradise, the dying thief is welcomed by Jesus as him (Luke 23:43; cross-reference Chapter 7 on reunion and Chapter 34 on recognition).¹⁶

6. Honest Limits — What the Evidence Does Not Tell Us

Pastoral honesty requires that we name the limits of what we know.

The Bible does not give us a complete travelogue of the intermediate state. We are told the believer is with Christ. We are told it is "far better." We are told there is peace and conscious presence. We are not told the precise geography. We are not told the exact timeline as it feels from inside. We are not told whether or how our loved ones can perceive what we are doing here, and any honest pastor will admit that the question of whether the departed "watch over" us simply does not get a clean biblical answer (we revisit this carefully in Chapter 24).¹⁷

And the NDE and DBE literature, however large, is not Scripture. It contains contradictions. Some accounts include features that conflict with biblical teaching. Some accounts come from people whose theological framework I would not endorse at all. We do not flatten the witness to Scripture. We weigh it. We discern. We give the most weight to the patterns that show up across thousands of cases, especially when those patterns line up with what the Bible already says.¹⁸

Here is the line we walk: we say everything Scripture says, and we do not say less than Scripture says. We notice the corroborating witnesses, and we do not say more than they warrant. We honor the question. We give the answer. We do not invent the parts the Bible has not told us.

7. Pastoral Framing: What to Tell the Father

So back to the bedroom. Back to the stuffed bear. Back to the question.

The pastor — who has read his Bible carefully, and who has read the research humbly — can sit on that bed and answer.

"She is okay. More than okay. Her body is here. We will lay it to rest with reverence, because it was real and it was hers and it will be raised one day. But she — the part of her that loved you, that called you on the way home from work, that hugged you at her graduation — she is with Jesus right now. She is awake. She is herself. She is at peace. She is loved. She is not afraid. And one day, when your own race is run, you will see her again. The Bible promises it. And the testimony of countless people who have stood at the threshold tells us the same thing the Bible has always said."

That is not platitude. That is the gospel speaking to grief. That is the Christian answer to the master question of every grieving heart.

If you are the one with the question right now — if you are the father, or the mother, or the widow, or the friend — hear it again. They are okay. If they trusted Christ, the One who held them all the way through this life is holding them now. The arms that bore the nails are the arms that received them. They are not lost. They are not gone. They are home.

For Your Reflection

1. What have you been told, by friends or church or culture, about where your loved one is right now? How does that compare to what this chapter has said?

2. What is the question behind your question? When you ask, "Are they okay?" — what are you most afraid the answer might be?

3. What would it change in your grief, today, if you could rest in the conviction that your loved one is conscious, at peace, and with Christ?

4. Which part of the answer is hardest for you to receive — that they are themselves, that they are unafraid, that they are with Jesus, or something else?

5. Where do you feel pulled to want more than Scripture promises — and what would it look like to rest, instead, in what Scripture actually says?

6. If you could speak one sentence to your loved one right now, what would it be? Sit quietly with that sentence in the presence of the Lord.

7. Who in your life is grieving and would be helped by hearing the answer this chapter gives? Could you read this chapter with them?

For Pastors and Caregivers

Key pastoral observation. When a grieving person asks, "Are they okay?" they almost always mean two things at once. They mean, "Are they suffering?" and they mean, "Are they saved?" Distinguish the two gently. The first is, for the believer, almost always answerable with a confident no — they are not suffering; they are with Christ. The second sometimes requires more careful conversation (Chapter 13 and Chapter 19 walk through unclear cases). When you cannot give a confident answer to the second, you can almost always give a confident answer to the first about every Christian believer they have lost. Most grievers have rarely been told the answer in those terms, and it lands like water on dry ground.

What to say. "Yes — and let me tell you why we have grounds to say that." "Your wife is with the Lord right now. Not asleep. Not waiting in some unconscious holding place. With Him. Conscious. At peace. Herself." "You will see her again. The Bible promises that, and so does the witness of people who have stood at the threshold and come back."

What NOT to say. "Only God really knows." (True in a sense, but pastorally a closed door — Scripture has spoken.) "We just have to trust." (Trust what?) "He's in a better place." (Vague and tired.) "She's an angel now." (Theologically wrong; humans do not become angels.) "God needed another flower in His garden." (No, He did not.) Each of these well-meant lines withholds from the bereaved the specific, biblically grounded answer they are aching for.

Watch-outs. First, do not give the confident "yes" answer if the deceased's faith was genuinely unclear. That conversation belongs to Chapter 13 and Chapter 19. Misapplied confidence becomes a wound when the family later begins to doubt the basis on which it was offered. Second, do not let your own discomfort with NDE or DBE research keep you from at least mentioning the convergence. Many grievers find enormous comfort in knowing that the answer to "Are they okay?" rests on more than a single proof text. Third, do not overclaim what the corroborating witnesses say. Steer clear of detailed afterlife geography, of speculation about timelines, and of confident assertions about what the deceased can perceive of us. Stay close to the simple things: present with Christ, at peace, themselves, unafraid. Fourth, watch your face and your tone as much as your words. A confident yes delivered tentatively will not land. A confident yes delivered in a hurry can feel dismissive. The sentence has to be slow enough that the griever can lean against it.

Next steps. Walk the bereaved person to the actual texts — open the Bible, read 2 Corinthians 5:6–8 and Philippians 1:21–23 with them, and let the words land. Leave a written note with three or four sentences they can hold onto on the worst nights ("Your daughter is with the Lord. She is at peace. She is herself. You will see her again."). Return in a week. The question they could barely whisper today they may want to ask again, in different words, when the first numbness wears off and the long grief begins.

For Further Reading

Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Tyndale, 2004) — a comprehensive, biblically grounded survey of what Scripture says about both the intermediate state and the new creation; useful as a follow-up gift to grievers wanting more.

John Burke, Imagine Heaven (Baker, 2015) — the most accessible Christian engagement with NDE research, surveying hundreds of accounts and showing their convergence with biblical teaching.

Jeffrey Long with Paul Perry, Evidence of the Afterlife (HarperOne, 2010) — a medical doctor's analysis of the NDERF database; lays out the consistency of the peace-and-presence pattern across thousands of cases.

Christopher Kerr with Carine Mardorossian, Death Is But a Dream (Avery, 2020) — the Hospice Buffalo physician's account of what dying patients consistently report, written for a general audience.

Nancy Guthrie, Holding On to Hope (Tyndale, 2002) — a tender pastoral companion for the early days of grief; not focused on NDE research but a warm anchor for the bereaved heart.