You haven't lost anything when you know were it is. Death can

“You haven’t lost anything when you know where it is. Death can hide but not divide.” Thus spoke Vance Havner, the preacher and prophet of simple truths, whose words pierce the fog of sorrow like a beam of eternal light. In this saying, Havner touches the deepest ache of the human heart — the pain of loss, of parting, of watching the ones we love pass beyond the veil of sight. Yet he answers grief not with despair, but with faith. For to him, death is not destruction, but disguise; not an ending, but a separation of appearance, where the essence of love and the soul’s bond remain untouched. What is lost to the eyes may still be known to the heart.

Vance Havner, born in the early years of the twentieth century, was a preacher whose sermons carried both the simplicity of a shepherd and the strength of a prophet. He had known grief personally — his beloved wife, Sarah, passed before him, and it was through that valley of shadow that this truth was forged. When he wrote, “Death can hide but not divide,” it was not from the safety of theory, but from the furnace of loss. It was the voice of a man who had felt death’s cold silence, yet discovered within it the quiet whisper of eternity. His faith taught him that love, born of God, cannot perish — it only changes form. For the grave is not a wall but a curtain, and those beyond it wait not as strangers, but as kin unseen.

The meaning of Havner’s words is both tender and profound. When he says, “You haven’t lost anything when you know where it is,” he reminds us that to “lose” implies ignorance, a disappearance into nothingness. But if one knows the destination — if one believes that the departed soul rests in the keeping of God, then the separation is temporary, not eternal. To the believer, the soul’s home is not the earth but heaven, and death is but the passage homeward. Thus, there is no true loss, only waiting — waiting with hope, until time and eternity meet and the hidden is revealed once more.

This truth has echoed through the hearts of countless souls across history. Consider the story of C.S. Lewis, who, after the death of his beloved wife, Joy Davidman, wrote in his grief, “Her absence is like the sky — spread over everything.” Yet even in his pain, Lewis came to understand what Havner declared: that love does not die when the body falls to dust. In time, he found peace in the assurance that their souls, bound in divine purpose, were not divided. Death had hidden her from his sight, but not from his destiny. In this way, both men — Havner and Lewis — learned that the heart’s memory and the soul’s promise are stronger than the grave’s shadow.

The ancients, too, knew this truth well. The Stoics spoke of the soul’s return to the cosmos, of reunion in the order of creation; the Christians spoke of resurrection and eternal life; the poets of every age wrote that love endures beyond the tomb. Even Jesus, standing before the tomb of Lazarus, declared through his tears, “He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies.” In that moment, death was unmasked — not as a destroyer, but as a veil. It could hide the body but never divide the spirit. To live in this awareness is to see death not as a thief but as a messenger, leading us toward reunion in the realm of the everlasting.

In Havner’s words, there is also a call to faithful perspective. For grief, though natural, can cloud the eyes of the soul, making it forget that the story continues beyond our sight. To know “where they are” — to know that the departed dwell in the mercy of God — is to shift one’s sorrow into hope. The pain remains, but it is sanctified; the tears still fall, but they water the soil of faith. When we remember that death hides but does not divide, we learn to carry our loved ones not as memories that fade, but as companions unseen who walk beside us in spirit until we meet again.

So, my child, take this teaching into your heart: you have not lost what you love, if love is anchored in eternity. Let your mourning be gentle, not despairing; let your faith be steadfast, not shaken. When death visits your life, do not call it loss, but distance — and remember that distance can be crossed. Live with the assurance that the ties of love, woven by God Himself, are unbreakable. The grave may hide faces and silence voices, but it cannot sever the bonds of the soul. Therefore, walk onward with courage, for those who are gone before you have not vanished — they have only gone ahead. And when your journey is done, you too shall find them waiting, whole and radiant, in the country where there is no death — where nothing is lost, and everything is found.