Dr. Gary Habermas is a scholar with a Ph.D. who for more than thirty years has studied and written many books on the resurrection of Jesus. In 1995 his wife, Debbie, had the flu. When it didn’t go away she went for some medical tests. When she and her husband met with the physician he reported, “You’ve got some serious problems here.”  It was four months later at the age of 43 that Debbie Habermas died of stomach cancer. 

In coming to terms with his wife Debbie’s death, Gary Habermas moved beyond the historical and theoretical evidence of the resurrection that he had studied in his academic career. He imagined a conversation with God where, whenever he asked questions about Debbie’s cancer and coming death, God would say, “Gary, did I raise my son from the dead?”

“Of course you did, Lord,” he would respond, “But why is Debbie dying?”

“Gary, did I raise my son from the dead?”

“Yes, Lord, but…”

“Gary, did I raise my son from the dead?”

Gary Habermas says, “I imagined God repeating the same question until I got his point. There was an answer to Debbie’s suffering, even if I didn’t know it. If Jesus has been raised, then I can trust that Debbie will be raised too.”

The resurrection of Jesus is proof that God can raise the dead and it shows us what to expect for ourselves. Part of trusting in Jesus as our Savior from sin is trusting that we will someday be raised from the dead ourselves.