“Abigail loved Christ with all her heart, and we know that she is with him now,” he posted Wednesday. “While we are left here in grief and sorrow, we cling to Christ’s promises that Abigail is now where he has wiped away every tear and where there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.”

Two days before she went missing, 17-year-old Abigail Bonner sat down with the director of the Home Place, a personal care facility in Madison where she’d volunteered for three years.

“She had gone with the choir on a trip that day, and that Thursday afternoon after they got back, I talked with her,” Lucille Nichols remembered. “We talked about her music, and I said, ‘Oh, you have to keep that up.’

“She said, ‘Oh, I’d love to go to New York and study.’ There was not an indication of anything wrong.”

The home’s 100 residents, she said, remain distraught after news Wednesday that a body found Tuesday steps from Madison Upper Elementary School was that of Bonner, 17, who disappeared from her Madison residence Aug. 3.

“We’re so shocked. It’s been like a void here. Everyone is moping around. We are so lonely for her,” Nichols said.

“Abigail was an important part of our choir,” Nichols said. “She sang beautifully, and she was exceptionally talented. She was our leading soloist.

“She went on choir trips with the residents, and she visited all of them. Everyone knew her and loved her because she was so sweet. … A darling girl. Very shy, but a sweet smile.”

Bonner, who was home-schooled, also enjoyed playing the piano. In addition to having a giving spirit and talent for working with the elderly, she was a deeply religious young woman, her family says.

It’s that faith they hope will carry them through the tragedy of her death.

“Our pain is intense, but the love of God has been greater,” Abigail’s father, Lance Bonner of Madison, wrote Wednesday on his Facebook page hours after he, wife Rachel and other family members received confirmation from Madison police that the body found in woods off Rice Road and Madison Avenue was the teen’s.

“We are grieved beyond words. We could never have been prepared for this,” Lance Bonner wrote. “However, our Lord Jesus has prepared us for it. He is sustaining us. … The love of fellow believers in Christ has been a joy to see and a comfort to us.”

Abigail Bonner also sang in the student choir at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, said the church’s pastor, the Rev. J. Ligon Duncan. In the spring, she and fellow choir members traveled to New York City to perform.