A Mother's Pain

Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God and your God. John 20:17b (KJV)

I sat in the car holding tightly to the box that held the blue, cold urn containing my son's ashes. I thought about the mother of Jesus, holding her Son's dead, cold body in her arms. She was wracked with the pain of loss. I felt the depth of her pain. Mary hardly saw her Son those three and a half years He ministered in the streets, preaching the Kingdom. I had not seen my son for twelve years. I longed to hold him just once more before he died, but it was not to be.

God raised His Son to the heights of heaven where He reigns with Him today. I raised my son to the top of my china cabinet where he will be until my husband or I expire. His ashes will be put in one of our caskets to be buried with one of us someday.

At John 11:25 Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

I know that in the resurrection, God can take my son's ashes and build a new, perfect body, to live again in a world cleansed from all sin. My hope is to be there with all of my family.

I once held my warm, wiggly baby boy in my arms. Now I hold him again in a cold, still urn.

Father, I pray that my son's soul ascended to You and that he was forgiven of his trespasses so that he might live with You forever, surrounded by Your love. Amen

(c) E. Bonnie Ryan