SYMPATHIES TO A GRIEVING FAMILY

   Sympathies go to Mrs. Ann Burrows, wife of Pastor Raymond D. Burrows (of Faith Temple Church, Taylors, SC), on the passing of her mother, Mrs. Vivian Butler. Sympathies also go to Mr. Bill Butler, husband of Mrs. Vivian, and to their children and mates and to extended family.

The loss of a mother’s support, guidance, and love can leave an emptiness and pain that might seem impossible to heal, even if her death was expected, someone said.  

Research shows the most common age range for losing a parent is 50 to 54 years old. 

I was almost 42 when my mother, Eva Fowler Crain, died at age 67. Mother contracted breast cancer at least seven years before it advanced to her bones. My family (Carol, Janelle, Suzanne, and I) lived in Kernersville, NC, when we visited Dad and Mom (J.B. and Eva Crain) in Greer, SC, in Feb. 1989. Mother, mustering her strength, sang an early “Happy Birthday” to Janelle. We drove back to NC; Dad soon called; he was at the hospital with Mom. Over the phone, I heard Mother’s “death rattle.” She died a day after Janelle’s 16th birthday. Mom’s funeral was at Faith Temple, burial in Hillcrest Memorial Gardens. Dad had a heart attack and died about fourmonths later.

After Mother’s death, Carol left the kitchen and found me as I worked in our garage in NC. 

“You haven’t cried much since your mother died,” Carol said, with a questioning sound in her voice. 

“I’m afraid if I start, I won’t stop,” I said, feeling moisture in my eyes.

“Grief is the price of love,” someone said.

Mrs. Ann demonstrated her love for her mother and her family by caring for them “above and beyond the call of duty.” She is going to grieve.

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted,” Jesus said (Matt. 5:4).  

In ancient Israel, folk were expressive. A loved one was usually buried on the day they died. A burial was “followed by a funeral procession and a 30-day mourning period with loud wailing and dramatic displays of grief,” someone said.

Jesus received word that Lazarus was sick in Bethany, the town of his sisters Mary and Martha.

The Mary mentioned is the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent to Jesus, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is sick.”

Jesus delayed going to Lazarus. When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been dead four days.

Mary met Jesus and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping that came with her, he groaned in the spirit, was troubled, and said, “Where have ye laid him?” They said, “Lord, come and see.”

Then “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

That verse, “Jesus wept,” is the shortest verse in the Bible. It says a lot about Jesus, who comforts us with this message: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).