A Prayer About Life

When a loved one dies

DIVINE COMFORTER,

I feel like Martha at the tomb of her brother, Lazarus. I know death comes to everyone, but that knowledge doesn’t ease the pain when I lose someone I care about. When an older person dies, we think, She [or he] lived a good, long life, as though that fact will somehow soften our grief. But that also doesn’t help. At the news of death and then the funeral, I mourn the loss of all that person was and meant to others, especially me. I also mourn my own mortality, knowing that one day I will have to leave behind everyone and everything I have ever known. But we are in the land of the dying en route to the land of the living. That was Jesus’ message to the grieving sisters. The reality of eternal life with you after death is the only remedy for my grief, the only hope for my time on earth. Thank you, Lord, for your comfort, your gift of eternal life, and your promise of heaven to come and a glorious reunion.

Jesus told [Martha], “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.” John 11:25-26