By: David Coy
“There goes the only man I ever admired. He’s what every boy wants to be when he grows up, and what every old man wishes he had been.” (Tall Men). A mother’s love for a child knows no bounds. Thus, it is also fair to say a mother’s sorrow is of great depth also. What would you do if circumstances in a child’s life is a cause for great heartache for a parent? You can imagine a whole lot of crying and sleepless nights from a mother. People cry for a variety of reasons. We may cry when we are angry. We shed tears of joy. We all probably know someone who has cried happy tears at a wedding. We can more readily identify with tears of sadness. Remember King David’s cry of anguish over his son Absalom? He wept and wished that he had died in his stead. Can you not see it as you read John 19:25, Mary the mother of Jesus standing there looking up as Jesus hung upon the cross? What agony she must have felt knowing that her son, an innocent man, was to die! Has your child become the young adult you had envisioned or hoped they would become?
Have you ever had something unimaginable happen to your child? What if your child had been assaulted, physically or sexually? What if your child got mixed up with bad influences (1 Corinthians 15:33) and became addicted to drugs? I am told things of this or similar nature are more frequent than we realize in a family. Do we fervently raise our sons and daughters to be people of honor and conviction revering truth and integrity, or do we just casually raise them with no earnest plan or approach to their upbringing? I fear I am guilty of the latter. I wish I knew then what I know now.
