Mother's Day: Memorial Stones in the Butterfly Garden

Most churches have a variety of ministries.  Some require lots of human effort:  a soup kitchen or a food pantry, for example.  In my younger years, I'd have said that those ministries that helped people in distress were most important.  But in my later years, I've come to appreciate those ministries that are every bit as necessary, even if they're not the ones that non-believers think of, when they think of the usefulness of church.

Over the past decade, our church's front grassy area has slowly but surely been transformed into a butterfly garden.  Along the way, it's also become an area for memorial stones.

When my mother-in-law died in 2005, we were members of a different church.  We knew that she wanted to be cremated, but she hadn't specified what to do with her ashes.  She had talked about having a space in a garden in a Memphis funeral home where people could come visit, but that was prohibitively expensive.

Through the years, my spouse has felt that it was increasingly important for her to have a stone in our church's butterfly garden.  And yesterday, on Mother's Day, the stone was blessed and laid in the garden.  It's near the door that my spouse uses when he arrives for church or choir practice.

I know that many people share the sentiment of my spouse:  everyone deserves a stone to say that they were here and important.  I'm glad that our church can offer a beautiful space for those stones.