Honoring My Mother: 1930 – 2021

            Yes, this is a eulogy. It was all in God’s blessed timing. However, I hope that you find many things within it to stir up your thanksgiving…

            The fifth of the Ten Commandments reads in the Amplified Bible:

“Honor (respect, obey, care for) your father and your mother, so that your days may be prolonged…” Ex. 20:12

            It is the only commandment of the Ten, with a promise attached – one of a life filled with God’s presence and favor. It is repeated ten more times throughout the Bible (see Lv. 19:3; Dt. 5:16; Mt. 15:4 & 19:19; Mk. 7:10 & 10:19; Lk. 18:20; Eph. 6:2 & 3; 1 Tim. 5:4).

            Indeed, the Old Testament punishment for not doing so, was death (Lv. 20:9; Ex. 21:17). So, God is definitely serious about this.

            This is a commandment of love. Regardless of who your parents may be, God saw fit in His grand design to use them to create you. There was something special in that combined gene pool, that He used to make you the unique and the special ‘you’ that you are.

            It can go even beyond that. Even if you don’t know who your birth parents may be, you can still love and honor your adoptive parents, or whoever selflessly and lovingly stepped into that role for you.

            Let’s say your parents or parental figures succumbed to the darker ways of the world, so that they were no longer safe to be around. Pray for them and love them (from a distance) for who God intended them to be.

            Some people seem to be harder to love than others. Why is that so? The source of these discrepancies began in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve capitulated to their pride, and denied the truth of God.

            They wanted to be more than how God made them, not realizing that they were already perfect. The enemy had planted the seed in their heads that they were lacking something. Because of their contention with God, they severed their relationship with Him.

            It was the beginning of all human suffering at the hands of themselves. Humankind shifted their relationship with God from one of love, to one based upon fear and shame – believing in a lie that they made up, one that said they are not good enough and unlovable.

            Even today, most people are still fighting that battle in their heads. My whole point here, is that we must give all the people around us some compassionate slack, for their ways of trying to navigate life, with the tools that they have.

            Who are we to judge? We’re all infected with a little of this. What is our real job on this Earth? Jesus tells us:

“You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”   Mt. 22:37 – 39. NLT

            Your neighbor is anyone who is not you. Our job is to facilitate the best and highest good for others. 

            Yet, we can lovingly look at the quirks of others, (mostly shaped from their childhood experiences), and mine the diamonds of wisdom within. Let’s take Mom for example:

1. She was not warm and fuzzy – a lesson that she learned from her parents. The take-away, is to learn to accept the way people can love. It doesn’t have to be in the form that we think it should be.
2. Mom was not very social, not uncommon in one who is the only child. The message is to meet people where they are at, and converse with them where they are comfortable.
3. She felt she needed a man to make her happy, but she wasn’t very wise in her choice of them. The gift of wisdom is that being happy, is a choice we can make at any time – with or without the company of others. Yet, if we like and love ourselves first, we will attract others of like kind.

I will be forever grateful for what my mother left me in those very important life lessons.  

Regardless of how anyone expresses their humanity, God loves everyone unconditionally. How long has He been loving us?

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Eph. 1:3-5. NLT

            God has a plan, an eternal plan for all those who choose Him. He chose you before the universe ever existed. And He loved you even then:

We love, because He first loved us. 1 Jn. 4:19 AMP

            I’m believing Mom chose God. When she was still in her right mind, she was baptized, and I shared Bible studies with her for about 3 years, when she was still able to comprehend. Whatever she did when she could not, God has dropped the charges.

            How much does God love you? Enough to make you in His image (Gn. 1:27). Moreover, He watches over you your entire life, a life He has already planned out:

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. Ps. 139:16 NLT

            Everyone is created to be His child:

See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. 1 Jn. 3:1 NASB

“…even the hairs of your head have all been counted.” Mt. 10:30 CSB

            How precious we must be to God!

            Yet, He knew that we would be tainted by the sin of Adam and Eve, and those of our own doing. Out of His great love for us, He even made a provision for our salvation from those transgressions, so that we may return and remain by His side on Earth and for eternity:

“For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn the world [that is, to initiate the final judgment of the world], but that the world might be saved through Him.” Jn. 3:16, 17. AMP

            Yes, it was the sacrifice of Jesus at the behest of His Father, which Christ willingly submitted to, that opened the door to eternity…

            So, we are gathered here to honor Irene. We naturally will experience grief, but hopefully it will be short-lived, once we get a real grip on what happens in death.

            If we’ve chosen God, through Christ, we will be guided towards His perfect goodness, and He will perfect us at the end of time, into an infinite transformation:

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord – who is the Spirit – makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. 2 Cor. 3:18 NLT

            We are composed of a spirit, soul, and flesh. Our spirit is a piece of God’s Spirit and connects us to Him, as well as bringing life to our flesh. The soul is created by God, unique to each person, that determines ‘who’ we are. It is in union with our body as long as the body lives:

And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul… 1 Cor. 15:45 KJV

            Jehovah has a great ending / beginning for us:

For surely there is a hereafter, and your hope will not be cut off. Pr. 23:18 NKJV

…the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth. Eccl. 7:1 CSB

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints. Ps. 116:15 NKJV

            It’s a happy ending, that manifests as your eternal life, in an immortal soul, nesting in God’s fullness in all things.

            You see, our bodies decay to dust. At the end of time, the resurrection power of God reunites our same soul with a newly transformed body, a body made for eternity:

So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body…and this mortal body must be clothed in immortality. 1 Cor. 15:42 – 44 & 53.

CSB

            Then, we will be placed in our heavenly destinations, prepared for us by none other than Christ Himself:

“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and I will take you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also.” Jn. 14:2, 3. AMP

            We all get to be reunited with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we get to have a big party in all new surroundings:

“Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore. Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation! Is. 65:17, 18. NLT

In Jerusalem, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat. Is. 25:6 NLT

            Mom will love that. Me too.

            Our afterlife will be everything that we could have wanted and more:

“They will never again be hungry or thirsty; they will never be scorched by the heat of the sun. For the Lamb on the throne will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” Rv. 7:16, 17.

“He will swallow up death forever! The Sovereign LORD will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery against his land and people. The LORD has spoken.

In that day the people will proclaim, “This is our God! We trusted in him, and he saved us! This is the LORD, in whom we trusted. Let us rejoice in the salvation he brings!” Is. 25:8, 9. NLT

            When you are right with God, there is no reason to be afraid of death. Today, is a celebration of Mom’s liberation from the prison of her corruptible mind.

            Death and dying are two different things. Children of God pass through death. Those that aren’t, die forever.

            Allow me to end this service with a quote from Augustine of Hippo:

Thus, by the unutterable mercy of God, even the very punishment of wickedness has become the armor of virtue, and the penalty of the sinner becomes the reward of the righteous. For then death was incurred by sinning, now righteousness is fulfilled by dying.

Not that death, which was before an evil, has become something good, but only that God has granted to faith this grace, that death, which is the admitted opposite to life, should become the instrument by which life is reached.

            Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

            Goodnight and God Bless.