Janie Fox Funeral Series

Janie Fox Funeral

1. Memories

Memory is a sweet gift. The Bible speaks about God remembering people. As he remembers them, grace flows towards them. It was Nehemiah whose prayer is recorded at the close of his book in the OT. He prayed, "Oh, God, remember me for good." Remember the good things about my life.

When a loved one passes we are so often filled with memories. We see people sometimes that we have not seen for years. We look at pictures we have not seen in years. We remember things that we have not thought about for years. We cry. We laugh. It is bittersweet. I think if we could hear the voice of Sister Fox this morning she would be saying like Nehemiah, "Remember me for good and in loving memory, do the good things that I did..."

I saw the Foxes at a birthday party that we hosted at our church a couple of years ago for one of their granddaughters. It had been some time since we had seen one another and when I saw them, memories of my childhood began to flood my mind. Good memories. Then on a Sunday morning not too long ago, I was delighted when they showed up at our church to visit. It was like a family reunion.

My brother Joseph was there and he told me how he was standing there, no longer the tiny boy that he had been when we stayed Sunday afternoons and weeks out of the summer as children at the Fox's home in Pasadena. He was a full-grown man with the beard to prove it. He said that he was talking to Brother Fox and he told him she was there. So he stood in the aisle as Sister Fox walked in front of him. As he stood there looking down at her as she looked at him like he was a crazy man he said, "Are you going to give me a hug." She yelled "my baby" and hugged and kissed him like the father in Jesus's story of the prodigal son had when he returned home.

She knew how to love. The Bible tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love. And she loved everyone that she met well. The Fox's were members of the church that we attended as children. They used to live across the street from the church. It was in the church at Jacinto City that she received the baptism of the Spirit and was baptized. It was there that she worked hard and involved herself in the work of the Lord. It was there that she experienced the miracle-working power of the Lord in her own physical body. As she worked for God, she always did it with a smile. It was a labor of love.

When I was a child they returned to the church in Jacinto City and almost like clockwork my brother and I began spending time at their home. We were skinny and she was determined to fatten us up. She would feed us, and feed us, and make sure that we ate. Many people remember her cooking. He fajitas. The traveling dinners that our youth group would have annually during the Christmas holidays. The tamales that she made to sell for fundraisers. And it always seemed to involved young people. She had a heart that was big enough for every young person. She bore the fruit of love and her labor was a labor of love.

The Bible tells us that whatever our hand finds to do, we should do it with all of our might. And she did that. When I spoke to Brother Blackburn yesterday evening, he said she reminded him of the woman Rebecca in the book of Genesis. When Abraham sent the steward of his household to find a wife for his son Isaac, he met Rebecca at a water well herding sheep. When he asked her for a drink, she gave him a drink and then drew water and filled up the watering hole until the camels were watered as well. She made sure everyone had enough. That's how Sister Fox was. To her own family. To Lonnie. To Donald. To Laura. To her husband, the love of her life, who she met while they worked together at the rice factory. [No wonder Brother Fox cooked such amazing rice. :-)] She labored in love to make sure everyone had enough to eat. She cooked, she prepared, she served. All out of love, and with everything within her.

Remember her for good. You have memories with her that are all your own...

Yet, we do have questions.

2. Questions

We have questions, some of which we may never know the answers to, but we have precious memories, good memories. This is the hardest part of the human experience. Death is called by Scripture our enemy, the last enemy. There is this sense inside of us that this should not be, that we were meant to live forever. We do not understand. We are like Job whose story is filled with one question after another, one "Why?" after another.