Eulogy Adleline Baskerville

Rick Gillespie-Mobley

Eulogy 3/25/2013 Adeline Baskerville

God had planned a wonderful gift to be sent into the world on May 19th, 1921 into the arms of Edward Hayden and Estelle Gardener. That precious gift took the form of a beautiful little black girl by the name of Adeline. When she arrived God set back and smiled, because God knew that she would do, what He was sending her to do. And God recently smiled again when Adeline returned home to Him, because the Bible says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

Although the Scriptures tell us that the average of our days would be three score and 10 or four score if by reason of strength which comes out to 70 or 80 years. Sister Baskerville received more years in which to be a blessing to others than most of us are going to receive. The scriptures teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom. If we number her days, we find that God gave her just over 33,300 days to carry out His plan for her life. That was all she needed to get the job done.

Death first appeared in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. It was a frightening concept to them and has been for most of humankind ever since. Most people are afraid of dying, because they wonder what’s going to happen next. There is life after death, because Jesus died and God raised him from the dead. In so doing Jesus conquered death and prepared a place for all those who know him as Lord and Savior of their lives.

When Sister Baskerville died, she was not afraid of what was going to happen. She was even ready for it to happen, because she had a promise from Jesus. He told her and he tells us all, John 14:1-3 (NIV) 1 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

It’s good to do a homegoing service in which know where the person is. Sister Baskerville stepped out of the hospital, put her in hand in Jesus’s hand and she will continue on with the life she found when she gave her heart to Christ. That made her death precious in the sight of the Lord.

What was it about her life that moved the heart of God? What was it about her, that made her God’s gift to us and to the world.

She was more than a daughter, more than a wife, more than a mother, more than a relative, more than a good friend, and more than a strong independent Black woman who said what she meant and meant what she said. Brothers and sisters I submit to you this day, that Adeline Baskerville was a servant and a child of the Most High God and a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The actual date of Adeline Baskerville death is probably not written down in a record book that we can easily get our hands on, you see the date on the obituary refers to the date her body ceased to function. The real Edna, the part that lives forever, died a long time ago, when she heard of the call of Jesus Christ upon her life. We do know she made a commitment to serve Christ because she confessed Christ when she became a member of Calvary but her kids said as long as they remember, their mother was sharing with them about living for the Lord.

For she once again heard the call of Jesus saying, Jesus said, , "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a person if he or she gains the whole world, yet forfeits his or her soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his or her soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he or she has done.

Often times, when you look back over a person’s life you can see a theme of one of the principles of God’s word running through it. When I think of Sister Baskerville in meeting with some of her children, the dominant verse which theme which came up again and again came from a description of Jesus when the bible says of Jesus, he was moved with compassion.