Eulogy Christine Walker

Christine Thomas

On a warm summer day, on the fifth of August in the year 1948, God gave Sarah and Briddock, a beautiful little girl, whose heart would grow to touch the lives of many. She and her sister Rebekah must have been a joy in Sarah and Briddock lives, because they went on to have 8 more children.

God creates some people who are to become very important in the world, and God creates some people who to be very special in the world. Now some would say it is better to be important than to be special, but I think when we come to the end of our days, we’re not looking back to see how important we were, but rather were we special in the lives of others. I want you to know that Christine was special in the lives of others.

When death is staring at us in the face, we do not usually take great pride in our degree from Harvard or Yale or in our position as executive vice president, nearly as much as we do from a child saying I love so much because of all that you did for me and I’m going to miss you. Christine Thomas was not created to be somebody important whose name would cover the country and the globe at large, but I’ve heard several testimonies of how few people have been more special in the way that she has touched the lives of others.

When we asked the family members to give some one or two word descriptions of Christine to let you know something about her, we heard the words, beautiful, caring, precious, very humble, sophisticated, Christian, lover of people, giver, professional, fashionable and good looking.

One of the things that made Christine incredibly special was the enormous amount of support and encouragement that she gave to those around her. She knew what it was like to carry and enormous personal burden in life, and yet managed to smile and cheer those around her. She was a woman who looked beyond her suffering to find someway to brighten somebody else’s day. She was an incredible special woman.

But nothing that happened to Christine surprised God because God was active in Christine, long before Christine became active in God. For the Scripture tells us in Psalm 139:13-16

[13] For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. [14] I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. [15] My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, [16] your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

God knew that Christine was going to be special from the moment she entered the world because He intended for her to be special. But God also knew that he had ordained a specific number of days for her to live, and that he fully expected her to return to Him.

We on the other hand, simply take it for granted way to often that we will always have each other around, and we fail to appreciate the incredible special people that God places in our lives. We even make the mistake of thinking that we ourselves have an indefinite number of days ahead of us that we can control and determine, but I can tell you with certainty, unless Jesus comes first, we shall all surely die and in times and methods not of our own choosing.

Christine was blessed, because she recognized that death is a certain reality for all of us and it can hit us at any moment. The Scriptures tell us that there is a way that seems right to a person, but at the end of it is death. If we are all living in order that we might some day die, then we should do a reality check to find out if we’re going to be prepared when we get to our final destination.

If we’re living simply for status, money, degrees or fame, keep in mind none of these things go out with us when we leave this world. They may make you important, but they won’t make special. Our money will be left in the bank, our degrees will hang on a wall, our fame will be forgotten, and our status will not impress Jesus who is the ultimate Judge of everything.

Let’s take a moment and look back over the life of Christine Thomas to see how to avoid living in vain and discover why we can thank God for her.

Her mom remembers her as little girl with a whole lot of determination. When she set her mind out to do something, look out world because this little black girl was going to do it. Her ambition for life showed itself early in that she was a good helper around the house. She was an excellent student in school that didn’t mind studying. She was very neat, and she always did her best to look good. She had a positive self esteem, and a can do spirit, that lifted her above many of her peers.