Eulogy Edna White

Edna White Rick Gillespie-Mobley

Edna White 5

While the powers that be had decided that the World was to go to war in 1914, 63 days after the nations declared war on each other, on October 6th, God had decided to send a gift of hope into the world. That hope came through the birth of little Edna. 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 White 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, 820 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. But even before Jesus Christ conquered death by rising from the dead, God saw death in a different light.

From God’s perspective, death could be rendered completely powerless depending on who was doing the dying. The word of God says in Psalms 116:15 "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints." This means that late Thursday evening as the clocked approached midnight on May 17th, 2oo7 Edna White, brought joy in a special way to the heart of God.

What was it about her that moved the heart of God? What was it about her, that moved our hearts, when we discovered that she was now waiting for our arrival in heaven? What was it about her that causes us to celebrate this Morning?

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 Edna White was a servant and a child of the Most High God and a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The actual date of Edna’s 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 cease 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 through Glenville on February 14, 1971 when she became a member.

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 White, the dominant verse which comes up again and again comes from Jesus when he said, “Greater love has no one than this, but that he lay down his life for his friend.”

Sister White lived a life which said, “it’s not all about me, but rather about helping someone else to make it through life’s journey.” One thread that wove its way through her life was her spirit of giving and generosity. She did not always have much, but she always had a big heart ready to share what she had. She blessed so many people, that she has left a trail of people claiming that he or she was obviously her favorite.

How does a person go about denying himself or herself to follow Jesus? It begins with the realization that there is more to life than what we can see around us. We were created to follow God’s purposes and not our own. It continues with the understanding that everyday, all of us are making choices for our lives that affect us and others. Not only are choices being made, the word of God tells us that a record is being kept of every decision that we make, and that one day we will give an account to God for those decisions.