Eulogy John Moffett Ii

John Carroll Moffett—Butch 2011

Did you know that God has seen everyone of your days before you ever came into existence. God knows exactly the number of days you have used up, and the number of days you have left. God is not bound by time, and today is as close to God as a thousand years ago was. One of the smartest thing that we can do is to remember, we all have a certain number of days to do the will of God for our lives. Nobody will be able to stand before God and truthfully say, “I didn’t have enough time.” John Carrol Moffett, better known as Butch, had enough time.

It all began on a honeymoon between John Moffett Jr. and Aileen Jones. Now many people go to places like Niagaga Falls for their honeymoon or to Hawaii, but not John and Aileen. They went to visit relatives. I think it had more to do with being poor than being in love with their relatives, but Aileen testified it was the best honeymoon they could have had. When they woke up in the morning, their family members had breakfast right outside the door waiting for them. They prepared their meals for them. They left them alone to just enjoy each other.

Enjoy each other they did, because while all this fun was going on, God had decided to turn them from being a newlywed couple of two, to a pregnant family of three. Little did they know than when their honeymoon came to end and they were saying goodbye to their family, they were taking home with them little John Carrol Moffett III inside the womb of Aileen Moffett. Little John was conceived on the honeymoon.

He made his arrival on a hot day in Knoxville, Tenn. on the 28th of in August in the year 1946. Since he had been conceived among family, he decided he may as well be born among family, and so he was born at home. I’m sure his father John was glad to have saved the extra money from the bill. Moffetts were not known for wasting money.

God puts different qualities in all of us and God uses the things in our lives to shape and mold us into the people that we become. There are some things about us, that when you look at us you can see our parents. One of the things that struck me about Butch is that, I never have seen Butch move very quickly in my 22 years of knowing. But I never saw his father John, ever move very quickly either in all the years I knew him.

Butch had a personaility that was sort of even keel, and he would smile quite often. But if you got Butch upset, he would take you to the side in a nice kind of way and let you know he didn’t like what you were doing. Butch had a mother who was very even keel, who will smile at you, but if you get Aileen Moffet upset, she too would take you to the side in nice kind of a way and let you know she didn’t like what you were doing.

So not only did Butch look like a Moffett, he truly acted like a Moffett. They knew what it was like as family to have a good time, even though they did not have a lot of money. They would get all dressed up to go the opera, downtown at the Forum and sit in the balcony of the balcony section. It may have been up, up and way back, but the Moffett’s were there looking as good as anybody else.

God gives some of us gifts so that we do not even have to study to get good grades. God gave Butch the gift of good study habits. Butch would study on his own. He was a perfectionist and wanted to offer nothing but his best throughout his life. It earned him the position of being #10 in his class, and a four year scholarship off to college. Butch never minded doing hard work and paying the price necessary to obtain the things God had put in his heart.

Sometimes God uses the pains of others to develop compassion in our lives. When Butch was nine years old, God sent him a little brother by the name of Jeffrey. Jeffrey was prematurely born, and had a number of health issues. Butch did his best to be the loving and compassionate big brother that he could be. His brother Jeffrey thought the world of him. As Jeffrey grew older and started asking questions, he would go to John and Aileen with his questions. After they responded to him with an answer, Jeffrey would say, “oh that’s okay, I’ll just go and ask Butch what it really means.”