Eulogy Juanita Holloway Christian Funeral

Eulogy for Juanita Lovelace 6/8/2021

By Rick Gillespie- Mobley

Summary: Juanita was an elderly woman who loved her family and came to the Lord just a few years before she died.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-3:14 Psalm 139: John 14:1-6

God is amazing. He knew Juanita Lovelace long before her parents did because the Scriptures tell us “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.”

It was on a Sunday, the date was September 27, 1931, the place was Cleveland Ohio, that God sent a little bundle of life and potential to Samuel and Alice Lovelace. She was the fourth of five children to arrive and they called this latest bundle of joy, Juanita.

We are here today because that bundle of joy touched our lives in various special and unique ways and that same bundle has returned to the wonderful God who created her. She has completed that cycle of birth, life, death and return to God. It is a journey that we shall all one day complete.

There are some children that are born as sweet as they can be, and they are as gentle and obedient as your heart could desire. Juanita was not one of those children. She and her brother specialized in getting into trouble. Juanita was so sweet, she was sent to a detention schools for girls who misbehaved. From the beginning she has been feisty, spunky, spirited and even known as a firecracker. She continued with that lively personality right through her young adult and later adult years.

Juanita knew the joy of being a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a great grandmother, a friend, a great cook, a child of God, and a gift to the world from God above.

Juanita was the work of God’s creation sent here to make a difference in the lives of others, and as beautifully as God created her to be, she has returned to her Creator. She now stands before God, to give an account for the life that she lived, as we must all one day give an account.

The Bible tells us, there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. A time to laugh and a time to cry, a time to hope and a time to give up, a time for joy and a time for pain, a time to be born and a time to die.

Juanita took seriously the time to laugh. She loved a good joke. If you came down the street with polka dots and plaids that were not matching, she was going to get a good laugh. She would give you some advice such as “Now baby, there is a reason they made mirrors. You’re supposed to look at them before you leave the house. We both know that you did not get a look.” She loved a good laugh. Anything that looked ridiculous would bring a smile to her face and laughter in her heart.

Juanita made us thankful that there was also a time to cook and to time to eat her cooking. She was a homemaker throughout her life and for those of you who loved Sunday dinners, she would have captured your heart. You see with her, you didn’t have until Sunday to eat like Sunday. If she felt like something on Tuesday or Thursday, that’s when she would cook it.

Her granddaughters said their grandmother’s meatloaf was the best along with her greens and macaroni and cheese. Their testimony was that she had a secret for even making vegetables taste good. I’m told she was a miracle worker when it came to preparing Brussel sprouts.

Part of the reason her food tasted so good was that she added some Lovelace love into it. Now if you waited until her later years to try to eat her cooking you might have discovered at times that occasionally she confused the salt and sugar. If you were wondering why those green beans tasted so sweet, you knew this was one of those times.

She really believed there was a time for everything under the sun. On a trip to Acapulco, she believed there was a time for her to go parasailing. That’s when you’re way up in the air connected to like a parachute while tied to a boat below that’s pulling you along. You’ve got to have a spirit of adventure to even try something like that.

On another trip to Florida, at age 75 she and Raquel went kayaking out into the Atlantic Ocean. Kayaking is one of those little skinny boats where you sit down in a hole and paddle with one paddle. They were in one boat together with two holes and Raquel got a little upset with her because her grandmother was doing a lot more talking than paddling.