Opening Statement
LORD, my heart is not proud;
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not get involved with things
too great or too difficult for me.
2 Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself
like a little weaned child with its mother;
I am like a little child.
3 Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
both now and forever.
Psalm 131
On behalf of the Hampton family, I want to thank you for being here to celebrate the life of Regina Gail Hampton. [Obituary Details]
Following prayer, Louise Hampton, Gail’s sister in law, will present the eulogy. Let us pray…
Prayer
Lord God, you have created all things bright and beautiful. You created all creatures great and small. You created all things wise and wonderful. And so, Lord God, we have absolute faith that your hands made and fashioned Gail just exactly the way you intended to.
Today, people describe people like Gail as “special needs adults.” And sometimes, we struggle with trying to keep up with whatever the current politically correct label is. But Lord, as we reflect on the life of this, your precious child, would you please help us get over ourselves enough to realize that all of us have special needs? Every one of us is helpless without your help. We are lonely without your presence. We are simple without your wisdom. We are lame without your strength.
So Lord, as we celebrate the life of Gail Hampton, we celebrate the fact that our every need is met in our life with you, Lord Jesus. God, we pray for Gail’s family right now. We know that, according to your word, we don’t grieve like those who have no hope, because we know where Gail is and we know we will see her again. But that doesn’t mean we don’t grieve. So I pray for Eric and Louise, and all the rest of her family in the coming days. I pray for Gail’s friends and caregivers. I pray that they will share cherished memories of Gail, and draw comfort from one another’s stories. Continue to guide our time as we celebrate Gail’s life; comfort Gail’s family, and worship Gail’s Savior, in Whose name we pray, Amen.
[Eulogy]
Sermon (James)
They say that a good eulogy is one that makes the ones that knew the person glad they did, and those that didn’t know her wish they had. Thank you, Louise, for helping me get to know your sister in law. I know you were glad you knew her. And as I’ve listened to your stories, I wish I had known her.
Because I think we would have gotten along. I know we would have said War Eagle to each other every Sunday morning during football season, whether Auburn won or not. I know she would have shown me her Gus Malzhan poster her caregiver gave her.
I think we probably would have talked about Red Lobster. Eric and Louise told me that whenever they would come get Gail to take her out to eat, the only place she ever wanted to go was Red Lobster. And that was my first job. For a year and a half in high school I bussed tables at Red Lobster, and to this day, if I am on a trip without Trish (since she’s allergic to seafood), I will look for a Red Lobster to have a meal in.
I think we would have talked about music. Eric said when they were kids Gail loved to sit in the front yard, in an aluminum folding chair, with the radio in her lap and a perfume bottle in her hand. The perfume bottle was her microphone, and she sang along to every song. And she learned to dance from watching American Bandstand. Well, I didn’t have a perfume bottle, but I did have a hairbrush. And I didn’t watch American Bandstand, but I did watch MTV. However, apparently Dick Clark was more successful at teaching Gail how to dance than Michael Jackson was with teaching me.
I’m also very sure I would have liked Gail’s love for birthdays and Christmas. In nearly every conversation, Gail would remind the person she was talking to of how many days it was until her birthday, Christmas, or both.
I think that was the story I liked the best. From what I’ve been told, Gail was a joyful person who never lost her childlike love of life. She looked forward to Fridays because it was pizza night. She greeted every person with a smile, and she cared deeply for other people.
And she never saw herself as disabled. She had a blind and deaf roommate at one point in the group home, and she did whatever she could to help her, because she recognized a greater need in someone else.
Gail loved life, and I believe she understood that life is a precious gift from God.
Psalm 139:13-16 says
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
In beautiful language, David talks about life. He mentions three things, that are true or every person who was ever born.
1. God creates us. That's true of David, Gail, you, me, everybody.
2. God sees us. "Your eyes saw my unformed body." Which means that God also saw Gail’s unformed body.
3. God plans our days.
At first glance it is probably hard to reconcile the image from Psalm 139, "that God knits us together in our mother’s womb" and the reality that some babies are born with any type of disability.
In a perfect world that wouldn’t happen. But it does happen. That’s because we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a fallen world that is far from perfect. But that does not change the fact that life is so very precious.
And it does not change the fact that Gail Hampton’s life was precious. But we have to ask, was her life precious “in spite of” her intellectual disabilities?
I want to suggest that the answer is no. Gail’s life wasn’t valuable “even though” she had special needs. Gail’s life was valuable precisely because she had special needs.
You see, God has never been one to move someone to the front of the line because they were smarter, or stronger, or better looking. In fact, the gospel is exactly the opposite.
• In Psalm 131, the Psalmist writes, Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I do not get involved with things too great or too difficult for me. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself like a little weaned child with its mother; I am like a little child. Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever.
• In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote that God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:28-30)
• Most importantly, Jesus Himself said that and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3-4)
The fact is, we all have special needs. The problem is that most of us don’t realize it. Sometimes people ask me if people with intellectual disabilities can respond to the gospel. My answer is that they may be some of the only ones who truly can. To come to Jesus, you have to admit you need him. Some people think religion is a crutch. And maybe it is. But you know what? When you’re crippled, that’s not bad.
Some people wonder if there will be people with disabilities in heaven. And I think there’s two answers to that. On one hand, I believe that right now, Gail is completely whole. She is strong in mind and body. She is thinking clearly. She is no longer seeing through a glass darkly. She has been made perfect.
But on the other hand, the only people who are in heaven are people who recognize they are helpless without Jesus. Is Heaven handicapped accessible? Friends, I am here to tell you that Heaven is handicapped required.
So please permit me to close by explaining what you might think of as the wheelchair ramp to a relationship with Jesus. It doesn’t require a seminary education. Gail never went to seminary. She never wrote a sermon or taught a Sunday school lesson. But I believe we can learn more from her simple faith, and her genuine care for others than we could learn from the most profound theologian.
Karl Barth was one of the most brilliant theologians of the 20th century. In 1919, at the age of twenty-eight he published his commentary on Romans. In 1931, he began work on his massive, twelve volume, 9,000 page, six million word. Church Dogmatics, one of the longest works of systematic theology ever written.
In 1962, six years before his death, Karl Barth was asked how he would summarize the essence of the millions of words he had published on the nature of God and the principles of theology. Karl Barth smiled, and said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Let’s pray…
