Ethelene Amelia Hall
2/22/2002
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 on early Sunday Morning, February 17th, 2002 Ethelene Amelia Hall, 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 evening? She was more than a daughter, more than a wife, more than a mother, more than a sister, more than a relative, more than a good friend, and more than a strong Black woman. Brothers and sisters I submit to you this day, that Ethelene Ameila Hall was a servant and a child of the Most High God and an avid follower of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The actual date of Ethelene’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 Ethelene, the part that lives forever, died a long time ago, when she heard of the call of Jesus Christ upon her life.
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 Ethelene, 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.” Ethelene lived a life which said, “it’s not all about me, but rather about helping someone else to make it through life’s journey.”
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.
The word of God tells us, you only get one shot at life, so do your very best with it, but that God is going to hold you accountable for the way you live it. If you were to die today, would you be ready to give God an account for the decisions you have made, and would you know with a certainty that you would spend eternity in heaven with God? If the answer is not yes, then perhaps your life is being lived in vain.
The good news about Ethelene, is that her living has not been in vain. God gives each of us an assignment to work with in this world. We cannot let the outward circumstances of our lives hinder us in fulfilling the task that is before us. When you see all that Sister Hall accomplished from the Obituary, you might be thinking, well she had it easy and if you had what she had, you could have done the same thing.
My friends it was not easy being born a black woman in 1921 in a country where racism, segregation, and sexism were in plentiful supply. It was not easy being physically ill much of your life in high school going back and forth to the emergency room, not knowing if you’re coming back out alive.
It was not easy having earned the grades to win a college scholarship only to be too sick to accept them and attend. It was not easy for Ethelene, but just because something was not easy, it not did kill the dream within her to move forward in life and to impact the lives of others. You never become the Woman Of The Year of anything, if you spend your life waiting for the circumstances to be perfect before doing anything.
When we asked her family members for some one word descriptions of Ethelene, some of the words were determined, strong, independent, loving, intelligent, great, giving and feisty. Ethelene Hall did not mind fighting for what she thought was right. But the fight was not about herself, but about making sure something was made right for somebody. It didn’t matter if you were a youth, or a senior citizen, she was willing to have your back. Ethelene could never be called anybody’s push over. You were going to know what she thought about something, before you left her presence if she disagreed with the course of action. She did not mind saying “Well I’ll tell you…..”.
Ethelene has not left a huge financial estate behind. She’s left something far better. She left kids that love her and think she’s one of the greatest mothers to have ever walked upon this earth. You see she invested what she had in the lives of others while she was living so there would be nothing left to fight over once she was gone. Even as they were growing up, Dan, Karen, Velita, and Lloyd all recognized that she was often going without herself in order to make sure that their needs were taken care of. Once the grandkids came along, she would go without just to try to make sure their wants were taken of. She loved making people happy.
When you entered her home, you knew you were in a welcoming place. Always quick to offer you some food and drink. Her home was a place of love. One day many years ago, she fell in love with a man by the name of Daniel William Hall. She was a one man woman and she loved him until he died. She was a faithful and loyal person. Not only was it seen in her marriage, it was also seen in the beautiful relationship she had with her mother, until her mother also went home to be with the Lord. When we first came here, whenever we would see Mrs. Wray, we’d see her daughter Mrs. Hall.
The Lord knew, that with Dan, Karen, Velita, and Lloyd, extra help was going to be needed. You see Dan and Lloyd could find trouble all by themselves. Karen she discovered it by running after those two. But Velita, was the child who was quiet and willing to do the right thing. She does not remember the same quick action bobs that Ethelene could give. One thing about Ethelene and her mother, they believed in choices when it came to disciplining the kids. They allowed them to choose which switch from the tree or belt was needed to help them get back on track. Her kids knew that she disciplined them because she loved them.
They even gave them flexibility when it came to chores. The chores would be put in a hat and you would pull your chores out of the hat for that day. But to this day, Dan thinks the system was rigged because he’s the only one that ever pulled mowing the grass. Back when Ethelene and Dan were married with little kids, much of the medical treatment was done at home by specialists, usually called Mom and Dad. When one of the kids got sick, they immediately performed preventative medicine on all the kids. At the Hall family, this preventative medicine took place with “the spoon.” The spoon had a reputation for being a cruddy spoon.
The kids would be lined up, castor oil would be placed in the spoon. Mrs. Hall would pinch your nose and this awful medicine on that cruddy spoon would be placed in one’s mouth. At one point, there was a rebellion in the ranks led by Daniel junior himself. Unfortunately him he rebelled at a time Dad was home. His father pinned him to the floor, while his mother pinched his nose and put the spoon with castor oil into his mouth. That was teamwork in action. Although Dan lost the fight that day, he did later manage to get that spoon, and that spoon has never been heard of or seen again.
Ethelene and her husband left a legacy of memories for their kids. They’d play hide n seek in the dark with them with all the lights turned off in the house. They went on family picnics, they went to the movies, and they went to Aquariums. When Ethelene could do something special for you she did. Velita will never forget her Mom arranging for her to go to see Johnny Mathis for her 16th birthday.
Regginald remembers how his mother picked up on his interest in Karate movies. She took him and a friend to a Karate movie just to make them happy. The first scene in the movie opened with a man and woman in bed with the woman being half dressed. He and his friends eyes were filled with wonder. Ethelene took one look at them looking and it happened. Reggie discovered his grandmother could be as fast as lightening as she grabbed the two of them and escorted them out of the movie.
Jesus said, we are to the light of the world. Ethelene strove to be that in her community. She was always organizing for this group or that group. She had her kids going from door to door with her. It instilled within them the value of volunteering to improve the lives of others. Ethelene was always in the paper for something or another. This put a little extra pressure on the kids in school because everybody knew her.
When they did something wrong, the teachers would say, “aren’t you Mrs. Hall’s child.” Once when Dan got in trouble at school, the principal gave him a very interesting choice. He said, “you can either take a paddling from me, or I’ll just contact your mom.” After a long period of about 4 tenths of a second, Dan chose the paddling over facing Mom, president of the PTA.
Ethelene had a very sweet and gentle side to her as well. She loved the cats that God had created. She admired the beauty of the butterflies. She loved to look at the blue sky with no clouds in it and she called them “Daddy’s Days.” Her kids remember that no matter how upset she got with you, she was always quick to forgive. She also learned how to be quick to forget. When asked about the spankings they got as kids, Ethelene has no recollection of what these adults kids of hers are talking about.
One of the things that we are truly grateful for in the life of Ethelene is that she responded yes to the call of God when she was invited to come and help start a new church. She was one of the founding members of the church which we sit in tonight. Her sacrifices helped to bring this church into existence. There are people in heaven already thanking her, for without this church, they may not have gotten saved. Her work here at Glenville will have eternal value. Not only was she a founder, she became an elder as well. But Ethelene’s main spiritual gift was the gift of service. Wherever she could serve, she was willing to help out.
As her body was slowed down by the pain of arthritis and other illnesses, it did not slow down her love for the Lord or for the church. She was a die hard Presbyterian. She was not in favor of the longer services back in the early 90’s, but with time she wanted to attend the second service which was twice as long as the first. She was excited because she saw how God was working in the lives of people especially the youth.
Now when we changed the name of the church from Glenville Presbyterian Church to Glenville New Life Community Church PCUSA, that was another one that was hard to swallow. That’s when I learned how feisty she could be. She did forgive us, but I do not think she has ever been able to say the name correctly. She throws Presbyterian behind one of the words somewhere.
Even in the midst of her pain in her last few months, her faith in God was just as strong as ever. One day I visited her, and she had lost a lot of weight. She was in pain that day, but her sense of humor still came through. She told me, “earlier today a fellow from my high school days had come to visit me. He was a boyfriend before my husband. Now you also surprise me out of the blue. I guess this old girl still got it cause I’ve still got men trying to chase me down.
Ethelene has always been able to stand tall in the face of adversity, including personal pain. Yet she’d lay aside her own discomforts in order to try to be a servant to you. I never left her home without receiving a word of encouragement. Here was a saint who never quit, and never gave up. She offered her very best until there was simply no strength left to offer.
There are so many who falsely teach, that if you come to know Jesus Christ, you will have health, wealth, and happiness all of your days. All it takes is faith. Each time I hear that message, I think of how cruel and insensitive it is to those saints of God whose faith is demonstrated in their ability to believe in a loving and caring God, despite what the circumstances of their lives around them may seem to say. It’s easy to praise God, when you’ve got your health and your money. But what are you like when your health and your wealth is gone?
. Just like Shadrach, Meshak and Abednego said to the king, "We know that our God is able to deliver us, but even if He does not, we will not serve your God." Ethelene knew that there was power in the name of Jesus Christ to be healed of her sickness, but even if Jesus chose to walk with her through it instead of delivering her from it, she would still remain true to the cause of Christ.
Robert Frost wrote a poem that involved coming to a fork in the road, and choosing the path that was less traveled by. In looking back, he realized that choosing that path made all the difference in the world. Choosing to live for Jesus Christ made all the difference in the world for Ethelene Hall.
Did you know that according to Jesus, most people will not go to heaven? Jesus said, Mat 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way to enter that narrow gate. All you have to do is to admit, "God, I have done a lot of things I should not have done. I realize I cannot pay for all that I have done. I ask you for forgiveness. I accept that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He being holy and righteous, paid the penalty for my sin. I invite him to come into my life and take control of it."
You will make numerous decisions in your life between your birth and your death. But the only decision that will still be personally affecting you a 1000 years from today, is what did you do with Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches there will certainly be a resurrection of everybody from the dead, and then comes the judgment of God.
Ethelene is prepared for that Judgment. Like the Apostle Paul she can say, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. For those of us who die without Jesus Christ, Ethlene will only be a passing memory. For those of us who die in Christ, she’s waiting for us to join her in that great reunion that will certainly take place.
For the word of God teaches, 1 Th 4:13-18 Brothers & Sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.
