Hattie Anne Smith by Rick Gillespie-Mobley
Ecclesiastes 3:1-3:14
Hattie Smith
On March 27th, in a very small town called Marion, in the heart of western Alabama, in the year 1933, God sent a little bundle of life and potential to Nancy and Adelle Hope and , and they called that little bundle Hattie Anne. You see Nancy and Adelle had responded to the call of God to be fruitful and fill the earth. Little did they know at the time that they would be doing more than their fair share of trying to fill it because Hattie was the first of six more to come.
Hattie was a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a great grandmother, a friend and a gift to the world from God above.
Hattie was the work of God’s creation, 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. For all must appear before God after death.
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. The one experience that is common to us all is death. It is as common and as natural as all the other things done under the sun.
We all have a certain number of days to live and our joys and struggles are different. But in the end we all come to the place that is called death, and from that point we look back and see what happened during our lives. Who was this person that the world knew as Hattie Anne Smith.
Well her son and niece gave these words to describe her. . Happy, a good mother, a great aunt, creative, a leader, a lover of her family. Hattie tried to live her live in such a way that others would think she was a loving and caring person.
Life was not always easy for Hattie. Any black woman born in Alabama in 1933 was going to know what it was like to face challenges in her life. But that didn’t stop Hattie from having a vision of a brighter day in life. As the oldest of her brothers and sisters, she developed leadership qualities that made her strong and willing to take risks for the things she wanted.
Many of you here today have benefited from her ability to make sacrifices and to work for the big picture. When Hattie left Alabama to come North, she did not forget where she came from. It wasn’t that she had a love for Alabama itself, as much as she had a love for the family she left behind. She did her part in reaching back, and bringing others up north one by one, opening her home as the resting place until you got on your own fee. She was running her own kind of an Underground Railway with a vision to see all of her family becoming what they could become giving the right kind of opportunity.
Just like Harriet Tubman could be tough as a conductor on her railroad, Hattie Smith could be tough on hers. She knew how to be a no nonsense woman when it came to discipline. Hattie knew how to straighten you out, and she hadn’t heard anything about child abuse laws when you needed a whipping. Hattie was generous with her whippings and she did not disciriminate based on whether you were a son, a nephew, a niece, or even a younger brother or sister. You know, sometimes when a parent gets upset with you, the parent will call out your whole name from first to middle to last. Not so with Hattie. Jimmy said, he could tell what time it was just by the way his mother emphasized certain syllables in his name.
But people didn’t mind the discipline from Hattie so much, because they knew it was motivated out of love and it was usually well deserved. Not only that but Hattie had a loving heart and spirit about her. She opened her home and her arms to her nieces and nephews who looked forward to going to spend the weekend with her. How many of you here today are where you are today, because of something that Hattie did for you in the past. If nothing else she probably lifted you spirits on more than one occasion. For she was a happy person and could very easily become the life of the party. She just knew how to get you laughing.
You could see the softside of Hattied in her collection of Teddy Bears. She loved to have Teddy bears around. Sometimes when you’re the oldest, life forces you to be tough on the outside, but on the inside you may still know that you’re just a teddy bear at heart, wanting and waiting to be loved.
There was a song out in the 60”s called Mustang Sally. There should have been one called Mustang Hattie. She was in love with Mustang cars. Jimmy recalls when he turned 16 and was about to go try for his license, his mother had just brought a 1966 yellow canary mustang to drive him for the exam. Hattie never did get over her love affairs with the Mustang.
God grants us life for the purpose of becoming all that He intended for us to be. He gives us all unique talents, gifts and abilities to have an impact on the lives of others. One of the talents God gave to Hattie was the ability to cook. She took that gift and turned it into a way to express love to her family. Hattie made a special chow chow that could turn a number of average dishes into something great. Jimmy loved the way she prepared those peppers and onions, and he put his mother’s chow chow on things that will not be mentioned. He just loved it.
Hattie would spend hours cooking Thanksgiving meal for her and her son. Even with all she cooked, her love for her son, made her willing to cook three extra sweet potato pies for her son.
Hattie could be a friend in times of need. She was a faithful neighbor for many decades off 105 near Cedar and Quincy. She often watched her neighbors kids and help to raise many kids that were not her own. But when you have a loving heart, these things come natural
Hattie has been pillar in this family offering support to more than one generation within in it. She has stood out as a lighthouse, trying to help others guide their way through dangerous periods in their lives. A huge loss has been suffered, but the love she has still remains in the hearts of those of you who took the time to receive it.
The Bible tell us that there is a way that seems right to a person, but at the end of it is death. If we are all living in order that we might some day die, it should be of utmost important that we live in such way that in the end our lives would not have been lived in vain. Whether or not we have lived in vain will not be determined by how much we accumulated in terms of material goods, for naked we came into this world, and naked we go out.
The only thing that we can take out of this world is what we have given away. For that is how Jesus said to lay up treasures in heaven. Hattie has given of herself to many others. She was blessed with more days than others
There is a time and a season for everything. However sometimes we are not wise enough to understand what time it is in life. Things that we are putting off to one day, should and need to be done today. For when it is time to die, there’s no asking for an extension because of something you have to do that’s really important
. Today is the day to be loving as Hattie was. Who is it that could use more of your love right in your own home? Today is the day to be as helpful as Hattie was. Who is it near you that could use some compassion and acceptance? , Today is the day to decide to make the most of the life that God has given to you.
It is not possible to become all that God wants you to become without becoming spiritually what God wants you to be. Have you checked yourself lately to see where your spirit is in relation to God and His word? Have you examined what is it God is calling you to do and to be? Of all the decisions that Hattie made in life, what she chose to do with the claims of Jesus Christ upon her life, is the one that is going to stick with her throughout all of eternity.
In our lives, the only decision that we can make today, that will still be affecting us in 500 years, is the decision we make as to following Jesus Christ. For the Bible tells us, there is no other name given by which we can be saved.
God has made each of us very unique. He made Hattie in His image and put something in her that none of the rest of us has.
It’s tragic when we do not take the time to try and to discover the beauty that God puts in each of us, because we’re too busy with other things. Her absence has made this world just a little bit different. Things will never be again as they were for the Smith family. Opportunities that were once there, will never be there again.
Life is so strange and so short. That’s why we need to live and to love as though each day may be our last. You may say Hattie Anne Smith was my sister or my mother or my friend or my grandmother, or my former co-worker and those things may be true. But the greater truth is that God gave Hattie on loan to us for just a little while, and through death God has called her back.
Death is so much closer to us than we think. How often have we narrowly escaped its grasp by unexpectedly stopping on the corner, only to have a car come zooming past out of nowhere, or being in a serious accident and walking away with minor injuries, or suffering a heart attack or stroke yet being close enough to medical help to be saved. No, God has watched over us more times than we will ever know.
There is appointed a day however, in which each of us shall surely die. The best way to die, is to have lived in anticipation of that day in which we will give an account to God. The Bible tells us that Jesus has gone forth to prepare a place for each of us in the afterlife.
Whether or not we make it to the place that Jesus has for us will not depend on whether our good deeds outweighed the bad ones. Everything depends on whether or not we invite Jesus Christ into our hearts to give Him control of our lives.
God has something wonderful for all of our lives. God lays before us two paths in life. One path is very broad and many people travel it, but it leads to destruction. The other path is very narrow but it leads to life. Jesus Christ is the gateway to the narrow path. To get on the narrow path, we must make a choice.
You see death is not something to be feared, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not die but have everlasting life. Jesus said, let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, Believe also in me. For I go to prepare a place for you. Not only has Christ gone to prepare a place for us, Jesus has revealed to us the road in which we should follow.
Hattie Anne Smith has made her choice and her salvation rests totally in the hands and mercy of God. None of us know the day nor the hour when we shall leave this world. Christ has died on our behalf that we might have life. It’s a simple as confessing our sins, our yielding our lives to him. For in the end, the only decision that will matter is what did we do with Christ. For only what’s done for Christ will last for all eternity.
