The recent death of my 9-year-old granddaughter Hannah is one of the most trying situations I have ever faced. I was blessed to preach this eulogy at her funeral Jan. 28. Below is an excerpt.
If anyone would have suggested that a grandfather would be giving the eulogy for one of his grandchildren, I would not have believed it. No great-grandparent, grandparent, mother, father, older brothers or sisters would ever think of having to bury a child, but such is our occasion today. My good friend, the Rev. Dr. Hector Grant of San Antonio, reminded me that "the deepest sorrow is not death, but the unnatural ordering of death." In our minds, we usually think: great-grandparents die, grandparents die, parents die and then their children. That is our hoped-for ordering of life and death.
However, we all know that this is not always the way in which our human experience is lived out. And when that hoped-for ordering is broken, there is true mourning. So the question for us is, "Where is God in the process?" Dr. Grant had to remind a bishop of the church, and I remind us all that God cries with us.
The name Hannah in Hebrew means beauty and passion, and that she was. Not only was she a beautiful child from the inside out, but one who had a passion for life. Hannah was precocious.
She had a special insight that enabled her to get along with everyone and to show the love of God in very special ways. Hannah at an early age developed a love for technology and used it quite well. When her mom gave her a cell phone for emergency purposes, Hannah would call all those in the family needing an encouraging word. The only problem is that the calls were often made late at night.
Hannah's dream was to go to college, study veterinarian medicine and become a veterinarian. She loved people and she loved animals.
We may not be able to see Hannah complete her dream, but we can enable Hannah's dream to be lived out in the lives of others. An endowment/scholarship fund has been established at the Texas Methodist Foundation in Austin to enable Hannah's dream to become a reality in the life of another.
What can we say during a difficult time such as this? I have learned that our words, though many, are just not adequate for such an occasion. The prayers, visits, cards, flowers, gifts and expressions of love enable us to know that we are not alone in our grief, that others have walked this path and empathize with our loss. I've walked this path with many families and uttered words of hope and comfort, but it is so different when it is your own family that grieves the loss.
The only sense of peace that I have experienced is from the word of God. That word begins in the Book of Samuel with the name Hannah and her devotion to God, crying out to God for a son and making a vow to God that when the child was weaned, she would give him over to the Lord for service. God heard Hannah's prayer and blessed her with a child. She named him Samuel and gave him over to the temple for upbringing.
The second word comes from the Book of Psalms and reminds us "that weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning."
We all have done our share of weeping. If I could take away the pain of a loving daughter weeping for her baby child, as a father I would. However, that is not possible – we all have to weep and cry for our children. Weeping is a part of the natural process of grieving, and everyone grieves in his or her own way. Hannah would remind us that it's OK to cry. The tears for the loss of a child are ways in which we experience catharsis and get our hurts out. For some, it may be for a short time; for others, the hurt and pain may be there for a long time. No matter how long, each of us must grieve in our own way.
There will be a time when we come to know the love and care of the true and living God that enables us to experience what those first believers experienced when they discovered that Christ was not dead, but alive for ever more.
We will see Hannah again because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Until that time, we have all these signs and reminders of the gift that God gave us in the life of Hannah. When we see her pictures, her smile and her unique way of expressing the joy of life, we will rejoice in the Lord for such a great gift.
The Apostle Paul reminds us that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." So weep on . . . joy comes in the morning!
Have you
ever seen
glimpses of
God's grace in
life?