Susan Sanders mother (Franklin’s mother in law) passed away this weekend. Prayers are appreciated.
Eulogy for Mrs Amelia Leavell Askew
Readings: Proverbs 3:13-20; Romans 8:31-39; Psalm 23.
28 July a.d. 2010
By Rev. Franklin Sanders
GRACE ABOUNDING
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. AMEN.
Shortly after Mrs. Askew passed away, Lee and Mark found her everyday Bible. In the front was taped this letter that I wrote her on October 17, 1991:
“Dear Mrs. Askew –
“As I lay in bed this morning Susan began to stroke my foot with her toes and I began to wonder how she became so kind and sweet and thoughtful.
“At last it dawned on me that she is kind and sweet and thoughtful because her mother set that example for her. God’s grace through you has become God’s grace to Susan and me and all our children and grandchildren to come.
“Good Job, Mrs. Askew!”
When she found out that I had been asked to do the eulogy, my wife, who is a great organizer, strictly warned me, “No sermon! You can’t do that.” Truth is, I can’t do otherwise, because Mrs. Askew’s life was a sermon, the best sermon most of us will ever see.
But if I praised Mrs. Askew it would very much displease her, because she would claim no credit for herself, but first of all would give glory to God for the graces poured out on her.
Mrs. Askew had not one, but four bibles. Actually, we have only found four, but there are others scattered all over the house. They are worn, with loose pages, dog-eared, written all over and underlined. That in itself is a sermon. In the front of one, Mrs. Askew had written, “Day I gave my life to God, 3-10-79.”
I chuckled and respectfully disagreed. Mrs. Askew, your life was given to God before the foundation of the world. Before God ever flung the stars out into the sky, or set the moon and sun on high to rule the night and day, you were given to God.
Besides, that is wrong as a matter of observed fact, facts I observed with my own eyes.
I can never forget observing Mrs. Askew at the Eucharist when I first came into the family in 1967, twelve long years before 1979. I never understood the meaning of “rapt attention:” till then. She was captured and captivated in worship, carried up to the throne room of God. It was as if she could see God.
More, she submitted to every providence of God in her life, not merely without complaint, but with studied joy and yielding. Like the Virgin Mary she continually said to God, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word.” And Mrs. Askew would acknowledge and confess that even that ability to say yes to God was itself the gift and grace of God.
No, no, no, no. Mrs. Askew did not give her life to God only on 3-10-79. Her life was always hid with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3).
I don’t doubt that something happened that day, some epiphany that brought God so close and made him so clear that all her life before seemed only ignorance and dull emptiness.
But that is so with all of us. Our lives are a series of epiphanies and conversions and at each new level we are drawn so much closer to God that it seems that we never even knew him before at all. What Mrs. Askew saw was God fulfilling his purpose in her, conforming her to the image of Christ. (Romans 8:29)
In this great purpose God graciously grants us the privilege of working with him, of “working out our own salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12-13)
And, Oh! Mrs. Askew jumped into that work with both feet and hands.
She had always been faithful & diligent in her church life, and in Little Rock in the mid 1970s began to attend Bible Study Fellowship. When she moved back to Memphis, she continued attending, but she was still always led a faithful life in the church. After she left Bible Study Fellowship she kept studying on her own, spending hours every day studying the bible and praying.
Praying. Praying. We laugh together over stories about Mrs. Askew’s famous faith in prayer and success in prayer. But it is not a laugh of contempt or doubt, but a laugh of joy and astonishment and wonder at the faithfulness of God to hear his beloved child.
She prayed over bad checks. She prayed that God would grant the writer the will to repent – and to make the check good. When a tenant fell behind in his rent, she prayed God would lead them to do the right thing and catch up. She prayed over everything and everyone.
We laugh, too, because we can’t imagine our own prayers answered that way. But Mrs. Askew had learned the secret of prayer from St. James. “Ye ask, and received not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it on your lusts.” (James 4:3) Mrs. Askew prayed so that God might be glorified in the outcome, and that his will might be done.
She prayed in perfect trust that God would accomplish whatever concerned her (Psalm 138:8), and untie every knot in her life and the lives of those she prayed for, and God rewarded her trust with outrageous generosity, so outrageous, so generous, that it makes us laugh with joy because the joke is on us.
Her labour was not in vain. The nearer she drew to God, the nearer he drew to her. (James 4:8) The love of Christ overflowed from her to her husband and children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, and to every person she met. To her neighbours, the people along her walking route every day, the people at the hardware and the grocery, the people at church. Nothing, no fear, no intimidation of the world, no ugliness could stop that love flowing out of her.
Why? What made her different? In Mrs. Askew before our eyes Christ fulfilled his promise:
“Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 6:14)
Passing through this Valley of Weeping, Mrs. Askew became an overflowing spring of water, and that water was the love of Christ. (Ps 84:6)
Death cannot stop the flow of God’s grace, not to those who go before, not to those left behind. That grace is already poured out on you, and already flowing through you to children and grandchildren and all who knew her.
And Amelia now enjoys that grace, not at a distance but face to face, and she has heard from the lips of our own dear Saviour the most blessed words that anyone can hear:
“Well done, good and faithful servant!”
Good job, Mrs. Askew!
Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son,
And to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
Is now and ever shall be,
World without end, Amen.
O ETERNAL LORD,
who holdest all souls in life;
vouchsafe, we beseech thee,
to thy whole Church
in paradise and on earth,
thy light and thy peace;
and grant that we,
following the good examples of those
who have served thee here and are now at rest,
may at the last enter with them into thine unending joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Memorial donations may be made to:
The Hospitality Hub
146 Jefferson, Memphis, 38103