I Heard a Voice From Heaven

Patsy Sloan Manning September 14, 1933 – December 30, 2011


And I heard a voice out of heaven… The apostle John was incarcerated on the Isle of Patmos, a spare rocky Island off the coast of modern day Turkey right where the Agean sea opens into the Mediterranean. A sparse dry lonely shore, the kind of place that certainly could use a voice from heaven. John, near the end of his very long life, was longing for home. Not the bustling streets of Jerusalem nor the sandy shores of Galilee, or the green valleys of Nazareth, but a place far from his home, a place far from this rocky shore John was longing for his eternal home. There was no better time or place to hear a voice from heaven.

Here we are gathered today to mourn the loss of a dear dear lady who has gone to her eternal home. As many of you know life had been sliding down hill for this classy southern lady. A horrific fall a couple of years ago, a stroke, in the last year had rendered this beautiful articulate woman a shell of her former self. For some time she had been standing on a sparse dry rocky shore longing for home. Not the lush foliage and rich soil of the Mississippi delta where she grew up and raised her own family, nor the quaint little house on Brighton Avenue, but the long wide streets and eternally comfortable rooms of God’s house.

Death is such a strange experience for those of us who remain, we are thankful and grateful for a life well lived, for the shortened time of debility, and yet the leaving can leave us wistfully wishing for a little more time, just a little more time to speak of love, and of life, a little more time to lay aside regrets, a little more time to draw closer to enjoy her presence one, maybe two more times.

Death has left us thinking about life, thinking about death, realizing that as good as life is there must be a better home far from this rocky shore, yes, yes, it is a good time and good place to hear a voice from heaven.