Patsy Manning Part 4

What happened to Patsy. Here is what she said. My real life began that day. I had a hunger for God’s word that has never gone away. I felt that I loved everyone (that lasted for 6 months and then God began to bring people into my life to love) But God continued to draw me and convict me and change me even to the extent that the relationship in my family that had caused so much pain and bitterness was healed that I could truly love this person.

Her relationship with her step mom that had been so difficult and painful, that had estranged her from her father, was healed. She found that God gave her forgiveness and peace and joy. He brought healing to a relationship that no one else could heal.

Now just to give you an idea how deep that healing went, God had also done a deep work in the heart of Patsy Dad and Stepmom so that they had embraced Jesus Christ, and when the reconciliation began to take place, Patsy let her kids begin to spend time with their grandparents. During one of these visits Patsy’s stepmom led her son Bill to that same place of rest at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Disney can create great stories about wicked stepmothers but only God can create true stories about step mothers becoming beautiful mothers and friends.

Two things let me say in closing: Today if you truly wish to put Patsy to rest, the best thing you can do is find your rest in the same place she has found her rest, in her Lord. I’d love nothing more than to talk with you today about finding that rest.

Second, we labor for the moment in our grief and sorrow. It is very hard to think that she is gone. Sometimes the grief will feel like it is going to overwhelm you and that’s OK. Her influence on us has no correlation to her size. She will leave very large shoes to fill behind her. But as a wise woman once told me, grief is like the tide, when it comes it sometimes it feels like it is going to overwhelm us, but when it goes out it leaves lots of little treasures in the sand behind, lots of beautiful memories which you will cherish forever. Let ‘s pray.

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.