Eulogy Rebecca Becky Glover
2-/15/2020 Psalms 139:13-139:16
There was one commandment that God gave that Betty and Henry Thornton took to heart to obey with all their body, soul and strength and that was “to be fruitful and multiply.” They established the twelve tribes of Thorntons in the land of Stafford, Alabama. If they had of all stayed in Stafford, they could have taken over the area.
Stafford is so big today, they do not have a website, if you go to Facebook, there is no place recommended in Stafford to eat, sleep, drink or visit. I suppose it would have been different in the twelve tribes would have stayed.
Betty would have opened a restaurant, Eula would have been in charge of transportation, Rose would have been mayor, Willie would be in charge of the Police Department, Annie in charge of Music, and Becky would have been director of the Performing Arts District. Cleveland’s gain of the Thornton tribes was a blow to Stafford, Alabma.
It was on a Thursday in the year 1951, that God did something special as God so often does. God presented the world with a wonderful gift through the lives of Henry and Betty as Betty gave birth to her eighth child, Rebecca. Many of us called her Becky.
Becky came into the world in 1951, which was a dark and cruel time in the state of Alabama and in this country. Segregation was the law of the land, and Jim Crow laws reigned supreme. She was born into a society with white only and colored signs over water fountains, bathrooms, and places to eat. With twelve kids in rural Alabama, you might have seen them as just another poor Negro family.
But if you stepped in their world, from their perspective, they saw themselves as blessed by God. They didn’t care what the society said about them, they knew they were somebody in the eyes of God.
They knew what was it was to have family that loved each other and cared for each other. When one of them made it in anyway, they knew how to turn back, reach their hand out, and seek to pull the one behind them up another rung on the ladder.
There are some people in the Bible who we know instantly at the sound of their name. Names like Moses, Esther, Peter, Mary and Paul. Yet there are people whose names we don’t know yet their actions changed history, the little girl who told Namaan the great Syrian General how to be healed, the little boy who shared his lunch with the disciples so that Jesus could feed 5,000, or the woman who used her hair to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears and her perfume so that Jesus could teach us the heart of forgiveness.
Though we do not know their names, their actions are emblazoned in the Christian hall of fame.
God creates some people who are to become well known in the world, and God creates some people who to be very special in the world. Now some would say it is better to be well known than to be special, but I think when we come to the end of our days, we’re not looking back to see how well known we were, but rather were we special in the lives of others.
When death is staring at us in the face, we do not usually take great pride in our degree from Cleveland State University or Ohio State or in our position as executive vice president of the Cleveland Clinic, nearly as much as we do from a child saying I love so much because of all that you did for me and I’m going to miss you, or from a person coming in and saying, when I was hungry, it was you that saw to it that I got a meal and for that I am grateful.
Rebecca Glover was not created by God to be somebody well known whose name would cover the country and the globe at large, but I cannot think of anyone else who has been more special in the way that she has touched the lives of others.
You will not find her name listed in the Who’s Who Book Of American Directors And Actors, but her family has great memories of all the plays she began writing, directing and producing as a child. She used the talent to write skits for them to participate in our church talent shows in the past.
You will not find her name listed in the Who’s Who Book of American Counselors, but her family has testimonies of her ability to genuinely listen to you share your pain and to be able to walk with you through it.
She never was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, but she lived such a life of humility and putting others first, that if you couldn’t get along in peace with Becky, you just got a problem.
We sometimes forget, that no matter who we are, what we have done, or who we have become, we all started out in the hands of God.
For the Scripture tells us in Psalm 139:13-16
[13] For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. [14] I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. [15] My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, [16] your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
God knew that Becky would be a leader and a lover from the very beginning. When I was thinking about who’s personality from the Bible do I see in Becky, the one that came to my mind the quickest was Jesus. There was something about Jesus that made people want to be around him. There was one day in Jesus’s life in which the disciples got very upset with the people.
The people were trying to bring children to Jesus so that Jesus could touch them and pray for them. The disciples let the people know that Jesus was too busy to deal with children and he had more important things to do than spend his life with kids.
Jesus shocked the disciples by saying, “Let the children come to t me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Jesus stayed in the place until he had touched every child that had been brought to him.” I imagine, once the disciples got out of the way, the children ran to Jesus.
Becky had the same heart for children as Jesus did. Though she only gave birth to one son whom she loved. She showered love upon generations of children in her family and in the family of others. There was something about her, that you wanted to go to Aunt Becky’s house.
I most large families, there is a home where everybody wants to go. You don’t usually take a vote on “the House.” It’s just a feeling that comes from someone in the house, that makes it “the house.” There were times when Becky couldn’t just come home and fall out to rest, because there would be nieces and nephews, and great nieces and great nephews sitting on the porch waiting to be with her.
She had a smile that was infectious with joy. She simply new how to make you feel like you were special just from being in her presence.
Jesus seemed to take joy in doing things for others that he did not have to do. I think when he raised Jarius’ daughter from the dead and gave her back to her parents, I believed Jesus smiled when he saw Jarius, his wife, and their daughter hugging each other once again.
Becky had inside of her that same part of Jesus, that delighted in doing good for others just to see them happy. Becky once said, “It gives me great joy to see others happy and to know that I was able to do something to be a part of their happiness.”
There was a side to Jesus that we often missed because we read the Scriptures to seriously. But there was a comical side to Jesus. Think about it, you come to Jesus with, $5 in your pocket, and there are 15,000 hungry people. You tell Jesus, “Jesus you need to dismiss these people because the stores are going to close soon and they haven’t eaten.”
Jesus says, “no problem, you give them something to eat.” The disciples must have burst out laughing as Phillip stand there with this puzzled look on his face. Andrew joins in by saying, “Hey, here’s a little boy with five loaves and two fish, but what are they among so many?” He probably was laughing as he said it. I think Jesus did this, just to see the expressions on their face because the Scriptures said, “Jesus said this because he already knew what he was going to do.
Becky had this comical part of Jesus in her as well. Becky would take the time to wrap gifts beautifully and then you would pick a number to choose a gift. She would then get her video camera to film your reaction as you opened your gift, because a couple of the gifts although beautiful on the outside would be a gag gift inside like a roll of toilet paper. She knew she had something for you that she you would really like, but she wanted to get a laugh in the process.
There was a side to Jesus that demonstrated true humility. On the night when Jesus was arrested and the soldiers came with swords and clubs, Peter drew his sword and was ready to fight to save Jesus. He even cut off a person’s ear.
But Jesus took the ear and healed the person who was there to arrest him so that he could be crucified. Jesus said, “Look if I wanted to, I could call down 12,000 angels and wipe out this small mob sent to arrest me.” Jesus said, “no one is taking my life, I voluntarily lay it down.”
Becky knew about humility. She constantly put the needs of others ahead of her own. She didn’t do things to remind you of some kind of debt you owed her. As a matter of fact, Becky would not allow you to pay her back for some of the things that she simply did out of the love that was in her heart.
To me she was a living example of Philillipians 2:3 which says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to you own interests, but each of you to the interests of others.
You know from the moment I met Becky, I felt like she had been a part of my life for years. The Christ in her immediately bore witness with the Christ in me. I thank God for the encouragement she has been to me through the years. The Glover, Thornton, Beasley family enveloped us with love when we first came to Cleveland. We spent a number of holiday meals at their table, and when we couldn’t make it they sent us some of the best Alabama cooked food on the planet to our home.
Becky was a wonderful gift in the midst of our church. She loved Jesus Christ, and you can see from the obituary all the different things she did in the life of the church. We are a greater and stronger church because of her presence, her love and her giving. She invested in the lives of young people because she ultimately wanted them to know the love of Jesus Christ in their lives as she had known Jesus in hers.
We have lost a tremendous worker in the body of Christ, but we know it’s not the end.
Becky has had a lot of special relationships with a lot of people in this world. But our greatest reason for hope and for joy today is that she had a relationship to Jesus Christ.
I do not understand the ways of God, in determining the length of our years or the number of our days. We like to think the good will live a long life and the rest will have short lives. But God never said that’s the way it’s going to be.
God said something far more encouraging and filled with hope. It says in Psalm 116:15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. God knows something about death and its purposes that we do not. Becky was one of the special saints of God.
God said her death was precious in His sight. God knows that Becky’s death was not in vain. We may want an answer from God, and that’s okay. Maybe it will lead us to acknowledge who God is and what God is expecting of us. Becky knew God created her, God walked with her, and God called her to a place prepared for her. One thing she was known for saying was, “Put it in God’s Hands and Forget About It.”
In the bible it says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Do you realize God loves us all, but death will be the final separator between those who are living for Christ and those who are not. It’s not matter of who was good and who was bad. We all were bad, and God wants to give us all the same chance he gave to Becky . If we do not know Christ, we are condemned to eternal death.
Sometimes we don’t understand when we lose the special people in our lives. But somehow like the apostle Paul, Rebecca Glover could declare the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
Jesus has gone forth to prepare a place for each of us. But like Becky, we must make a choice. 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 as 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. Her decision made her not only special, but also important. For her fame of eternity in heaven will be remembered for generations after the important people of this world have long since been wiped from the pages of history.
To those who do not know Jesus Christ, Rebecca Glover or Aunt Becky will only be a memory. It will be a great memory, but still just a memory. For those who do know Christ, Deacon Rebecca Glover is waiting to meet us. For the word of God clearly states, " Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men and women who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.
According to the Lord’s own words, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left at the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
After that, we who are still alive and are left, will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. Our God is faithful.
