EULOGY FOR MRS. SYLVIA BIGGERSTAFF GREEN HILL BAPTIST CHURCH MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2013 DELIVERED BY DR. BOB MORGAN One of the verses in the Bible that marvelously summarizes how we should live our lives is Micah 6:8: He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. I would challenge you to find a person who walked this walk of life any better than Mrs. Sylvia Biggerstaff. She treated every person with dignity and respect. She showed mercy to other people by understanding their shortcomings and loving them just the same. She truly walked humbly with her God. Mrs. Sylvia was a person of many talents. She had the strength and willpower to accomplish a multitude of things. She never shied away from work as seen in her work both inside the house and outside the house. She loved to cook, to can, and to freeze food for the months ahead. One of the most obvious talents she possessed was in the field of quilt making. She pieced many, many quilts in her lifetime and hand-quilted probably hundreds of quilts. Even when she was a resident at Oak Grove, she did some of the most beautiful yo-yo pillows. I hand pieced a totally white quilt with the design of “Garden of Eden” which she quilted with some of the most beautiful hand-stitching I have ever seen. I used this as my gift for Dr. Chris White when he was inaugurated as President of Gardner-Webb University. This quilt was put on an antique bed that was given to Gardner-Webb by Mrs. O. Max Gardner, the widow of the former Governor of the State of North Carolina. The bed was placed in the guest bedroom of the Gardner-Webb University Presidential Home. This quilt was seen and appreciated by countless hundreds of people who visited the Presidential Home when it was a part of the Parade of Homes in Shelby as well as by many other groups and individuals who were entertained by Dr. and Mrs. White. I am very flattered that you are seeing as I speak a quilt enveloping the casket of Mrs. Sylvia which I hand-pieced and she hand-quilted. You will notice that she quilted every side of every piece which required hours and hours of patient and intricate work as there are over 2,000 pieces in the quilt. When I gave this quilt top to Mrs. Sylvia probably a quarter of a century ago, she told me that she was going to quilt it and to keep it unused to top her casket at the end of her life. She wore the titles of wife, sister, sister-in-law, mother-in-law,aunt, and cousin as well as mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother with dignity and pride. I would like to share the writing entitled The Mother from the manuscript And I Go Searching which contains the newest things that I have written. A woman is a mother: When she is willing to give the best years of her youth in bearing children; When she will live the life of purity which is and always shall be the exemplification of Motherhood; When she can forgive her children for doing things which she has never done; When she is willing to give the best she possesses without even so much as expecting gratitude; When she loves her children very deeply but yet does not try to own them mind and soul—realizing they shall live in the House of Tomorrow which she can never visit—not even in her dreams; When she is willing to lay the foundations of new lives but is willing that God shall direct the construction thereof; When she seeks to win respect and love, not demand them; When she loves her one husband and treasures him as a partner in the sacred task of helping to create new life; When she so lives that Mother and Love are synonymous to her children; When a woman reaches this point, not only is she a great mother, but she is also fulfilling God’s desires for her life. I want to conclude my remarks by reading part of the section on Love from one of the most beautifully written books in the world, The Prophet by the marvelous Lebanese writer Kahlil Gibran. When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.” And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips. LET US PRAY S Our Father, We thank You for the wonderful gift You gave to all of us in the person of Mrs. SYLVIA Biggerstaff who was the exemplification of sincerity, humility, dedication to God and to other human beings, and her faithfulness to everything in which she believed. Y We thank YOU that You saw fit to send at the appropriate time in human history a physical example Whom we call Jesus the Christ to help us to understand the perfection of life we should all search to emulate. L We thank You for LOVE which You have shown to us in the life of Mrs. Sylvia Biggerstaff as she lived her life with her family, her church, her many friends, and her God. V We thank You for the VARIETY of talents and abilities that You bestowed upon our dear friend. I We thank You for the INTEGRITY You placed in the heart, mind, and soul of our beloved friend. A We thank You for the ASSURANCE of life eternal. We pray in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 05:10:42 +0000