Ashley Whitmore - 3/20/23

We gather today to mourn the death of Ashley Whitmore, but even as we do so, we also want to celebrate her life. The Bible offers us hope as we work through the process of grief,

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:8-9, NLT)

We are reminded today that as we work through the process of grief, we do not have to do it alone. The Lord will come alongside us to bring us comfort and healing. So, as we begin today, let’s pause and ask for His help and presence.

Our heavenly Father, we thank you for giving us life. We thank you for the opportunity to experience the blessings of love, of family, and of friends. We thank you, Lord, for the time we had with Ashley on this earth. Today as we mourn her passing, we ask that you would grant strength, perspective, and hope. Comfort these gathered today, we ask, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Obituary

Ashley Louise Whitmore was born October 15, 1983 in Monmouth, Illinois, the daughter of Michael and Cheryl (Fisher) Whitmore. She married Christopher Johnson. They later divorced.

She gave birth to four children whom she loved very dearly: Jay Johnson, Sabrina Johnson, Hayden Leppin, and Landen Leppin. Though her choices kept her from being able to be with her children as often as she would have liked, she still loved them deeply.

Ashley enjoyed cooking, often taking time to bake things for her friends. She liked to craft, enjoying making decorative signs for people to display in their homes, and relaxing with intricately detailed adult coloring books. She loved music of all kinds and the TV show Sons of Anarchy.

She died on Friday, March 10th, 2023 at the Moberly Medical Center in Moberly, Missouri at the age of 39.

She is survived by her four children; her mother: Cheryl Rich of LaHarpe; and two sisters: Dianna Whitmore and Michelle Whitmore both of Kirksville. She was preceded in death by her father.

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Eulogy

Ashley Whitmore was a young woman who was full of life. Even from an early age, she was constantly moving and active. Being the youngest of three girls (and a bit of a surprise to her parents), she always wanted to keep up with her older sisters. I’m told that her grandma Evelyn gave her the nickname “fingers” because she seemed to constantly get into everything. She was always interested in living life to the fullest.

Ashley probably could have been considered a bit of a tomboy growing up. She loved playing outside in the dirt and the mud. She would play with dolls and other toys, but she’d bring them out into the mud with her, so everything she played with usually ended up just as dirty as she was! As a child, she was fearless, and didn’t seem to be afraid to try new things. She was always up for an adventure.

She loved hanging out with her sisters, even though they would often get into trouble together. Cheryl recalls one time when she discovered that Ashley and Michelle had cut each other’s hair. Being the criminal masterminds they were at that age, they knew to stash the evidence of their crime….so they hid the hair they had cut behind the TV!

Despite these antics, Ashley was still a good kid. She got good grades in school through most of her childhood. She didn’t finish high school, but did end up completing her GED, and did so with high marks. She was a bright woman with seemingly her whole life ahead of her.

Unfortunately, Ashley also made some poor choices in her life. These had a lot of difficult ramifications for her. She ended up feeling alienated from much of her family in the later years of her life due to those choices. While she loved her children, those choices kept her from being able to raise them and be with them as much as she would have liked. She regretted many of these poor choices and the heartache they caused her and those she loved.

All of us make poor choices at some points in our lives, however. And our hope is that people don’t define us by our mistakes, but by our successes. Though Ashley made many mistakes, she also had many successes. She viewed her kids as one of the things she was proud of. Even though I suspect she dealt with feelings of guilt about how her choices affected her kids, she was proud of them, and loved them dearly. She truly wanted the best for them, even though she wasn’t always able to give it to them.

While she often kept to herself and didn’t have a lot of friends, she still found lots of things that would bring her joy. She loved to bake for her loved ones, and enjoyed being creative and making things both for herself and others. I suspect she enjoyed being able to bring a bit of beauty to the world around her.

She loved all of her family deeply, even though she understood that her decisions had placed a tremendous strain on many of those relationships. No matter what happened, she felt a connection that went beyond the circumstances she might face. She was willing to help others, even if it meant hardship for herself. Despite her struggles, she loved fiercely and was incredibly loyal. Ashley was someone who battled with demons, but truly cared for those around her. It’s that trait that I hope you will remember as you think of her.

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Message

The death of someone you love is always hard. When you lose someone you care about, it is difficult to realize you will not see them again. There is an added layer of grief that often comes when those relationships are strained. Sometimes there are feelings of guilt, of anger, or of frustration that can also be part of that grief. All of those things are normal. Working through grief is usually a messy process, and it requires us to confront some of the feelings that maybe we would rather leave alone. But grief has a funny way of bringing those things to the surface.

It is hard when someone you love makes choices that you know are harmful to them. It is even harder when they make those choices over and over again. As time goes on, sometimes we separate ourselves from a person we care about as a way of protecting ourselves, and of hopefully getting through to them.

Tonight, however, I want to hold out some hope to you from the Bible. There is good news in God’s Word that I think can bring comfort as you think about Ashley, and hopefully gives you direction as you walk your own journey of life.

The Bible is pretty consistent in showing us that God can use people who make mistakes, and God often used very flawed people to do things we wouldn’t have expected. King David was an adulterer and murderer. Moses was a murderer as well. Noah got blackout drunk. Paul started life as a religious zealot who opposed Jesus and His followers, even going so far as to have them executed. Peter was a bit of a hot-head who denied even knowing Jesus at the time Jesus needed him most. But God used every one of these people, redeeming them and using them for His glory.

The good news we read in the Bible is that no one is too messed up, too flawed, or too far gone for God to love them. You can never stray so far that God will simply write you off. God continues to love and work in people long after we would have given up on them.

Now don’t misunderstand me. The Lord does not excuse our sin. He doesn’t tell us that what we do doesn’t matter, or that our rebellion is no big deal. On the contrary, He reminds us that any time we choose to rebel against Him, we are inviting trouble onto ourselves and we deserve to be punished. Every one of us has messed up so royally that we deserve condemnation from God. But thankfully that is not the end of the story.

The message of the Bible is that Jesus Christ came to earth to do what we could not. Jesus came to offer forgiveness for sinful people like you, me, and Ashley. Left to our own devices, we are helpless. But God did not leave us to merely fend for ourselves.

One of the most famous verses in the Bible is John 3:16. And it is famous for good reason—it’s great news! Listen to what it says,

16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, NLT)

Jesus came into the world to pay the penalty for our sin that we could not pay for ourselves. John 3:16 reminds us that Jesus offers forgiveness to everyone who believes in Him. Don’t miss that. He offers forgiveness to everyone who believes in Him. Not just to those who are good enough to deserve it (which is good news, because none of us do), but to everyone who would believe in Him. For those who do trust in Jesus to forgive them and then choose to follow Him with their lives, He promises that we will not perish, but have everlasting life. This means that for those who trust in Jesus, the end of our lives on this earth is not the end of the story. We will live forever in Heaven with our savior.

I can’t tell you for sure whether Ashley had this kind of faith or not. It is my hope that she did. What I can tell you is that the mistakes Ashley made never caused the Lord to write her off. His offer of forgiveness and salvation applies no matter how much a person has messed up. If Ashley turned to Jesus for forgiveness, then the Lord welcomed her with open arms. And the same is true for you and me. No matter how much you have messed up, how far you have wandered from God, as long as there is still breath in your lungs, there is still time to turn to Jesus and follow Him. If you do, then you can face anything, even death, with confidence, knowing that Jesus promises eternal life for everyone who will believe.

If there is something we can take from Ashley’s life, it is that none of us know how long we will have on this earth. So we need to make sure that we have decided for ourselves whether we will trust and follow Jesus, or whether we will ignore the offer of forgiveness He holds out to us. It is my hope that Ashley embraced Jesus before she died, because if she did, then today she is more alive than she has ever been. If she trusted in Jesus, then today she has been delivered from all her struggles and is experiencing a freedom and new life she could have only dreamed of.

It is my hope that you will get to experience that as well. So I invite you to turn to the Lord today, to trust in what Jesus has done on your behalf and to follow Him. It’s the best decision you will ever make.

Death is an unfortunate and painful part of life, but it is tempered by the reality that this life is not all there is. The end of life on earth is not the end of the story. This offers us hope as we grieve, but also direction as we live. I hope today you will gratefully receive both from the Lord who loves you more than you can know.

Will you pray with me?

Our heavenly Father, we thank you for the life of Ashley Whitmore. Thank you for the vibrancy she brought to her life and to the lives of so many whom she loved. Help us, Lord, to see past her mistakes to the person who loved fiercely and deeply. Grant these friends and family gathered today strength in the days ahead, and hope for the reality of life beyond the grave. Comfort them as they grieve, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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