Memorial Service for Anna Frasier
Notes
Transcript
Song #1
Song #1
Welcome/Opening Prayer
Welcome/Opening Prayer
Obituary/Eulogy
Obituary/Eulogy
Anna Bizzle Shafer, 82, of Farmington, MO. stepped into eternity on Monday, October 9, 2023.
Anna was born on January 18, 1941, in Hayti, MO, to the late Clifton Paul Pipkins and Ella Mae Imogene Nix Pipkins. She lived and worked in Michigan prior to moving to Tennessee in 1982. Anna worked for Baptist Memorial Healthcare System for 24 years and later retired from Baptist Hospital in Covington, TN. In October 2019, she married Tommy E. Shafer and moved to Farmington, MO. Anna was a Baptist by faith and loved her family and friends.
Survivors include her husband, Tommy E. Shafer, Sr. of Farmington, MO; her sister, Belinda Pipkins Sherman of Southaven, MI; her son-in-law, Mac L. Antisdel of Farmington, MO; her step-children, Vicki (Joe) Coats of Newbern, TN, Michelle (Pete) Abosida of Utah, Marie (Kenny) Thompson of Desoto, MO, Annette Burton of Idaho and Joshua Shafer of Fredericktown, MO; and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, who she loved very much.
In addition to her parents, Mrs. Anna was preceded in death by her son, Gerald Wayne Miller; a daughter, Paula Annette Antisdel; grandson, Justin T. Antisdel; two step-sons, Ronald Bizzle and Tommy E. Shafer, Jr.; her two husbands, Gerald Hayes Miller and James "Pete" Bizzle; a sister, Patsy Pauline Poole; three brothers, George Steven Pipkins, Paul Pipkins and Leonard Dale Pipkins; and a niece, Sheila Jane Sherman.
It was my great honor to serve as Anna’s pastor while serving at Macedonia Baptist Church. Anna was more than just a church member to me, she was a friend. One of my greatest honors was to officiate the wedding between she and Tommy. I always thought they were one of the cutest couples. Anna was always one to have a smile always kept herself well maintained. I don’t know if I ever saw her without makeup and her hair done. She was always one to be apart of different outings of the church. She loved her family and talked of them often. She was especially proud of her grandchildren and would covet the prayers of fellow believers during times of concern. She loved her Lord and was one to talk faithfully of her relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ her Lord. It was an honor serve as her pastor. It is comforting to know that she was my friend and even more so knowing she was my sister in the Lord.
Her daughter, Vicki Coats, had the following to say of her mother...
How does one begin to describe someone as wonderful as Anna? Anna always saw the good in everyone I never heard her say anything bad about anyone. Anna was married to my dad James Bizzle, they had a happy life together for many years. Dad came down with Alzheimers that he struggled with for many years. Anna was there right by his side throughout it all. She could have put him in a home or facility that treats this kind of illness. She had promised him that she would NOT do that as long as she could take care of him. Long story short he died at home. She lived out her promise to him. Anna loved God and her church family in Ripley very much. Friends and family meant so much to her. Anna's life has not always been full of sunshine. She had to do the unthinkable, she lost her 3 children. No one thinks this will happen. They believe that the parent will go first, but she had to let her children go. Her love and faith in God with help from family and friends got her through these hard times. She never gave up. She found love and happiness once again with Tommy Shafer. They were married on October 26, 2019. Though the time was short, they loved and enjoyed the time they had together. Simply put there are not enough good words in the English language to describe Anna Shafer or all the good she has done in her life. She is missed already.
Song #2
Song #2
Song #3
Song #3
Message
Message
Whenever we face death, even the death of a strong believer like Anna, whose faith was strong to the end, we are left with questions. So at this time we’re going to think about two questions to help us understand what has happened and what is yet to come, to help give us strength and hope in hard days and to help us know what to do.
What happened to Anna on Monday, October 9? We can analyze and describe what went on in her body. But we’re not talking about vital signs, heartbeats, or disease. What happened to the part of Anna you can’t monitor or hear with a stethoscope? What happened to Anna, the eternal soul created in God’s image?
To know this, the only place we can turn is the Bible. On October 9, Anna went to be with God. The Bible says that if we are absent from the body, we are at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8).
There is no safer place to be. God’s word tells us:
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Not even death itself can separate us from God’s love.
When we come face-to-face with the end of life, we need to remember that death is not all-powerful. We all die, so it might seem that nothing can stand against death. But there is someone greater than death!
Where did death comes from? When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, God set the curse of death on humanity. So we realize that death ravages this world not because it is more powerful than God, but because almighty God has made death the penalty of our sins.
The good news we discover in the Bible, though, is that Jesus brought our sins in His body up on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live in righteousness; by wounds you were healed (1 Peter 2:24).
24 and He Himself brought our sins in His body up on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you were healed.
The Bible tells us that this same Jesus is greater than death! He says...
Revelation 1:18 (NASB 2020) 18 ...I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
So death is not the end, because our Jesus holds the keys! Jesus is stronger than death. And this is the hope that Anna so clearly had.
Jesus said:
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
Anna heard Jesus’ words when she accepted Christ and she believed them—she trusted in Jesus to take away his sins and became a follower of Jesus. And according to Jesus’ words, she passed from death to life years ago.
This is the hope of all God’s people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s last known words before being executed for treason in Nazi Germany, written in complete confidence to a friend, were, “This is the end, for me the beginning of life.”
For Anna, who is with God, death is not end. Anna will live again.
The Bible says:
51 Behold, I am telling you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
These weak bodies will be made new:
No more eye glasses, or even Lasik
No more prescriptions
No more cancer, no more coughing
No more fear of the latest virus
No more aging, frailties, limping, or pain, for God will make all things new!
A stethoscope can tell what happened to Anna’s old body. God tells us what is going to happen to her when Christ comes again!
What will happen to your soul after you die? We have all disobeyed God; we have all sinned in our thoughts, words, and deeds.
4 Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die.
Anna put her trust in Jesus as her Savior.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
What are you trusting? Death comes to us all, but we are ready to meet God after we die?
What do we have to look forward to? God isn’t just transforming people. His plan is much bigger. He’s transforming the world! He is making a new heaven and a new earth.
17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
The joy of what God is creating will be so overwhelming. We will forget the pain and sorrows of this life. Light will dawn and chase away the shadows. God knows we have tears and tragedies, and He will heal our hearts and lift the sorrows from our minds. The whole world will be made new!
The first detail we need to know about heaven is that a service this won’t happen there. No funerals! There will be no evil, no sin, no one who hurts another, no disease, no random violence, no terrorism, no threat warnings, no AIDS, no smallpox, no congenital defects.
25 The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm on all My holy mountain,” says the Lord.
God is making all things new. If you love God, if you belong to Christ, this is what you have to look forward to! In that new creation, those of us who know Jesus will meet Anna again.
Someone asked W.A. Criswell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, whether we’d know each other in heaven, and he answered, “We won’t really know each other until we get to heaven!”
When we see Anna again someday, we will see her as God has seen her all along, perfect and complete, shining with glory in God’s presence.
So just wait! If you loved Anna, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Conclusion
Conclusion
A gentleman’s wife died when their three children were still young. The man and his children were driving to her funeral, and he was thinking about how he could comfort his children. It was a bright, sunny day, and as they came up to a stoplight, a big truck pulled up beside them and put them its shadow.
Just then gentleman had an idea. He asked his daughter, “What would you rather be hit by, that truck or the shadow of that truck?” “The shadow, of course,” she answered. “That’s right,” he said, “and that’s the way it is with death for a Christian. Jesus was hit by death so we would only be hit by the shadow of death.”
This is our confidence and our strong hope.
If you do not know this hope, please come me about my Jesus, about Anna’s Jesus before you leave today. I would love to tell you about Him.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
Song #4
Song #4