Virginia McDade McMurray

We are gathered here today to remember Virginia McDade McMurray. A graduate of Tyner high School and retired from Provident. But more importantly, a wife, a sister, a motherly figure to her brothers and sisters, a follower of God. Although I did not personally know Virginia, I want to spend a few brief minutes honoring the life she lived and help us think about God, death, and all of our journeys from this life to the next. I want to read from Psalm 23.

From the beginning, there have been two points that mark our time as humans here on earth. The time of birth and the time of death. We hear about life and death so often that our ears become numb to it, but at times like this we are invited to pause for a moment and reflect. We all come into this world and we will all leave it. As I thought about these two realities, it struck me, we have so little control over the majority of our lives. I do not choose when or where I am born. Into this family or that family. This continent or that one. And I do not choose, for the most part, when I die.

This can be quite scary to think about, this lack of control. Does God have anything to say to us about our journeys from birth to death? About the lack of control? About the fact that life is not always easy and simple and fun. What does God have to say to us when it is challenging, complex, and difficult?

One of the beauties of Psalm 23 is how David refers to God. The Lord is my… Shepherd.

Shepherd's guide their sheep through the unknown. They are always present so that the sheep are never alone. David talks about God in this way, that He is truly guiding our lives. Though we can feel very much out of control and lost at times, God is present and guiding. The end of verse 2 says that “he leads us…” God is always at work in our lives, even when we do not see Him. God may be doing 1,000 things in your life and you may be aware of 2 of them.

This psalm uses imagery of green pastures and valleys of death to explain that our journey through life is varied. We have good times and bad. Joy and sadness. We can be tempted to think that God is only present and working in the good times, but this Psalm tells us God is at work in all seasons in verse 4.

God does not abandon us, and He did not abandon Virginia. Ward was telling me that the nurse who was with her the night of her passing was singing hymns and praying with her. God was present and at work comforting her in her valley of death.

To you the family, I don’t have any fancy answers or trite phrases to clean up the difficulty of life and to make it seem simple or easy, it is not. But remember, even in the valley of death, meaning when things are most dark and bleak, He is with us. He is near. He is present. How do I know this?

Because Jesus, even though He is God, came down into this earth and subjected himself to the pain and the grief and the sorrow we experience. The Bible says in John 11:35 that Jesus wept when his friend Lazurus died. We are allowed to grieve the difficulty and pain that accompanies us between birth and death. God wants us to bring our sorrows to Him. God is always with us in the darkness saying: “lay it on me, bring it to me, I can handle it, you are not alone, I’ve felt it too”.

Death is hard, but the hope Jesus offers us is that He is with us always, even in death because He himself has been there. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die Jn 11:25–26.

Jesus is with us on this journey from birth to death, and because Jesus himself entered into his own valley of death and overcame it, death no longer has the last word for those who believe in Him. For His children, Jesus truly is the good shepherd who is with us and guiding us from birth to death, and after, into eternal life with Him.