Rita Wallis Homecoming
Funerals • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Order of Service
Opening Song | It is Well with My Soul by Chris Rice
Prayer and Welcome |
Song #2 | Amazing Grace my Chains are Gone by Chris Tomlin
Song #3 | Home by Christ Tomlin
Obituary |
Reta Jean Wallis stepped into eternity and laid her eyes securely on her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, this past Friday evening. It is promised to us that no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor imagination of man could fathom what was revealed to Mrs. Reta in that moment (1 Corinthians 2:9). Reta was born August 13, 1954, to her late dad, Finis Elling Wallis, and her mom, Isabell “Margie” Russell Wallis of Velvet Ridge, AR.
Reta is preceded in death by her paternal grandparents, Moses Levi Green and Pheobe Ann Hood Wallis and maternal grandparents, Isaac Newton Russell and Rosetta Martin Russell Jones, and her dad, Finis Elling Wallis.
Reta’s legacy of love, natural motherly instinct, and desire to care for others is lived on through her mom—not mother, Margie Wallis, her sister Joie Wallis (Jerry Evans) of Little Rock, her brother Slayden Wallis, her children Angela Yates (Jimmy) of Bald Knob, Taylor Wallis (Fiancé, Dana Smith) of Bald Knob, grandchildren, Hayden Yates (Erin) of Bald Knob, Moria Williams (Devan), a nephew Andrew Wallis (Jessica), a great niece, Desire, and the new joy of her life, her great-grandson, Asher’Gray.
Eulogy | Angela Wallis
Song #4 | Scars in Heaven by Casting Crowns
Message |
As one comes to a time such as this, we hear the obituary read and within those words, one cannot truly know who this loved one was. Oh, we see that they were one daughter or son, a mother or father, brother or sister, but our loved ones are so much more than just a start date and end date. They truly are that dash in the middle. Crowder in his song Dash, writes, “Sunday mornin’ preacher said “Life’s a mist, it’s just a breather. We’re only here for a little while” He’s talking about his daddy’s grave. It read 1910 to ’98, but the years between were just a little line…There’s day we’re born, day we pass. In between, there’s just as dash.
That dash signifies a life well spent or a life wasted. For Rita, it reads 1954-2024, and in between is just a dash. I would submit to you it is more than just a dash for Rita. It was a life well spent. It was a life spent on her family. She loved her family and cared for her family. She was sacrificial in her love and would go without to assure that her family went with. She only knew one way and that way was to be a nurturer, a mother. This nurturing aspect was not limited to her children, it was also testified by her younger brother and older sister. She was a woman of humility, motherly instinct not only to her family but strangers within the community.
She was a penny pincher. It was said that she could go into a store with a dime and bring you back change. While she claimed to not have money most of the time, you just did not know whether you could believe that or not. She was that good and holding onto money, even if she didn’t know that she had money. She just kept a mind set that she was broke. With that mindset she didn’t spend it (Lunch & Purse with $800 but I’m broke). We all need to have this mindset.
Rita was a sneaky little thing too. Everyone of the family members that I have spoken too, gave me stories of how they would catch her sneaking around on spying on them or watching them and they would not even know it. Hayden said that for the past 8-10 years as he caught her doing this, he would go to her and she would go to him, and (fingers at each other). This was true even with how Jimbob and Angela would come together (Story of).
We all know that the reason for her ability to be so sneaky was because of her stature. Bless her, she was short and tiny. Don’t think I am mean when I say this either. It is a fact. Many thought her car should be called Kirby because it looked as if it drove itself. Taylor called her an ankle biter. Moria would say that she was fun size and small enough to fit in your pocket, and Angela called her a sneaky little momma. She was loved. She was cherished. She was a hard worker.
She did foster parenting for five and half years. She served as a bookkeeper for 10 years. She loved the Lord and wanted to invest in others. She carried her Bible everywhere. She made over 3000+ cross bookmarks and gave them away at banks, the office, and at church. She invested in youth by building relationships with them (Cadden and Cooper) especially. She invested in friendships with others, especially with her best friend and confidant, Laura King.
The prophet Isaiah writes, “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades…” (Isaiah 40:6-7 NASB).
If today, on the day of her funeral, as we are morning her loss, Rita could materialize and stand before us in radiant health, what would she say?
I believe she would speak of Christ. She would say, “I have seen the face of Christ and I cannot get over it.” She would explain that she has experienced what has been promised to all of God’s children:
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
In a dazzling sacred moment—when Rita breather her last and her heart lay still—she saw the radiant, welcoming face of the Creator of the universe and the Savior of her soul. She saw Jesus face-to-face, eye to eye, soul to soul. She looked into Christ’s gaze. And because she saw the face of Christ, she became like Him.
In this world, Rita’s sins had been forgiven through the blood of Christ, but in that instant, she became sinless like her Savior. In fact, sin became an impossibility for her. In this world, Rita, by grace, has been given the imputed righteousness of Christ. But in that blazing moment, righteousness became the air she breathed.
And then she was freed from the limitations of her miserable body, so ravaged by illness, that had bound her for years, but at the consummation Christ “will transformer her lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:21).
A body transformed by Christ to be like that of Christ himself? Astonishing! Astonishingly true. How was it for Rita in that first minute in heaven? The first five minutes? The first hour? The first day? Do they have days in heaven?
After Rita spoke about her Jesus, I believe she would then move to describing Heaven.
Rita would also assure us earthbound souls (who are conditioned to think that only what we can touch is real) that heaven is the solid reality. Perhaps she would quote the apostle Paul:
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
She believed this by faith. And now her faith has become sight. Rita is living in the reall—eternal world.
Christ is real! Heaven is real! And in this sense, Rita is more real than she has even been—because...
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Rita would not come back if she could—except to tell us what is real to urge us to make knowing Christ the focus of our lives.
As she talked of her Jesus and Heaven, she would then talk of the importance of being a coheir with Christ.
It is customary to refer to the church on earth as “the church militant” and the church in heaven as “the church triumphant.” Sometimes the church on earth fails in her task, but in heaven she is always victorious.
Rita is part of the church triumphant, part and parcel of “the spirits of the righteous made perfect,” ans the writer of Hebrews calls those who have gone to heaven (Heb. 12:23). And what is that perfection? Certainly it is perfection that comes from being delivered from our sins. But it includes more. It is the absolute perfection of our humanity, not only our moral defects but our mental defects and physical defects. Rita is perfect morally, mentally, and physically. And she is glorious, too, sharing in the “eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17). As a member of the church triumphant, she is a firstborn daughter, which means that along with every true believer, she is a number on heir of everything in the universe. Indeed, she is a “fellow heir” with Christ (Rom. 8:17). This is mind-boggling, but this is what the Scripture tells us.
Rita would not leave without telling us of the Gospel.
Rita would passionately affirm that the gospel is our only hope. She would declare the same truth of the apostle Paul
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
She would declare that there is salvation in none other than Jesus Christ.
12 And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among mankind by which we must be saved.”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.
She would declare to you that while we’ve all sinned (Rom 3:10, 23), and there’s a penalty for that sin (Rom 6:23), that penalty has already been paid for (Romans 6:23, Romans 5:8). She would declare to you, cry out to Jesus.
13 for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Finally, I believe Rita would emphatically say all this, because one final warning, she would declare to you, that life is short. As the Psalmist reminds us:
11 My days are like a lengthened shadow, And I wither away like grass.
10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is only trouble and tragedy; For it quickly passes, and we disappear.
Rita was once a young bride holding her newlywed groom’s hand. She blinked, and she was holding her daughter in her hands. She blinked, and she was walking her son in her hands. She blinked, and she was holding Jesus’ hands. Now is the time to get it right. There is no other time.
Closing Prayer |
Pass-bye Song | Go Rest High on that Mountain by Vince Gill