Aunt Janice Memorial

George Willis                                                                                                        December 12th, 2024

Funeral Service: JANICE KEMP

Welcome/Memories/Connection:

Connection: Introduce- share story about Janice

We are here today to celebrate My Aunt Janice—Mother, Grandmother, Sister and loved by so many.. My last Memory at mommas house: I love you baby and I am proud of you.. She loved her family!

Uncle Garfield—Great Mother and Great Cook

My Moms—

She was comedian, she was silly.. always had people laughing.. she was very funny be the baby of the family I could relate.. he got a lot of attention….Despite the pain and the suffering..she would try so hard to make it to the things she needed to attend…. She would always ask for prayer but her perspective on her illness.. she clinged …. Not matter what the challenges were she would stay with the idea that she would be healed.

She believed in what she believed in with her whole heart…

Chris- Would echo the same thing, SHE LOVED THE THINGS THAT SHE LOVED, She would go through these phases where she would keep an excess of soda, like DP’s,Big Red, Sprite there would be times where she would even hide them from people, finding them under the bed and different. She loved her soda. BEST CHICKEN CASSEROLE. She would take her time on it and it was BIG DEAL. That and this Texas Chocolate sheet cake and of course the Kemp Family dressing, I know she passed that down to Crystal and Kita…….…..Though She loved her sweets, blue bell and cooking.. there is nothing she loved more then her family

She Loved her kids Chris, Crystal, Sam she LOVED you! And she loved her grandbabies, she would have been at all the events if she could and she would try to make it to the babies games but she always asked how the game was.. she loved being apart. She loved being included it brought her great joy…..she loved supporting her kids and grandbabies…. But one of the joys of her life something she looked for too every year was the annual Christine’s Chics Girls trip.oooo if I could be a fly on the wall on one of those trips.. the fun, the adventures,  the laughs,

Crystal in those hardest moments when you miss your Mama the most..I want you to take your mind back to those girls trips, your greatest memory of her from those trips

Chris when you feeling down and miss your moms think about the memories you have of her whipping up that food and the laughing and joking… Family hold on to this memories

Yes the girls trips are going to

Message:

Grief is an emotion that is really difficult to describe until the moment that you are in it. It is common to all people, everyone in this place and everyone who is connected to these families is, and will be, experiencing grief and sorrow. Hear me say that it is right for us to grieve this loss that is being

Jesus Grieved. The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35 “JESUS WEPT” Jesus was viting his friend Lazarus.

There are so many questions that we can wrestle with at a time like this but there is a truth that we can root ourselves in… Janice was an image bearer of the Lord God; She was created in His image, and she was precious to Him. He loved her deeply and knew her name before the beginning of time

For us today we grieve. Today we mourn. Today we cry. But we do not grieve and mourn without hope. Because we have an eternal hope that cannot be shaken, it cannot be diminished, it is unchanging and eternal. Because our Hope is the God of all hope!

He loves us with an everlasting love, and He has promised that He is with us…that He will never leave us or forsake us.

It is in moments like these that we can and should look to God’s word, because it is not silent on the subject of death and grief, and for that I am grateful.

I want us to turn our hearts to God and His word and allow it to encourage us for just a few moments and sustain us in our grief. Because what I will tell you is… because of the person and work of Jesus Christ none of us have to grieve without hope.

The book of Lamentations provides us with some of the most comforting and hopeful promises when we have times of sorrow and difficulty.

Lamentations 3:21-25

But this I call to mind , and therefore have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him

The promises in these few verses are written for those of us that are here today, so that we can find hope in these moments.

We can have Hope because of God’s Steadfast Love

The writer of Lamentations reminds us that Gods love is steadfast and it never ceases. God is a God of love, GOD IS LOVE and His love is certain and unending it never tarnishes, It is and should be our HOPE if we are in Christ. To know the steadfast love of God means it shines the brightest in our most difficult moments

We can have Hope in the never-ending Mercy and Faithfulness of God

For us here today the truth that God’s mercies never come to an end and they are new every morning is a truth that we can cling to in the days and weeks ahead as we experience loss and grief. How unbelievable is it to know that the mercy of God is a well that never runs dry… every day we can find comfort and mercy for anything and everything in our lives. When our sorrow is heavy God’s promise to His people is that our cup can and will be filled with God’s mercies if we draw near to Him, because they are new every day and they never come to an end.. Grief is ours today because he is gone, but. I would tell you that it is the  love & mercy of God that will hold you in the days weeks to come. God is FAITHFUL and one truth that I would ask you to cling to today is this…

Psalm 34:18 says “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”  I hope that you know today that Lord is not far off. He sees you. He understands the heartache you feel and He is drawing nearer and nearer to you as you grieve. The hymn GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS is based on these verses in Lamentations and the chorus to that song says, “Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by Morning new mercies I see; All I have needed thy hand hath provided, Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me” and because of God’s great faithfullness… in our sorrow, we have HOPE. 2 times the writer of Lamentations spoke about Hope. First he says that we can have hope in the promises of God. Promises of steadfast love, new mercies and God’s great faithfulness. But also it says, The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in Him. The Lord is our portion He is everything that we will ever need to provide completely and perfectly for those that belong to Him. That is hope for you and I now and it is hope fulfilled for Norm and will be forever.

The last verse (VERSE 25) says, The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him”

Listen to what Isaiah 40:31 which says, 

                They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not grow faint.

Grief is ours today because he is gone, but where he is there is no more crying, no mourning, no pain, and there is no more trouble because God Himself is there!

Closing

My hope for you today is that you will cling to your sweet and precious memories of Janice, to one another, and to the Lord in the days and weeks to come. My deepest prayer  is that as you grieve you would know the Lord sees you and hears you. On days when you miss your husband, your Dad, your grandfather, great grand mother, your friend you can and will experience the steadfast love of God, His new mercies will bring you comfort and healing, the Lord God almighty will be your portion now and forever.

Romans 5:13: “May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of te Holy Spirit you my abound in hope

where I am you may be also.

Paul tells us that as we consider life and death that we are to use these words to comfort one another. Isn’t that just like God? That in our moments of grief and heartache, of sorrow and loss, that in those moments He is concerned with giving us comfort and peace. I love what Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Family, if I can encourage you toward anything today it would be this: that you would find rest for your soul in the Lord Jesus Christ. Brokeness, Gods Design, Gospel

Romans 15:13: “May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” That is my prayer for you today. That you would know the God of all hope. And that through Him we might be filled with all joy and peace in believing. Knowing there is hope now…there is hope eternal, because our God is the God of hope.

Closing Prayer…

May the strength of God sustain us; may the power of God preserve us; may the hands of God protect us; may the way of God direct us; may the love of God go with us this day (night) and forever. Amen