Audrey Rowland Funeral
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Audrey Bryant Rowland
Born: 1939
Passed: August 31, 2026
Celebration of Life Service: Gray Memorial Chapel, Thursday, September 3, 2026
Interment: Gray Memorial Gardens at Cedar Ridge
Husband: William Edward Rowland (deceased)
Children: Mike (Louise) Rowland, Melinda (Wayne) Balkcom, Michelle (Joel) Hobbs
Five Grandchildren
Six Great Grandchildren
Expecting One Great Great Grandchild
Sister: Barbara Wilson
Order of Service:
Processional: Amazing Grace (Spotify)
Welcome, Scripture and Prayer - Randy Darnell
Song - “Old Rugged Cross” - Congregational Hymn - George Sheffield Leading
Eulogy - Randy Darnell
Song - “I Come to the Garden Alone” - George Sheffield
Family exits after first verse
Prayer - Randy Darnell
“Amazing Grace” - recording - Family enters
Welcome, Scripture and Prayer - Randy Darnell
Welcome to the Celebration of Life for Ms. Audrey Bryant Rowland.
Thank you all for coming out today to share your love and support with Ms. Audrey’s family.
Your presence is certainly an encouragement and a blessing to them.
As I was preparing for today, a phrase I’ve used more and more since I’ve gotten, shall we say, more mature is
“I’m just too old to be alive.”
Usually it’s after seeing some commercial on television advertising something that needn’t be advertised
Or hearing something in the news that kind of boggles my feeble brain.
Saying, “I’m just too old to be alive,” is a sort of funny way of saying, “My how this world has changed.”
Ms. Audrey was born in 1939 - 2 years before the day that will live in infamy, as President Roosevelt called it.
When she was born, no one had an hour commute to work.
The world was a lot smaller for a little girl named Audrey.
But by the time she passed, it was a big ole’ world.
She had two constants in her life
Her love of family
And her love of the Lord.
I want to read to you two passages of scripture that the Lord gave to Audrey, and to us.
The first is found in John 14:1-6 and it’s read at a lot of funerals.
It especially speaks to Ms. Audrey though.
Hear now the Word of the Lord.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
And you know the way to where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The second scripture is also very familiar, but is one of the most timeless promises that the Lord has given to us.
Psalm 23 says:
A Psalm of David.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Will you join me in prayer?
Dear Father,
We thank you Lord for times of peace.
They are rare in our world - not because you don’t bring them
But because we just don’t see them.
We move too fast.
But every now and again, you lead us to stop
You see exhausted sheep so you make us to lie down in green pastures, as Your word says.
Sometimes when we visited Ms. Audrey, that’s what we would find.
Peace - and quiet - and stillness.
And that is when we hear you.
We pray for this family Lord, that you’ll give them some time to rest.
They’ve run themselves ragged taking care of their mother, as they should have.
But now that Ms. Audrey is home with you
Lord, help them rest.
Thank you for saving Ms. Audrey
That we can grieve but as people who are filled with hope.
There will be a new heaven and a new earth, and you’ve already called Ms. Audrey to it.
She’s walked on the streets of gold.
She’s heard Your voice, seen your face
And understood for the first time ever the full depth of you love.
We pray her homecoming was exciting, full of old friends and family
But mostly, because Ms. Audrey got to see Jesus.
Got to hear His voice
And now, she got to enter into His rest.
Thank you for your assurance of salvation Lord.
Help us in this hour, we pray
In Jesus’ name, Amen
Congregation “Old Rugged Cross” - George Sheffield leading
“I’m just too old to be alive.”
I don’t know that Ms. Audrey ever said that, but as we sat and talked about her and as I reminisced about her
We couldn’t help but see how much the world had changed in Audrey’s lifetime
And why faith and family would be the constants that kept her world afloat.
If you’ve ever driven up her driveway you kind of get a feel for it.
You slow down on the Monticello Highway and turn right and cross the railroad track with the crossbucks, no signal.
Single track, mostly always clear as far as you can see left and right.
The driveway has a memory of asphalt - a bit bumpy with grass growing under the middle where the car will pass over it.
There’s a gate just beyond the train track - I’ve never seen it closed.
The house is a white house nestled among some trees
And it looks just like something out of a 1940’s movie.
Pastureland stretches far to the right and the left of her house
Leaving her house as a tiny oasis, a reminder of older, simpler times.
Audrey was born in 1939 in Cedar Grove, Georgia.
Go down 441 towards McRae, and when you get to the middle of nowhere, turn left.
The Cedar Grove community is about a mile on the right.
If Google Street View is correct, I’m not sure too much has changed there since then
It’s not as agricultural as it was back then.
There are lots and lots of young pine trees in the picture.
Leads me to believe that the folks there transitioned from growing cotton to growing trees.
Audrey’s dad had a big cotton farm.
He also had a big family - four girls and two boys.
All of them acted as hired hands out in the fields.
Ms. Audrey wasn’t a fan of picking cotton.
She grew up, went to high school and played on the basketball team.
I’d a loved to have seen that.
Elderly, slow, methodical stepping Audrey Rowland running up and down the court in her girls basketball uniform.
She played basketball until her senior year.
She met Ed - they married while she was still in high school.
And her senior year, she was pregnant with Mike.
She graduated High School and got a job at Morris State Bank.
Banking became her career - she was a banker for over 40 years
Ending her career as an assistant vice president.
Not bad for a lady with a high school diploma.
The family moved to Gray a few years later - I think Mike was 6 when that occured.
And as much as Ms. Audrey wanted to escape the farm
Ed wanted a farm.
A big farm - 1,200 acres where he could plant soybeans and corn.
Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.
Mike told me of a year where they had no rain for 17 weeks.
That was a didn’t year.
Ed worked several jobs to pay the mortgage on the property.
We talked about Gray back in those days.
The family attended Gray Baptist.
I don’t know what year Ms. Audrey joined and I don’t know when she was baptized.
But we know both things happened.
Audrey was a Christ follower.
She made sure her kids got a good dose of God at Gray Baptist.
And she continued attending as long as she could
Going to the Sara B Sunday School class and attending worship.
There were things about her life that showed the Lord had His hands on her.
She taught her children the value of hard work.
All of them have a very strong work ethic - maybe almost to a fault sometimes.
That’s actually Biblical you know
and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you,
She taught them the value of keeping your word.
If you said you were going to do something, then you did it.
No 10 page contract in 10 point type written in painful legalese.
No, if you gave your word, you were good for your word.
That’s Biblical too.
Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.
And then there is this one:
“If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.
Audrey and Ed made a vow to the Lord when they were married.
And they kept that one too, until Ed passed away in 2006.
That was a hard day for Audrey, it kind of took the wind out of her sails.
Those lessons and more were taught in Sunday School and Church at Gray Baptist.
We talked about Pastor Cone and his wife Tommie Lee.
We talked about Dusty Reynolds and the time when the church was small enough for everyone to know everyone.
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
She did her best to train her children in the way they should go.
Gray Baptist was a significant part of their lives.
When the family moved to Gray, there were NO red lights, only stop signs.
Ollie’s was one their favorite places.
Sometimes on Friday or Saturday evening, they’d order from Ollies.
I understand they had the best fried shrimp anywhere.
There was the Townhouse
And a little ice cream shop, called the Bantam Shelf next door to the Handy Andy or something like that.
They’d go there on occasion.
And back in the day, what did families do on Sunday afternoons sometimes?
They’d all pile in the car and go for a ride.
Sometimes you’d pass someone’s house and they’d be sitting on the porch so you’d stop in for a visit.
Uninvited, but always welcomed.
The kids would play while the parents solved the problems of the world.
Times were different.
Families stayed closer together - no one really commuted to Atlanta to work, Atlanta was in another universe.
No, they walked next door, or went down the street.
You didn’t have dreams of going viral or being the next greatest whatever.
No, life was simpler and families were closer.
You think about what Ms Audrey did for a living and you say, “She worked at a bank.”
But what is that - you receive deposits, people withdraw funds.
The bank makes loans.
And it can get a little bit romanticized like you watch “It’s a Wonderful Life,” at Christmas time and see the difference George Bailey made in his little town.
The difference between what George Bailey did and what Audrey did, was, what Audrey did was real.
It was 1985, June to be exact.
Audrey worked for the C&S bank then.
Two young men, Gibson and Martin Whitehurst walked into the bank to take out a loan.
They wanted to start a business
Martin was 18.
They had no degree.
They had no record of business success.
They simply had a desire to have their own business and some kind of plan to make it work.
Audrey Rowland was their loan officer.
For some reason, Martin said, she gave them a five year business loan.
They struggled but they never missed a payment.
They took out another small loan in 1989 to buy a second truck.
But they never had to borrow another dime in the 41 years and counting of their business.
Martin gives the Lord the glory for leading them to Audrey who,
For whatever reason she had to grant the loan, she granted it, and their work has made a life for them and their family
And provided a very necessary service to so many people in their deepest time of need.
So, Audrey did more than just go to work.
She changed people’s lives.
That’s a good thing.
She loved flowers and was a President of the Garden Club, twice.
As I understand it, the Garden Club was about wilted and dead
So they graciously gave Audrey the reins of the dying organization.
But she wasn’t going to let that happen - work ethic, remember.
She worked and worked and brought that group back to life.
But there is one thing about Audrey that I find, really, really, well, different.
She was a Swifty.
She was a nut about Taylor Swift.
She kept up with the whole Taylor Swift - Travis Kelce
Giving a blow by blow, almost TMZ quality report to anyone who would listen.
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around - did Audrey put on bright red lipstick and bop around her house listening to Taylor Swift when nobody was around?
It’s a bit more than I can handle.
Her true love though was her family.
She wanted them near her and with her all of the time if they could.
Holidays were her passion.
She’d plan for the entire crew to come, kids, grandkids, great grandkids
And they’d have food and fun and lots of time to be together.
I suspect, especially in her later years, that those times were her happy place.
But as in everyone’s life, Ms. Audrey got old and her body started to fail her.
A little while ago, she took a turn for the worst and everyone knew she would be going to the home Jesus was preparing for her very soon.
She went to Brightmoor hospice to spend her final hours
And here is where a little more of that Bible teaching came into play.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Audrey was not left alone.
Someone was at her bedside 24/7.
They got very little sleep.
The family made sure that Audrey knew as she slipped from this life into the next
That her family loved her and was there for her.
And on Monday morning at 5:55 am, the angel of the Lord came and gathered Ms. Audrey home.
Now, I read John 14 earlier.
I’m going to aggravate some King James readers here, but it is what it is.
The KJV says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions…”
That’s really an unfortunate translation because it kind of misses the point.
We aren’t going to have mansions isolated from each other in heaven.
Ms. Audrey isn’t going to be living alone there.
The picture Jesus is painting is of a family compound.
In the middle is Mom and Dad’s house.
As the children grow, the boy children build on rooms beside mom and dad’s house for his bride.
The girls go and live in their new family’s compound.
There would be a big common kitchen where all of the women would gather to work.
There would be a big courtyard where the kids would gather to play or the folks would get together to discuss business.
The wall around the compound would have doors to keep the wild animals out and the domestic animals in
And so the men could go work the fields every day.
The picture Jesus wants us to see is not of opulent wealth
It’s a picture of family.
Of all of us living together with Jesus in glorious community with one another
With love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
No family drama.
Only family joy.
The thing Audrey wanted most in this life is what she is receiving now in her new life.
Every thing is new.
She’s in basketball form.
And she’s gathered to her family with Jesus
Because of Jesus.
Jesus made her new.
Jesus will make all things new.
Even me and you.
Pray with me:
Oh Blessed Lord,
Thank you for the life of Audrey.
Thank you for the good memories.
Thank you for the lessons learned.
Thank you for her family and for the way they took care of their Mama.
And thank you for Jesus.
Thank you for carrying Ms. Audrey home.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“I Come to the Garden Alone” - George Sheffield
Family exits after the first verse
Graveside
My favorite verse in the world in Revelation 21:5
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
I like new.
I like knowing that whatever I can imagine about the New Heaven and the New Earth won’t compare to what they really are.
New.
Not just aches and pains gone - all of the no more tears, no more death stuff.
But new - brand spanking, other worldly new.
And Audrey is experiencing that right now, this very minute.
She is there because God’s words are trustworthy and true.
Nobody made this God stuff up.
The image of God is hardwired into every person alive
Even those who don’t believe in God have something inside of them that drives them
Everyone has a desperate need for purpose, where, pray tell, do you think that came from?
And what is that purpose?
It is to love God and enjoy Him forever.
And there is only one way to get there and that’s God way.
He sent Jesus to be born of a virgin
He lived a perfect life - so we would see how it was done.
He was crucified on a cross - the perfect sacrifice so our sins could be forgiven.
He died and was buried in a tomb where he lay dead from Friday into Sunday.
And then he rose to new life.
Not as a ghost or a phantasm - but as the same man he was before he died
Only with a ‘glorified’ or ‘made new’ body.
Over 500 people saw this dead man come back to life.
Then he ascended into heaven and one day he will return again.
Now lots of people say they believe that
But fewer people truly believe it - believe it so much that it changes how they live.
And that’s what’s required.
Not just a ‘Yup, that’s what happened.”
But a, “Yes, that happened for me and I’m going to follow the man who did this for me.
Audrey followed - imperfectly as we all do.
But to the best of her ability.
And Monday morning, the Lord made her new.
For yourselves make sure that you believe in a way that Jesus changes the way you live so that people can tell when they look at you.
Pray with me:
Now, we commend into thy hands of mercy the soul of this our sister departed, Audrey
And her body we commit to the earth, beseeching you in your infinite goodness, to give us grace to live in your fear and love, and to die in your favor
So that when the judgement shall come which you have committed to your well-beloved son,
Both this our sister, and we, may be found acceptable in your sight
and that we receive that blessing, which your well-beloved son shall then pronounce to all that love and fear you, saying
Come you blessed children of my Father: Receive the kingdom prepared for you before the beginning of the world.
Grant this merciful father for the honor of Jesus Christ, our only Savior, Mediator, our Advocate and our Friend.
[Ephesians 3:20-21 NASB] 20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen
