Barbara Martin Graveside

Mrs. Martin passed away, Wednesday, April 24, 2019 in Tyler.

   Barbara Sue Southers Martin was born in Bradley Arkansas on July 24 th 1938. She then relocated to Houston Texas where she graduated Jefferson Davis High School. The then started working for Southerwestern Bell of Houston. She married in August of 1958 and was blessed with her first child in 1960. Barbara joined her husband in their hobby of amateur radio and talked to many people around the world including the King of Jordan and Jacque Cousteau in his many worldwide adventures and eventually moved to conducting MARS communication messages for troops stationed around the world.  Barbara had many adventures in many locations in America from the many deserts to the frozen northern regions. During her travels she was again blessed with two more sons, William And Joseph Martin. She then took her experiences and expertise to Ingram Texas where she worked for many years in the Ingram School District. Thereafter her family relocated to the Grapeland Texas area where she had the awesome powers of a green thumb and a loving heart for any animals she managed to meet. She always described herself as a simple country girl enjoying the atmosphere and people around her. She could always strike up a conversation wherever she journeyed and loved her final adventure, researching the Holy Bible.

Mrs Barbara sounds like an amazing woman.

She is at rest. No more striving. No more pain. She is at peace.

O

You are not. You are grieving. You may even be regretting. But she is not. So although grieving is a necessary part of the process, it is not the end of the process. It is designed to move us through. And by design, the other side of the process is supposed to be that much closer to God.

Look at

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Psalm 84:5–7 ESV

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 6 As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.

Valley of Weeping

Sorrow overtakes us to the point we have to sit down for a while. We grieve there. But there is something else we do there: we dig. For our own benefit and for the benefit of those who will walk in this valley after us, we dig.

You will at some point in the near future be overwhelmed with sorrow again. Sit down again. And maybe this time you will sit where someone has sat before you. They dug there. There is a pool of refreshing where they dug. That is for you.

Look at

Psalm 23 ESV

A Psalm of David. 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

King David dug a pool for you and for me when we walk in the valley of weeping. Maybe you want to take your mom’s bible and take a few pics of some of the things she wrote in it or highlighted in it. Let what she was digging these last years be a pool of refreshing for you.

You’ll soon find yourself on the other side of the valley of weeping and that much closer to God.