Blanche Hicks
Ÿ Blanche really enjoyed spending time discovering her family’s history. She was able to trace it back as far as the 1400’s. She also enjoyed helping others trace their roots as well.
Ÿ Sandy Coleman has written A Genealogy Poem that I believe Blanche would appreciate:
When relatives depart this life, our love for them we find;
Is stored in hearts as memories, in all they leave behind.
It’s known as genealogy to young ones when they’ve grown;
it tells them of our earthly love for those we might have known.
We think of ones who lived before while traveling down life’s lane;
a drop of blood from each of them now flowing in our veins.
The day we enter Paradise and angels show us in;
when they turn to us and say "please meet your early kin".
Will we hide our eyes and drop our heads and say in shame;
"I’m sorry but in mortal life I never heard your names".
But no! We’ll raise our heads up high to meet their loving gaze,
and say "Oh yes! I know you and of your earthly days.
Someone wrote the story of how you lived your life;
of times of joy and happiness, and yes, of pain and strife".
And if my work is handed down, I will not be surprised,
when descendants come to Paradise and I am recognized.
Ÿ Blanche understood the value of family. In my visits with her she would talk about her family, remembering the things they did together.
Ÿ The thing that Blanche wanted most of all was to be reunited with her family who gone home to be with the Lord ahead of her.
John 14:1-6
1“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2In 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? 3And 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. 4And you know the way to where I am going.” 5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Ÿ Blanche knew that she would see her believing family again because she had made that all important genealogical discovery. Blanche traced her lineage even further back than the 1400’s. She traced her family history back to Christ.
Ÿ Blanche professed that Jesus was her Savior and that made her a true child of our Heavenly Father. Blanche understood that the only family that really matters is the one where God is our Father, Jesus our older brother, and our ancestral home is in heaven.
Ÿ In this passage Jesus states that “He is the Way… and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.” This is absolutely true. Jesus is the one relative that we must find and claim because it only through Him that we are able to make our permanent homes in heaven.
Ÿ Bothers and sisters know this for certain: Jesus has made a home for you in heaven, and all you need to do to claim this eternal residence is to accept His death on the cross as the substitutionary payment for your sins.
Ÿ Blanche told me that she believed that Jesus died in her place for her sins; that being the case I can tell you that Blanche is at her new, permanent home in heaven. This is indeed a cause for celebration and rejoicing.
Ÿ I can tell you that she is right now in the company of all those believing ancestors that she so loved to learn about. I can tell you that Blanche has seen the face of Jesus, and that she has been reunited with those believers whom she loved here on earth.
Ÿ I can also tell you this: If Blanche had not professed her faith in Jesus that this day would be a day of great sorrow and sadness. Because her eternity would be filled with darkness and isolation instead of love, and family, and the company of God Himself.
Ÿ Blanche Hicks was not a perfect person, but she was forgiven and as a result her home is now in heaven. Unless you are a perfect person you need Jesus to cover your sin debt, and thereby make a place in heaven for you too. JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY!
