The following was written for the memorial service for Alawoise Strickland Flanagan (July 29, 1935 – February 9, 2015)

In the very first chapter of our Bible, we have a beautiful portrait of the human vocation—a portrait of who we human beings were created to be, how we were created to live, during the relatively short time we have on this good earth.

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth… (Genesis 1:27-28a).

With our thoughts this hour on the enormous Flanagan family, perhaps one of the first things that we glean from this portrait of who we were created to be, and how we were created to live, is: “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Harold and Alawoise certainly fulfilled this part of the human vocation, and they wasted no time in doing so. It was on this day, Valentine’s Day in 1958, that Harold proposed marriage to his Valentine, Alawoise.

Before the luncheon today, I said, “Harold, let me get this straight. You proposed on Valentine’s Day and were married on April 18, of the same year?

Harold said, “Did you see her nursing school picture on the communion table?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

He said,  “Well go look at that pretty girl, and you will understand why I did not want to wait.”

And “to be fruitful” they also did not wait as Jerry has often been called “a honeymoon baby.”

The beautiful family portrait on this table, this order of service with participation from some of the grandchildren, and this room filled with their offspring tell the rest of their story—a story of a two Valentines fulfilling their human vocation to “be fruitful and multiply.”

However, as beautiful as this story is, as beautiful as the Flanagan family is to this community and to our world, this is just a small part of Alawoise’s story. This is only part of her fulfillment of what it means to be human on this earth, a small part of her legacy. In Genesis we first read:

“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

The primary way that we fulfill our human vocation, is not to be fruitful, but to be, to live, in the image of God. The good news for all for us this day is that Alawoise more than fulfilled this purpose for which she was created. As the poem recited by her granddaughter, Leigh Kathryn, so beautifully described, Alawoise perhaps best lived in the image of her God as a mother.

In Deuteronomy 32:18 we read that the Israelites are asked to remember “the Rock” that “bore” them; the God who gave them “birth.”

Throughout the Old Testament, God is portrayed as the mother of Israel. It is God who gave birth to Israel and loves Israel as a mother loves her child, unreservedly, unconditionally, tenaciously.

Growing up in the Flanagan house, there was never any doubt that Alawoise was “the Rock” who could always be counted on to love her children in the same manner. Just ask anyone who ever tried to cross any of them! As it was spoken by the prophet Hosea of God and her love of Israel: She would “fall upon them like a [mama] bear robbed of her cubs…” (Hosea 13:8a).

She was the constant care-taker, and she was the perpetual protector. As a mother, she was tried and true. And, let’s face it, let’s be honest this afternoon, I don’t know about Gayle, but you boys often tried her.

Like the time Harold taught Mark to drive a truck. Mark, how old were you? Six or seven? In trying to reach the gas-peddle, Mark recalls slipping off the seat and stomping on the gas, all the while poor Scott was sitting up high on some hay bales in the back. Well, as you can surmise, he wasn’t sitting up there very long.

Alawoise was tried by you boys with multiple broken bones, stiches, car accidents, rattle snakes, even gunshot wounds. But her love, her devotion and commitment to you never wavered, always remained true.

Even up to the time she had to go to the nursing home, each time she heard the town’s siren go off, she instinctively possessed this hair-trigger panic button that would immediately do a family roll call, one that is reminiscent of the motherly words of Jesus himself recorded by the Gospel of Luke:

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, …How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…

Even during these past difficult months, almost each time I visited her, Alawoise would do a roll call, asking me about the whereabouts of her family. Even when she was not in her right mind, lying sedated in a hospital bed, she would oftentimes ask me to help her to take things like barbeque and fried chicken off the stove for her Harold and her children.

Jerry, Gayle, Scott and Mark, and Harold, Alawoise lived her life to take care of your needs, to protect you, to love you unreservedly, unconditionally and tenaciously, and in so doing, she fulfilled the purpose for which she was created: living in the image of her motherly God and her Lord and Savior.

Now, if this was her only legacy, I believe it would be enough. However, there is much more.

The motherly love of Alawoise was in no way limited to her husband and children, or even to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Alawoise possessed a desire to gather many others under her maternal wings. She welcomed an exchange student and many others into the hospitality of her home. She lived to provide plenty of food, clean clothes, and a clean bed for anyone in need.

Her motherly love was experienced by many of us who have gathered here this day. We experienced it through Alawoise as a Sunday School Teacher, a deacon, a school nurse or as a Cub Scout Den Mother.

This broad and expansive motherly love of Alawoise was perhaps most ostensibly experienced during her twenty-six years as director of nursing and later as administer for the Guardian Care Nursing Home in Farmville. She loved the patients of the nursing home with the same tenacity with which she loved her own children.

She had absolutely no tolerance for any nursing home employee who did not treat a patient with the compassion. On the behalf of her patients, she did not hesitate to even stand against the company just as the prophet Isaiah spoke of God standing for her children: Thus says the Lord: “For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant.”

Alawoise lived in the image of God by suffering alongside and standing up for the least of these our brothers and our sisters, those who are the weakest, the most vulnerable members of society.

And for all of us who mourn this day this is truly good news. Alawoise was lived in the image of God. This means that when Alawoise suffered during these last difficult years, God, like a loving mother, also suffered. It is important for us to realize that God did not cause her suffering. God did not give her Parkinson’s disease. For what mother would do that to their child. Jesus once asked:

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father [or Mother] in heaven give good things to those who ask!

Like a woman in labor or a mama bear, suffering and fighting for her cubs, God suffered with and fought with Alawoise. God did not take Alawoise from us with Parkinson’s Disease as some may say, but when she was in her weakest, most vulnerable, broken state, God came to her and gave her the best gift God had to give—the gift of God’s complete self. Thus, the best way to describe what happened on Monday morning of this week is that God came. God did not take, but graciously gave God’s self to her— tenaciously, completely, finally, eternally.

I don’t believe there is any other way to explain the very last words she said to me. Just days before she died, after suffering more than anyone one deserves, she opened her eyes, and spoke, not words of complaint or bitterness, but words of a loving mother, or of a child who has been comforted by her heavenly mother, asking me, “And how is your family.”

And the good news is that God will do the very same for us. God will come to each of us in our grief, in our brokenness, to each of God’s beloved children, and comfort us. In Isaiah 66 we read:

You shall nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

As Alawoise taught us by living her life in the image of God, it is in God’s very divine, maternal nature to extend God’s peace and comfort to us all, especially to those in need. It is the nature of our God to place those of us who are hurting this day in the shadow of God’s maternal wings.

I began my remarks this afternoon with some of the first words of our Bible. I would like to close my remarks with some of the last words of our Bible. Hear now these very maternal words from Revelation:

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home^* of God is among mortals. He will dwell^* with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;  he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.

I am thankful, and I know that her family is thankful, that Alawoise fulfilled her human vocation on this earth by being fruitful and multiplying. But I believe we are more grateful this day that Alawoise fulfilled her vocation by living as she was created to live on this good earth: in the image of our motherly God who loves us all unreservedly, unconditionally, tenaciously, and eternally.