They still speak

And quite well


May 13, 2010 (Thursday)
”picMy mother-in-law, Berta Holliday Sadler, told the family several times before her last days on earth that she wanted on her memorial stone the words, “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.” True to her wishes, those words are there today. They serve as a message to every person who sees them.
The Bible tells us of a way to keep speaking after one is dead. It says of Abel in Hebrews 11:4, “by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.” In fact that entire chapter makes that point again and again, listing people of faith who served the Lord faithfully, whose influence has continued to bless and encourage others.
The King James version of that verse says, “being dead, he yet speaketh,” and that phrase has been used thousands of times in recent centuries to memorialize great servants of God.
Speaking of messages on tombstones, someone discovered a tombstone in an old cemetery and it read,

“Pause, stranger, when you pass me by,
For as you are, so once was I.
As I am now, so will you be.
Then prepare unto death, and follow me.
Pushing the grass aside a bit more revealed the following scratched on the stone, done with a crude instrument:
To follow you I’m not content
Until I know which way you went

Then there is the epitaph on a tombstone in Douglas County:
I Am Woman
Hear Me Roar
And Boy Did She