Blog


Mar 18

Funeral for Shannon Ash

2010 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: The Church

It’s with sadness that we tell you that, yesterday, one of our own, Shannon Ash (daughter-in-law of Terry Ash), was unexpectedly and suddenly taken home to glory. Although she went into the ER yesterday morning, having been unable to keep food down for several days, it was an unknown blood clot that, only hours later, caused her death.

The funeral service for Shannon will be at Desert Springs Church, this Saturday, at 11:00AM.

Of course, please pray for the Ashes — for Terry and Marcia, for Jeff (husband), and for their two little girls. Pray for God’s strength, comfort, peace, nearness, and joy; pray that God would show himself strong and good, and his Word sufficient; pray that we, as a body, would be able to wisely and lovingly begin to bear this burden with them.

And let’s fix our minds on God’s truth at a time like this. Oh how we need passages like this from 2 Cor. 4-5.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you … because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.