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Note: Name: Marshall Flick Death Date: 8 Jan 1948 Death County: Fayette Comment: INF Volume: 1 Certificate: 488 Roll: 5 SOURCE: Ancestry.com > Source Information:
Ancestry.com. Alabama Deaths, 1908-59 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2000. Original data: State of Alabama. Index of Vital Records for Alabama: Deaths, 1908-1959. Montgomery, AL, USA: State of Alabama Center for Health Statistics, Record Services Division.
Description: This database is an index of deaths recorded by the State of Alabama, USA, from 1908 to 1959. The index includes name of the deceased, county of death, date of death, and the state certificate number (volume and page). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sleep, Little One, Sleep
1.Sleep, Thou little one, sleep, The Lord thy dear spirit will keep; Thou never shall know of the woes here below, Sleep, thou little one sleep.
2.Sleep, thou darling one sleep, While father and mother must weep; While friends here must mourn because hearts strings are torn, Sleep, thou darling one sleep.
3.Rest, thou precious one, rest, So Sweetly and peacefully rest; Thy soul shall awake and true pleasures partake, Rest, thou precious one, rest.
Words and music owned by J.H. Stewart Copyright 1933 in �SINGERS CHOICE� The Stamps-Baxter Music Company, Dallas, Texas and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
I was not able to find out anything about the author of this song. He apparently did not write many songs. This song is not known by many, but it would do all of us well to read it and pray especially today for all those who have ever lost a little one or even may have lost a little baby in recent days.
I do not know what life experiences the writer of this hymn had in his mind and heart, but this song connects so fully with an event from my own family. I know that some that read this have lost babies and toddlers in death. I want to share this story with you.
In January 1948 my mother gave birth to a premature baby boy. He never was given a name to wear. He would not need one in this world. My parents were living way out in the country in the back woods of Shelby County, Alabama. My daddy was working in a sawmill, and my mama was cooking for a large bunch of the sawmill hands. Mama was not in good health, and she had already given birth to nine babies, seven of which were still living. My parents were dirt poor, and had no insurance, no healthcare, and no doctor available. I was just a year and a half-old baby myself and so, of course, I have no memory of this event. But I was always intrigued by the story that my mama told me years ago about this little brother of mine, and his journey to his eternal home.
When this little fellow was born dead he was taken and placed in a shoebox. That was all that was available. That little shoebox was then placed inside a little wooden box that my daddy had made. That night before he was to be buried the next day�. he was peacefully resting asleep in death, laying in repose in the living room of a little country shack. My mama was very tired and sickly and needed to sleep so very much, and so she went sadly to her bed. She had experienced a very horrible day. Some time later she was awakened by a sound and as she continued to lie in bed she listened very closely to see if she could here the sound again. As she listened in the stillness of the night, she heard footsteps go softy across the floor to where her little dead baby lay. Mama assured me that she knew what she had heard, in her words; �it wasn�t the creaking sounds of an old run-down house, but it was the sound of an angel come to get my baby to carry it home.�
My mother may not have been able to give chapter and verse to this event from scripture, and she did believe that our souls are conveyed to heaven above at the moment of our deaths, but those footprints were so comforting to her. My Dad buried him by my mother�s parents at Antioch Cemetery in the little town of Belk in Fayette County, Alabama. That little baby lies there today in an unmarked grave. But our all knowing God knows where he is at, and some sweet day after awhile we shall meet him in a fairer land. Isn�t it wonderful that we have the precious promise of another meeting place! Isaiah addressed this same situation in a sense: Isaiah 57:1
The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
And in the book of Job we read: Job 3:11-13 Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the Ghost when I came out of the belly? Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck? For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest.
Why was I allowed to live, and why was my little brother allowed to be born dead?
There are a million things I can�t explain.
But I am glad that I firmly believe that all those little ones that belong to God are with him above, and they are not helpless and frail. Imagine! They are with their Savior! And we too entertain that precious hope within us to someday join them in the presence of the Lord. In times like my mama endured, how sweet to know of this verse:
Psalms 17:15. As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Or as Job recites in Job 19: 26,27 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
May our Lord be praised today, at this very moment, and throughout all eternity!
In Everlasting Praise to Him Above,
Eddy A. Flick SOURCE: Hymns To Him ( Issue #41 12 May 2008 ) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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