I don’t remember when I have heard so many jokes about young woman dying as I have surrounding the tragic life and death of Anna Nicole Smith.

I am not one to shun gallows humor and have often indulged. I know the fine art of being offended and amused at the same time. Is it a curse or a blessing?

I suppose it depends upon who you let in on the secret.

But this young woman’s fate just wants to make me cry. It is the most profound tragedy. I know that it has been afforded more newsworthiness than in justified. I know that she was often a caricature of her own life. I realize that she was filthy rich for marrying an old codger, but all of that doesn’t erase one glaring reality: This was a human being, made in the image of God, loved by the Father, a little girl for whom Jesus died, someone’s daughter, someone’s mother, a loved one.

And she had a sweetness and wonder about her that made her endearing.

I watched her pain when she lost her son a while back and it broke my heart. Did we pray for her?

I suspect many did and I know that many care. And I do not criticize those who write comedic skits about her, but I cannot escape the impression of Jesus weeping over Anna Nicole and having his heart break with her broken heart.

Maybe she made Him laugh too. maybe she still does. I do not know and I cannot judge. I just know that Anna Nicole Smith was the apple of God’s eye.

If only we could see people in that light – all people, all of the time.

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A Little More Background

News release from CNN
Wikipedia Article
Memorial Site
Report of Funeral – at the Baptist Church

The most profound comedy might have been the funeral as reported on vipglamor.net:

"The Rev Lloyd Smith used his eulogy to castigate Virgie in her attempts
to stop the funeral. He also gave vent to his disgust on the legal
ramblings that had delayed Anna Nicole being buried. Virgie was the
last person to show up. However she was the first to take the pulpit, “you were a beautiful baby. We love you. Goodbye, my baby daughter”. Larry Birkhead was next up, he finished his eulogy with the phrase, “Goodnight, Sweet Anna Baby”.
The phrase she had liked to hear before going to sleep. Howard Stern
cried his way through his eulogy and kissed her coffin. His eulogy bore
a resemblance to the inside of a Hallmark card: “The
truth, there’s only one truth, it’s not what people say in court, even
if those people are blood relatives,” Stern said. “The truth is what
you live . . . what you touch, what you feel, what you see with your
own eyes.” Even the dead managed to make a showing for
the burial of the former Playmate of the year. Anna Nicole’s bodyguard,
‘Big Moe’ carried an urn containing half of her dead billionaire
husband J Howard Marshall.  Anna was buried in Lakeview Memorial
cemetery. The procession was watched by about 1,500 locals and tourist
who booed Virgie but cheered Stern and especially Birkhead. White doves
were released at the ceremony and in a scene reminiscent of a badly
written film one of the doves refused to leave the top of Anna Nicole’s
coffin even as it was lowered to the ground."

All this being said – and much has been said and will be, ultimate realities are eternal and we, as a Christian, I am compelled and called to live beyond the hype and the media driven imitations of life to see people and circumstances through the eyes of a God who is intimately involved with every individual. God’s love for Anna Nicole Smith is undiminsihed and is not open for a vote. That is the lesson I take away from this tragedy.

Howard’s Eulogy

Celebrity is a wierd thing and is, as Bono says, an upside down way of looking at life – but it is a part of our environment and must be interpretted in the light of truth if it is not to overpower us and claim our rightful focus.