Robert Wolgemuth’s Tribute

“Grace Was Always Ready”

Her parents named her Grace. How could they have known?

Our Mother spent a lifetime preparing for this day. From her personal experience of God’s love and grace as a teenager until the final days, she was the bride preparing herself for her wedding day in heaven. She was ready.

Mother knew all about being ready.

Over the past few years, she has traveled from her home in Chicago to spend time with her children who live in far away lands. Florida. Colorado. California. On these visits we never had to wait for her. If we were going to church or out to dinner or antiquing or back to the airport for her return, she was always ready. Dressed up—looking elegant—her little black suitcase packed. We never had to wait for Mother. She was always ready.

Being ready was nothing new. Growing up in Chicago with our extended family in Pennsylvania, that eastbound 12-hour car trip for our family was a regular adventure, with all eight of us packed in Dad’s un-airconditioned Pontiac. When it was time for lunch or dinner, Mother was ready.

Meals on wheels.

She’d make sandwiches from scratch on her lap with whole wheat bread and butter and mayonnaise and sliced turkey and lettuce. Or peanut butter with honey or just a little jelly. For dessert there were apples…whole apples that Mother would score all the way around with her thumbnail and then split apart with her bare hands so we could each have one half!

If you ever visited Mother in her home and it was mealtime, she could prepare something delicious in moments. Even if she didn’t know that you were coming, she was always able to put something special together. She was always ready.

But her readiness was not only about food. If you needed a word of encouragement, Mother was ready. Young or old, if you were looking for a reassuring touch or hug, she was ready. Our cousin, Dr. Bob Snyder remembers the way Aunt Grace, “Encasing my face in her gentle hands with such tenderness.”

She did this to many of us, didn’t she.

And Mother’s ready love for Jesus took daily preparation.

In a letter to her parents 1972 she wrote: “I’ve been loving my reading in the Psalms. Every day I find the exact thing that I need. Sometimes I say, ‘How did you know, Lord?’ How wonderful. He knows and loves and gives. My heart praises Him. Hallelujah, thank you Lord. How good you are. Who can ever list the glorious miracles of God? Who can ever praise him half enough?”

And our Mother—this plain Lancaster County farm girl—was ready for big assignments.

In the mid 60s when our dad—a man whom Mother desperately loved—was being considered as president of Youth for Christ, Mother wrote this to her parents. “To be given this responsibility is something to which we have not aspired or even imagined. At first, I just couldn’t pray. But finally on my knees I cried, ‘Lord your will be done’ and you can’t know the miracle peace I had. What else can a child say to her heavenly father?”

When he was officially asked to take the presidency, Mother wrote, “Never in our lives have Samuel and I been more cast on the Lord. Never have we been more conscious of God’s faithfulness. I have never loved him more.”

She ended her letter with this. “As I told the Lord how unable we truly are, He said, ‘Grace, I know your frame. I remember that you are dust.’ So I cried out, ‘Take the dust and use it for your glory.’”

Whatever it took, with gentleness and humility, Mother was ready.

Several years ago Mother wrote these words: “I had a dream that my family was sitting around the dinner table and the Lord came back. ‘This is it, children,’ I shouted. We were just holding hands around the table and all of us went up. What could be a better goal than to know our children walk in truth? Sure, it’s wonderful to be together here, but to think how wonderful…to be together…forever.”

The girl they named Grace was ready for this day and her prayer was that we would be ready, too.

– Robert D. Wolgemuth, Son
Friday, March 26, 2010