The following are the words I had the honor of sharing at my Grandma Wilma’s funeral this past September. Today she would’ve been 98 years old, and the time I had with her still wasn’t enough.
What a lady. What a life.
One of the greatest honors of my life was getting to know her, and be known by her, for the last 36 years. She lived an absolutely incredible nearly 98 years of life. What a gift that I got to be around for 1/3 of it. I love belonging to her.
There are so many things to say about this lady, I hardly know where to start.
One of my favorite things about my grandma was the way she loved Jesus and lived out her faith. In every Bible she ever gifted me, she wrote this verse on the front page:
“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” – Revelation 2:10b
Wilma Smith was faithful unto death. And I’m certain the crown she received was splendid.
Countless times I would go visit her – whether a random Saturday in high school, or an unsuspecting weekday as an adult – and see her Bible and Sunday school book spread out on her table as she was preparing for the following Sunday. She loved God’s Word. She loved studying it and she loved helping others understand it. She taught Vacation Bible School and Sunday School for countless years. In the days following her death, it was so sweet for many people to reach out, recalling how much they enjoyed being taught by her.
She loved her church. Boone Creek was her home for 83 years. I now stand in a spot she stood in many times over the years, encouraging church members to give to see others come to know Jesus, specifically through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. She served as WMU president, organizing fellowship and service among the women of Boone Creek.
Her example of service and devotion to the local church – and more importantly, to Jesus – has impacted my family in immeasurable ways.
My mom – Wilma’s daughter-in-law – has carried the torch for missions giving. You’ll notice the MMO flyers hung around the church that my mom hung up on our way to the hospital to spend Grandma’s final night with her.
Her friendship with my other grandma, Grandma Gerry, led to her baptism and membership in this church, as well as involvement in meaningful ways. She is currently the treasurer of WMU, has served at Vacation Bible School throughout the years, and has been a part of this church family for decades, joining her in-law as a faithful member of the church body and devoted follower of Christ.
We are who we are, as followers of Jesus, because of Wilma Smith.
Most importantly, my grandma loved Jesus. Her whole life reflected her love for Him. Her joy. Her faithfulness. Her heart for others to come to know Him. Her tenderness. The way she stewarded the earth, and brought beauty into her home. Her hospitality. Her curiosity and wonder at the world. She had such an amazing way of displaying the strength of Jesus simply by the way she carried herself.
She stood up for justice – making sure everyone around her knew what was right and wrong, when the situation called for right and wrong. And if it was a little grey, she helped you work it out.
She also displayed her love of Jesus through her loyalty. Few people loved others as well as she did. As a kid, I remember being jealous because she would get to leave church early, which was especially interesting to me when Bro. Boyd Gray was here because, in my childish mind, he had a tendency to get a little long winded. As a good Baptist does.
Anyway, she would leave early so she could go pick up her mother from church in town and take her to her house to start on Sunday dinner. A tradition unlike any other.
Her loyalty and love to Mother, as she called her, compelled her to make sure she was cared for even if it might have been a bit of an inconvenience for my grandma. Of course, I’m sure it wasn’t an inconvenience, but an honor, to hold to that Sunday routine for years.
Her loyalty extended into her friendships. She taught me how to be a friend. I grew up watching her spend at least one night a week at dinner with her friends, followed by a game of Dominos, rotating which house they would play at. Norman Jean, Sonya, Esther, and Wilma were a force to be reckoned with. Licking had their very own version of the Golden Girls in those ladies. You could hardly mention one without thinking of the others. She knew how to show up for her friends, and they in turn did the same for her.
She was also a loyal fan of the Licking Lady Cats (and Wildcats too). At nearly every home game from 2003 until 2014, and especially at Homecoming games in the years since my sister and I graduated, you could find Grandma Wilma along with our Grandma Gerry and ‘Grandma’ Esther sitting in the front row behind the scorer’s table, often there before the JV teams even started warming up just to make sure they got their seats.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized what a rare gift it has been to have such a supportive family, displayed in part by my grandma’s presence at nearly every game I ever played in. She sat on the sidelines of softball diamonds and basketball courts all over the Midwest, and also followed my sister around, cheering her on in her volleyball and basketball careers in gyms throughout Southern MO. Even into her later years for her great-grandchildren, for as long as her health allowed her to, she was at every sporting event she could be.
She encouraged us all to rise to the occasion – she saw the potential in us that we couldn’t see in ourselves. When I was in 4th or 5th grade, I had zero to little motivation to get involved in things at school, like the spelling bee or other elementary ‘contests.’ Knowing that I had what it took to excel in academics, she challenged me – $10 every time my picture made it into The Licking News. Game on. Math contests, spelling bees, FFA speech and judging competitions…if I knew there was a chance to get into the paper, I dove in. Sure, the $10 weekly payday was the motivation, but looking back she was fostering a love of learning and being involved that made me a better person.
My grandma taught me how to tell a story. You couldn’t be in a room or at a table with her for very long before some sort of tale came out of her mouth. One of my favorite stories for her to tell was of her wedding day. She would always comment on how expensive the buttons on her dress were, how my grandad didn’t give the preacher a heads up, and on a Sunday afternoon, December 16, 1945, they showed up to this man’s house unannounced while his wife was cooking Sunday dinner. “She’d begun fixin’ lunch and when we got there she forgot about her potatoes. So I got married smellin’ friend potatoes burnin’.”
As I’ve already mentioned, though, the greatest story she ever told – and the greatest story she lived out with her life – was that of Jesus.
She taught us about God’s love – how He made the world and everything in it and called it good.
She was also keen on our sin and brokenness – especially when I, as a kindergartener, had received my smiley face for the week, entitling me to my prize from the dollar store. When she said she knew nothing about that and she was not taking me to get a toy, she experienced the effects of my sin as I threw the fit of a lifetime. And, for the record, in the battle of stubborn wills, I won that time.
Most importantly, she knew – in the deepest part of who she was – that Jesus loved her and saved her by His grace. She was not afraid of death. We are not afraid of her death. We miss her. I miss her terribly. But because of the saving work of Jesus, I am not confused or worried.
1 Corinthians 15:53-58 says:
“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers (and sisters), be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Romans 14:8 says:
“For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
As followers of Jesus, we mock the efforts of the enemy who might lead us to think that now is a time of despair.
Are we sad? Yes. Are we grieving? Yes. Are we in despair? Absolutely not.
Death, where is your sting? Where is your victory?
The victory belongs to Christ alone.
My grandma is experiencing the fullness of a life well lived. She is the Lord’s. Her death has been swallowed up in Jesus’ victory.
She has fought the good fight. She has finished her race. And she has kept the faith.
She would want you to know that Jesus has held her through her life and He is holding her now. She would want you to be held by Him too.
On Monday morning, as I rubbed her chest and watched her take her final breath, I imagine Jesus stood before her and welcomed her into the most lovely garden we could never imagine. I think He then invited her to a table with a cup of coffee where she finally got to sit down in full, final rest, and the two of them got to just catch up on the incredible life they lived together. I’m certain the table was full of all those she loved – Grandad, Grandma Kell and her Daddy, Clarence, Norma Jean, Delma Jean, Harry and Mary, Wayne and Ruth, Carl and Rose, and so many others. I’m sure the reunion is sweet, the stories are long, and the laughs are from the deepest parts of their bellies.
I can’t wait to be at that table.
For now, we grieve, but we grieve as people of the Promise – as those that hope in Christ: a people shaped in the image of God, whose very being generates all joy in the universe, yet who also weeps and grieves in brokenness.
Lord help us to grieve our loss.
To breathe out sorrow, and breathe in joy.
To breathe out lament, and breathe in hope.
To breathe out pain, and breathe in comfort.
To breathe out sorrow, and breathe in joy.
And then to breathe out joy.
And in doing so we honor not only the life of Wilma Smith, but the life of Jesus, just as she spent her days doing.
So I would invite you, in the coming days, to grab a mocha from either Grady Rae’s or the McDonald’s in Seymour – those are the only two acceptable locations – and take a sip in honor of my Grandma. As we continue to breathe out sorrow, and breathe in joy, thanking God for this lady and this life.
