By today’s standards, my maternal grandfather would have come from a large family. The thirteen children born to his parents, Frank and Carolina Webber, entered this world over a twenty-five year period from 1871 to 1896. Being of hardy Pennsylvania German stock, the Webbers took in stride what some folks today would term an unfortunately large family. As I delve into the records and accounts on this side of the family tree, I’m particularly intrigued with Great-grandma, whose deep Christian commitment (which found expression in the Lutheran faith) sustained her well into her ninetieth year.
Late in 1891 several of the Webber children contacted diphtheria and hovered at death’s door. Within a four-day period, the four-year-old twins died of the dreaded malady. Five years previously, baby Elmer had fallen on a red-hot kitchen stove and died of the burns he received. Two of the daughters had chronic nervous conditions which hindered their usefulness in society, and the youngest son was killed in European action during World War I.
These heartaches and disappointments, coupled with the burden of having a non-Christian husband, only served to deepen Great-grandma’s faith. Besides working and caring for her large family, she took in washings and brought work home from local factories to help supplement her husband’s meager cabinetmaker income. In these days of renewed appreciation for one’s roots, I have come to esteem in a new way Great-grandma’s hard work and faith in the face of continued grief and hurt.
As you and I think about facing the trials and disappointments of life, we may be inclined to say that we just can’t go through them. But God never sends grace until the hour it’s needed! If He did, we’d most likely begin to depend on that store of grace instead of the One who Himself is “full of grace and truth.” All the grace we’ll ever need is there, waiting for us to receive it. But as long as we wring our hands in despair and self-pity, we won’t have a free hand to reach for God’s grace. We must keep a hand free to reach for what He has to give! His grace is sufficient for each difficult situation we may be called to face in life. Great-grandma’s faith is proof enough for me!
July/August 1980