Almost three years ago, I did a blog on Robert Wolgemuth’s insightful book Finish Line: Dispelling Fear, Finding Peace, and Preparing for the End of Your Life. Now Robert has lived out what he wrote about, having entered the presence of Jesus on January 10.
He and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth had a rich 10-year marriage. Robert and I enjoyed some great exchanges over the years, and a couple of Zoom calls related to his book Finish Line and then his and Nancy’s excellent book You Can Trust God to Write Your Story: Embracing the Mysteries of Providence, as well as other things. I met him long ago in the 80s at booksellers’ conventions, and then decades later spent time with him at a Joni & Friends conference I was speaking at, where my Nanci and I had lunch with him and his late wife Bobbie. (Robert had a significant role in the Christian publishing industry, with a career that spanned more than forty years. His books have sold more than two million copies. Read more about his life here.)
I felt like I really got to know Robert when he reached out after Nanci had died in 2022. A year later I did a podcast with his Nancy and Revive Our Hearts, talking about my experience of grief and my Nanci’s final days.
Now Robert’s Nancy is experiencing what I and countless others have in our grief, the reality of what 2 Corinthians 6:10 calls being “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” If I have learned anything in these nearly four years Nanci has been with Jesus, and the years that led up to that, it is that I can simultaneously feel great sorrow and yet feel that sorrow eclipsed by the greater joy that Jesus gives.
I’ll close with some quotes from Robert and Nancy’s book You Can Trust God to Write Your Story:
“Getting a right perspective is critical—lifting our eyes upward to God rather than outward to our circumstances or inward to ourselves. Counseling our hearts according to truth. Realigning our thoughts and emotions according to His Story.”
“The Bible has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This story line makes sense of our world and explains how we fit into God’s eternal plan. It gives us a context, a grid through which to process hard things that come into our lives.”
“Your life and your story actually matter. They have meaning as you view them against the backdrop of God’s ultimate Story.”
“Situations that seem confusing and chaotic to us are actually plot threads He is weaving together to create a story…a beautiful, compelling work of art.”
“God is always mindful of His own, always redeeming, always acting to bring about His kingdom purposes—in His way and His time.”
“…we know He has been faithful in each chapter thus far. And we know that He will be faithful in each one yet to come, that His grace will be sufficient for wherever He leads us.”
“Not only can you trust God to write your story; you can also be sure that, in the end, He will right your story!”
