Safely Home

Dannah Gresh: Here's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It was through Robert's love that I came to experience in whole new, precious ways, the love of Christ for me.

Dannah: You're listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for Friday, January 30, 2026. I'm Dannah Gresh. Our host is the author of Incomparable, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Ecclesiastes chapter 7 says, 

It is better to go to the house of mourning
than to go to the house of feasting,
since that is the end of all mankind,
and the living should take it to heart.
Grief is better than laughter,
for when a face is sad, a heart may be glad. (vv. 2–3 CSB)

Yesterday and today we've had the chance to go to the house of mourning as we're listening to moments from the memorial service remembering the life of Nancy's husband, Robert Wolgemuth. Let's listen to the host of Revive Our Hearts, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She and Robert were married for almost 122 months.

Nancy: What precious moments these have been together with each other and with the Lord. 

God's people have always been a singing people. The world doesn't really have much to sing about that matters, but we do. And today, even as we grieve the loss of this precious man, we sing. Psalm 118 is a song of thanksgiving.

On Sunday morning, December 28, as I prepared to head over to the hospital in Niles, where Robert was unresponsive in the ICU, not knowing what that day would bring, not knowing what the next days would bring; the first thing that was pressed in on my heart that morning was from Psalm 118, verse 24. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

You may remember that this psalm commemorates the exodus out of Egypt, how God delivered His people from death, and He defeated their enemies. This song was traditionally sung by Old Testament Jewish worshipers at the end of the Passover meal. And then we learn in the gospels that after Jesus and His disciples ate that last supper, that Passover meal together, it says that “they sang a hymn, and then they went out together.”

Where were they going? Out to the Mount of Olives. It's believed by scholars and theologians that this is the psalm that they sang that night. It's astonishing when you think about Jesus on the way to His arrest, His trial, and His crucifixion, singing with His disciples. “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

That verse went with me into that day just a few weeks ago. What I didn't know was as it turned out, that was the day that Robert would be put on life support and transported to a hospital in Grand Rapids where he would spend his final days on this earth.

Today, we are faced with sadness, lament, grief—many of us with new challenges and trials that lie ahead. But today we pause to remember, as we have just sung, that this world is not our final home. Our heartaches here are merely stepping stones along a trail that is always winding upward. Until then, our hearts will sing, and until then with joy, even when our eyes are filled with tears. We will carry on until the day our eyes behold the City of God and the God of that great city, until the day He calls us home. (derived from the hymn “Until Then” by Stuart Hamblen)

So thank you for singing today. Thank you for giving us the opportunity, as Robert's family, to sing together, to rejoice in this day that the Lord has made.

Robert often said, “At the end of my life, I want to be known as having been a grateful man.” So I know that if Robert could speak today, he would want to say “thank you.” He would want you to know how grateful he was for you—family, friends, colleagues—relationships spanning much longer than the one I shared with him. And then, newer relationships—doctors, nurses, hospital receptionists—over the last five years of one illness after another (with long bouts of health in there, for which we're thankful). But for all of those who cared up till these very last weeks, providing such precious, wise, kind, care for him, thank you. How grateful I am to each of you. 

Not only would Robert say it, but I want to say it for the care and the love and the kindness that you have shown to me over these last days and weeks: for the texts, the calls, the notes, the tears, the hugs, Dan and Mary spending that last night with me in that night watch with all the paraphernalia gone—no more machines, monitors, hoses. I don't even know what all the terms are.

You know, apart from Jesus, death is a terrible enemy. It's undignified. It's a stripping away. But for so many who walked with us through that passage, that for Robert was not the end, not really the finish line. It really was the starting line of life for all eternity with the Jesus that he loved.

So thank you for being on this journey with me, with Robert over these last years and now with me in the years ahead. There are many more things on my heart than what would be possible to share in the time we have remaining. And I know that in the days ahead, there will be more opportunities for me to say more.

But I want to just touch on a few highlights as Robert's wife, his lover. I want to highlight a few of the things that have been said from a wife's perspective.

One of my sisters sent me an email a day or two ago. She said, 

Robert had a grateful heart, a generous spirit, a seemingly limitless capacity to love, compassion for others, and deep love for God. In a world of takers, he was a giver. He was quick to see needs and offer to meet them. 

And then she spoke of his kindness and "an expansive spirit that grew to extend more love with each new personal connection." So beautifully said.

So as I think about the key takeaways to me from Robert's life and the things I want us to leave here with today that could still impact our lives before we get to our “finish line,” the first and the biggest has to be (and you've heard it again and again and again) love. Love for God and love for others, the two greatest commandments, Jesus told us. 

Robert loved God. Each morning as we would pray together, his first words that I would hear in the morning were, “Good morning, Lord Jesus. We love you.” Every day, most days, we would pray that, and we would pray together. He would pray those words.

He loved the Word of the Lord. He picked up that little motto that I think he first got, Julie and Missy, from your mom: the throne before the phone.

Bobbie and Robert were both early morning people. Robert did not marry an early morning person. He didn't know what had hit him at night when I was about to wake up and he was fading. We managed between us to cover most of the day and night.

But every morning in the Word of God and then texting. When I would wake in the morning, I'd have three or four Scripture verses texted to me from Robert's time with the Lord. Many in this room have received some of those kinds of texts early in the morning. That was huge to me, because every morning I'm being washed with the water of the Word as he's loving me with the Word of God. It made me feel so secure and safe in the Lord and drawn to His Word myself.

Those texts were precious, not just to me, but to other friends. He loved God, and he loved me.

Having not married till I was fifty-seven, and having spent most of those years being so careful about appropriate boundaries with men, marriage was a whole new pair of shoes for me. It was a whole new world. It never ceased to be a wonder to me that Robert would have chosen me to be his wife.

Not a moment too late there in the hospital, as Robert's fingers were swelling like crazy with all the fluids going into him, one of the nurses managed (it took her about ten minutes) to get his ring off his finger and not have to cut it off. I was so thankful for that.

There are two things engraved on the inside of that ring. My mother started this. I've always loved the book of Ruth, and she called Robert my Boaz, but she spelled it, B, E, A, U—A, Z. He was my Beau-az. “My Beau-az” spelled that way, is inside this ring. And then there's the verse, just the reference, Ruth 2:10. It says: 

Ruth fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to Boaz, “Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me.”

Especially in our early years of marriage, I signed Ruth 2:10 to so many texts, so many notes, and Robert knew exactly what I meant. I could not believe that he had chosen to love me. He never made it feel like it was hard, but I thought it was amazing.

From the outset of our marriage, we knew that we would not have as many years as most of our friends, so we resolved from the outset not to waste any time, not to waste days with being at odds with each other, not to let little things become big things.

We set out to love each other and others lavishly. We set out to express our love—me learning from Robert, who had way more experience at this than I did. We set out to love each other every chance we had and to express that in a thousand different ways—with words, with actions, with notes.

I opened a drawer yesterday in our powder room, and there is a little paper towel note that sat on the counter for a long time. Somehow it ended up in the drawer. It's just in his handwriting with a marker. “I love my PG,” precious girl. He was my DH, my dear husband, and I was his PG. 

We celebrated month-aversaries because we knew we wouldn't have as many years as others. And ten years, the math was getting up there for me, because I'm a words person, not a numbers person. We hit 121. Last week it would have been our 122 “month-aversary.” 

We exchanged notes. We kept Hallmark in business with cards, just being attentive to each other. Cards on special days and days that had no great significance at all.

On our tenth anniversary, November 14, we didn't know it, but each of us had written a letter for the other and found out that that's what we had done. I was in the middle of getting ready to record, so we couldn't do a special dinner or something out that night. We did do it in December.

But on the 14th of November, we pulled out those letters that we had written and printed out for each other and read them for each other. Robert's letter was “Ten Reasons Robert Is Grateful for Nancy Leigh on Their Tenth Anniversary.”

I'll just read you one of the ten. He said, “On our first real date, you showed me the power of touch by holding my hand for two-and-a-half hours. In tennis parlance: game, set, match. You still do that.”

“Ten Reasons Robert Is Grateful for Nancy Leigh.” Well, being a woman, I got to have more words. And so I had on my letter 120 things that I have appreciated about you in these 120 months. It was a list.

So I started with, “Happy tenth anniversary, my DH, my beloved. How could we possibly have imagined all that the Lord had in store for us when we said, ‘I do’ ten years ago?”

Mine were just phrases. They were just 120 things that came to mind about our ten years—memories, shared experiences, people whose lives have intersected with ours. Many in this room would have been on that list, just some sweet snapshots of our life together.

And then I wrote at the end, “In whatever days, months, or years He has ahead for us, may He continue to mold our lives together, sanctify us, deepen our love for Him and for each other, and use us however He wills. How deeply grateful I am to be your wife, darling.”

We could have had no way of knowing that we would have less than sixty days left together, and most of those spent with him not feeling well and really struggling to keep going.

So he loved the Lord, he loved me, and he loved others. You've heard that he said it frequently. He said it to people. He said it about people, to others.

 

He would tell me so often he would when he'd go into the ministry for chapel or for a team lunch, He'd say when he'd come back, “I love your team so much.” And then he would name people that he had seen. “I love that person.” He just was their cheerleader.

He was that for me, but he was that for the people in this room. We would often pray wherever we would go that the Lord would make us a blessing to every person whose path we crossed that day.

So it's the guy at the car wash. That was Robert; that wasn't me being at the car wash. (How are we going to keep our car clean?) But he taught me about not just walking past people and the shadow people.

The Niles hospital was where he had to go during his cancer year to get so many blood draws. And during COVID, there was that receptionist sitting there asking you the same questions every time. “Have you been . . .” You remember what the questions were.

We would greet her. We would love on her. Like, nobody cared who she was or what her name was. That was her job. But Robert knew how to love on these people and let them know that they were seen, that they mattered, that he was listening to their story and, of course, taking every opportunity to talk with them about Jesus and to share His love.

It's not the twenty-five books he wrote, it's not the committees he chaired, it's not the companies he led, it's not the salaries that he paid; what is enduring is that he loved Jesus and he loved people, and that was the love of Christ flowing through him to us.

The Song of Solomon says it this way: “Love is as strong as death . . . A huge torrent cannot extinguish love; rivers cannot sweep it away” (8:6–7).

Now, I say it every chance I get on social media and in person, I've been blessed for these ten years with an incredible husband and marriage. But Robert didn't feel that he was incredible.

He would often say that there was nothing special about him. He knew that he was a sinner, that he was undeserving of God's grace. He knew how much mercy and grace he had received from God, and that is what caused him to love much.

We love Him because He first loved us, and it's out of receiving that love that then Robert was able to love me and us, It’s as a result of our receiving God's love through Robert that we are able to extend that love in our relationships and to others.

That love sometimes, in Robert's case, expressed itself in big ways, in big things, and big sacrifices. For example, somebody's already referenced. He moved from Orlando—Magic Kingdom—to Michigan in the dead of winter.

We actually got back from our honeymoon and the people we'd been visiting with in January. He went to the DMV and turned in his Florida license for a Michigan license. She's looking at that and she goes like, “Who does this?” 

He said, “Her name is Nancy.” This was true love.

I was planning to move to Florida and be where my husband was. But the day came when he called and said, “You know what? My job is flexible. I can do it from anywhere. You have a team here, and God's doing a work in this ministry. I want to see that continue. I believe the Lord wants me to move to Michigan.” This is when we were engaged.

I said, “You would do that?” 

He said, “I have five words for you, ‘And gave Himself for her.’”

It's Jesus' love. He gave Himself for us. And so it was through Robert's love that I came to experience in whole, new, precious ways, the love of Christ for me.

Robert retired at seventy-five, just two-and-a-half years ago. He continued to support me as I am not yet in a position where I have that freedom. So I'm studying and teaching the Word and leading Revive Our Hearts.

That was a sacrifice for him in this season when his peers are traveling, not that we have an interest in traveling, but they have a lot more freedom than we have had in these years. But he would say, “This is what God has called us to together.” He considered himself so glad to do that.

But you know, mostly His love and our love in our marriages and for each other isn't usually in the big things. I think it's mostly in the simple, daily, small choices that add up to a massive lifetime of love, this kind of love that we experienced in our marriage.

I'm mindful that so many marriages have one or both partners who don't know how to love in the way that we experienced it. It can be so painful, so difficult. But I want to just remind us that this kind of love isn't something that is just for bigger-than-life people. It's something each of us can aspire to, whether married or single, because in the family of God, in the body of Christ, and as His people in this world, we are called to manifest His love.

Robert and I didn't know how many days, months, or years the Lord would give us. When you start at fifty-seven and sixty-seven, you know it's not going to be a ton. But you don't know how many days, months, or years you have no matter how young or old you may be.

And so the call of my own heart, and I hope to all of our hearts today, is that we would choose to be people of love. Maybe even . . . not even maybe . . . let's just do it before we leave here today.

Whether it's your mate or a child or a friend, look at them in the eyes and say, “I love you,” and then you get extra points if you say their name, “I love you, Will Ellerman, and I love your mom, Rebecca, and so many in this room.”

Well, let me just mention two other things briefly, because they've been on my heart.

He lived intentionally, no secrets. Robert always said, “You can see anything on my computer. I have nothing to hide—no secrets, any closet, any letters, any anything, or my phone.”

He lived always with the finish line and beyond in view. There's so many ways, as I look back now, over the last months . . . I don't think he had a premonition that it was almost his time. But he knew he was seventy-seven, almost seventy-eight years old.

He was having some health challenges, and he knew it wasn't going to be a lot more years. But he was always living with that in mind, and he was so intentional about calls that he made.

He bought a massive stock of beautiful note cards with his name on it. And he said, “I'm not going to be able to use all these before I die, but I want to use as many as I can to write notes to people who've been a part of my life and have been a blessing to me.” He wanted to thank them.

He made calls to people he hadn't connected with in a long time. He just was intentional about being ready for the end. He wanted to be ready to leave this earth and be with the Lord, to let people know that he loved them, that they mattered to him.

As you know, we spent Christmas and New Year's in the hospital. We hadn't done a lot to decorate our home. For the first time in our married life—Christmas has always been something just splendid—we didn't do it this year because we were going to be traveling a lot of the month, and I had a lot of recording right up until the month of December. It mattered more to me than to Robert to not decorate. It was a little sadness to me, but then I realized, as it turned out, we weren't at home. We were in the hospital, surrounded by nurses and doctors and medical equipment.

Our one little Christmas thing . . . W went in the hospital Christmas Eve day, and I took this little candle. I just grabbed it on the way to the hospital and put it on the little tray next to his bed. That was our Christmas decoration.

By day two or three, Robert didn't even know where he was. When the hospitalist came in and said, “Where are you?” 

He said, “I'm at First Pres, which was his church in Orlando. He hadn't been there in ten years. With the infection and the medicines and whatever, he didn't realize where he was. But we had this little candle to remind us of the simplicity and the beauty and the wonder of the Christmas message.

I thought to myself, we just did a lot with cards. So not only in month-aversaries, but also Christmas and Thanksgiving. We just looked for every opportunity to express our love for the Lord and for each other.

And I thought to myself, Robert is so organized and prepared, I wouldn't be surprised if he had already written a Christmas card to me. He would usually select it, but then he didn't usually write it until like the night before. And then during the night, when he would get up, he would get his card. He would put it on my bathroom counter, and I would find it when I got up in the morning.

Well, we weren't home. There was no Christmas card.

Yesterday, while I was going through some of Robert's things, I found the Christmas card that he had selected. He hadn't written anything in it yet, but he'd selected it. It started on the front with, “I love you,” and a beautiful printed message inside. Way to go, Robert, you had it ready.

It's a bit of a sadness to me that due to the way, how rapid his decline was, and how crummy he had been feeling for a couple of weeks leading up to his hospitalization, so we weren't able to say goodbye to each other.

But here's what I love: we spent ten years loving and honoring and serving and blessing each other, as if each day might be our last. Nothing that truly mattered was left unsaid or undone. That's because Robert lived intentionally, and he taught me to do the same.

Then finally, he lived with deep trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God. In 2019 we wrote our only co-authored book, You Can Trust God to Write Your Story. We told in that book the stories of many of our friends. We interviewed them about hard places in life that they had walked: the loss of a mate, a divorce, health issues, financial issues. They allowed us to share their stories.

And not that it was all fixed and wrapped and packaged in a pretty bow. Some of them were still walking through . . . One of the people whose story we told in that book, we were at his funeral before the book actually released. He was dying when we interviewed him.

But at that point, our lives were in a really sweet place. So in one of the opening chapters, as we kind of introduced ourselves to the readers, we told a little bit about our story, told about our backgrounds and our courtship. 

We said, essentially, “This is a sweet season for us. We don't know what God has in store, but we know that in life there will be trials, there will be hardships yet to come. We don't know what health issues we may face, but we know that this is not about us. This is about God and about a story that He is writing in and through our lives. And we know that He can be trusted to write our story.”

That book released at the very end of 2019. March of 2020, COVID struck. And that was the same month when Robert was diagnosed with his first of two unrelated cancers that year, with no cancer history.

All of a sudden, the world is shut down, and Robert's going through surgery and treatments. And we have this book we've just put out called You Can Trust God to Write Your Story. We looked at each other and we said, “Do we really believe what we wrote in that book?”

We knew the answer, because we have a precious track record with an amazing God. And we said, “We've not been in this place before. We've not been in this chapter. But yes, we do believe that we can trust God to write our story.”

We believe it about everything: the weather, our health, living, dying. Psalms tells us, and I read this passage to Robert many times in the hospital: “All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began” (Psalm 139:16).

What incredible comfort and hope and serenity and peace that assurance brings, even in the middle of tears and trials.

 

Robert and I had in over the last year or so, a little routine. We would eat an early dinner, five o'clock. Then Robert was never one to rush away from the table. We'd sit and talk, and then he would do the dishes.

I realized when I got home from the hospital a week or two ago, we had replaced our dishwasher a couple years ago, and I did not know how to start the dishwasher. I've loaded it, sometimes I've unloaded it, but I didn't know how to start it. I had to have some technical help with starting the dishwasher, but Robert would do that.

Then we would move into the living room, and Robert would turn some news on, and I would stretch out on the sofa with my head in his lap. As he watched the news, I would fall asleep. This is like 7 o'clock. I'm getting my afternoon nap at 7 p.m., because after the nap, Robert was going to be getting ready for bed, and I was going to be getting ready for my second shift. Because, remember, our day started at different times. 

Robert called himself the teacher holder. He said, “I'm the teacher holder. You're the teacher, and I'm the teacher holder.”

He loved for me to be relaxed in his arms, no laptop, no calls, no texting, just relaxed, being held by the teacher holder.

When Robert would leave on a trip, he would pray with me before he left. Oftentimes he would say, “Lord, when I'm not here to hold Nancy in my arms, may she sense that she is being held in Your arms.”

Robert held so many of us in his massive heart and arms of love. And now Robert's not here. Our lives have been forever touched by his. But this is a time for us to sink deep into the arms of Christ's love, and then to extend those arms to others, to each other, in our marriages, in your marriages, in our friendships, in our relationships.

Dannah: That's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, widow of Robert Wolgemuth, with thoughts about her dear husband—his life, his love, and, of course, his God. To see more about Robert, go to ReviveOurHearts.com/Robert. We've posted the video of the memorial service there. 

Now, here's Nancy to pray.

Nancy: So Lord, may the example that we've seen in Robert, that has touched us in such deep ways, may it change us for a long time to come. Thank you, Lord, for the gift of this precious man who reflected You to us.

And Lord, thank You that he today is safely home. I know that there are those in this room or listening online that he longed to see come to know and trust Jesus. He wanted to know that when it was your “finish line,” that you would be there in heaven with him.

And so Lord, I pray for each of those that he loved and prayed for some for years, that they may come to know and trust Jesus, and that one day they will be with us at the “finish line,” the starting line, together with Jesus, safely home for all eternity.

So we pray with so much gratitude that heaven rules, and Jesus, You are so near. We love You. Amen. 

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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