May 10, 2017 - Margaret Joyce

Margaret Joyce

One of my favorite stories from my grandma, was when she took me to Israel in 1972.  We were at the Wailing Wall.  As a 13-year-old boy, that was not a Christian yet, it didn’t mean as much to me, as it did to my grandmother.  This was where the Temple stood.  My grandma was praying and started weeping, not realizing the words coming out of her mouth.

A woman came up to her and in Yiddish said, “You are coming to live in Jerusalem?”

My grandma did not know what she was saying so asked someone to translate.  A man told her what she said.  My Grandma always knew she was praying in the spirit, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through her.  The woman heard her praying about being with God in the New Jerusalem one day.

My grandma, Margaret Joyce Brewer Rosinbaum, just went to be with the Lord last night.  I know this has nothing to do with the culture of Bolivia, but I haven’t been following that rule about my blog very often.  But today, I wanted to share about my inspirational grandma.

She was born in Dallas, Texas on June 3, 1921.  She was the second child who survived.  One died shortly before her birth.  There would be two more births, but only one survived.  She outlived both her younger and older brothers, one who died in his 30s and the other in his 40s.  She lived to be just days shy of 96 years old.  How amazing is that!

My mom will tell you that she was in church any time the doors were open.  When they had prayer meetings before work, she was there.  If there was a revival, she was there every night.  If you have lived long enough, you know the revivals of the 40s and 50s were hours long each night.  My grandma didn’t miss a minute.

She started working at Christ for the Nations, a monthly Christian magazine, before I was born.  In the 60s the magazine grew into a 2-year seminary.  From working there, she became friends with men and women from around the world.  It is where she also gained the desire to learn Hebrew.  She started learning at the age of 50!  Can you imagine that?  She wanted to know Hebrew, so she could know what God said in the original language it was written.  I have so many memories of her telling me what a word meant in the original Hebrew.

She didn’t have much of an education.  Her parents moved a lot when she was a little girl.  To hear her tell it, until grade three, she really wasn’t in school.  But my grandma could read as well as anybody, if not better.  She was a voracious reader, probably reading several thousand books in her lifetime.  She could correct the grammar or math of any kid in the family as well as the teachers.  She eventually became office manager of Christ For the Nations.  That says a lot for an uneducated woman. 

She read the bible through every year that I knew her.  For the last several decades she read it through twice a year, changing the version each time, so she’d get a better understanding of what the bible said.  Her bookshelf always had at least two dozen translations/versions of the bible and she had read them all.  There are scriptures underlined and notes in the sidelines.  If you ever had a question about where a verse was, she was the person to ask.  You could quote part of a verse and she’d give you the exact words, including the chapter and verse, in perfect King James. 

Her faith in God has never wavered a day that I have known her.  She will tell you that she believed God had chosen James Sidney Rosinbaum to be her husband, even though she was only 16!  He was her soulmate.  Because of her, I have never doubted that love at first sight is real, because she really didn’t know my grandpa when she married him.  She got to hug him for the first time in 40 years last night.

When my grandpa went to World War 2, one of the later draftees at the end of the war, she knew God would bring him back.  One day she got a telegram from the army.  People didn’t get telegrams for good things back then.  It said, “Wounded in Action.”  While everybody around her started commiserating on her loss, she went on her knees in prayer.  She stayed there until she heard the voice from God that said, “I have taken him out of the fight.”  She got up off her knees and went about her business waiting for more information.  Friends and family thought she was callous, because they assumed Grandpa was dead.  In fact, my grandpa was taken out of the fight, just as promised.  He had a wound in the hand and was taken to a hospital in Paris and later London.  His entire platoon was wiped out a few days later in the Battle of the Bulge.  Her faith in God knew he would come home.

That’s my grandma. 

In September of 2013, my grandma suffered from a heart attack and most likely a stroke.  From then on, she slept in a chair in the living room, rarely doing much more than watching TV all day long.  She could be irascible, but still had so much love.  She would repeat the same stories over and over, often confusing people and events.  It is not easy growing old, and even harder on family watching her grow old.  She had two children, a niece that she raised as her own, four grandchildren, and I have no idea how many great and great-great grandchildren.  They were all equally precious to her.

Grandma, you are missed already.  I can’t wait to see you again when I enter the streets of the New Jerusalem.