Blessed Are the Dead Who Die in the Lord

Revelation 14:13

The Voice (VOICE)

¹³ Then I heard a voice call out from heaven.

A Voice: Record this: “Blessed are the dead who have died in the Lord from now until the end.”

Spirit: Yes, they will rest from their labors because their deeds remain with them.

At 4:42 this morning, Tuesday, January 13, 2015, Grace Iva (Oblander) Nelson passed to her rest. She was 98 and had lived a long, good life, and she passed away quietly.

Grace was orphaned very early in her life and spent time in several foster homes. She attended Broadview Academy near Chicago, Illinois, where she met her husband Roscoe Nelson. As happened to so many young couples in the World War II era, Roscoe was drafted and shipped off to war shortly after the wedding bells were silent. Their oldest child, Sylvia, was born almost 2 years to the day after the wedding.

At the end of the war, Roscoe returned from service in France. The young couple set up housekeeping in rural Montana where they ran a sanitarium in an old hotel. Their second daughter, Elvina, was born in Montana. Roscoe took advantage of the GI Bill and went to Walla Walla College in southwestern Washington. Grace set up housekeeping in a tent, and the family survived there for two long, cold winters and the suffocating summer between. Roscoe graduated with a degree in theology and longed to be a preacher. However, hundreds of GI’s had also returned from war sensing a strong call to the ministry. So Roscoe taught school and worked odd jobs including logging for a number of years. Finally he got a call to the ministry in Michigan where he worked for the rest of his career.

After their son Judson was born, Grace earned a diploma in nursing and worked for many years as a nurse once her children were all in school. Grace suffered from a severe food allergy for many years and had to subsist on potatoes, beans, cabbage, apples, and celery. But she was cheerful throughout. She undoubtedly suffered a lot of worry when I began dating her daughter. I was a rebel at heart and liberal in outlook. She would tell her coworkers that Sylvia was dating a fellow from Africa. When she would see their eyebrows rise and a worried look flash across their faces, she would add, “He’s red-headed!” and the worried look would subside.

As she found time, Grace studied the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy carefully. Roscoe called her the theologian of the family. After he passed away we gave her Philip Yancey’s book, What’s so Amazing About Grace. Since it hadn’t been printed by an Adventist press, she was concerned about reading it. She put it on her shelf and left it there for more than a year. The title, however, really intrigued Grace, and she finally took it off the shelf and really enjoyed reading it.

The grace of God became a very real part of Grace’s life experience. The family loved her visits with us and she enjoyed playing dominoes with us. And she loved the family. When one of her grandsons kissed her towards the end, we watched tears fill her eyes because she knew of the battle against alcohol that he is fighting.

Until quite recently, she walked around with a walker at times and prided herself in being fairly independent. She fell and broke her arm just about exactly a month ago and has declined rapidly since then. She never lost her sense of humor. She was in hospital recently with an extremely high white blood cell count, so we had to wear masks and special clothing when we visited her. When we left the room one time, I remarked to her, “Hurry and get out of here so that I can kiss you on the mouth!” She smiled broadly at me.

May she rest in peace until the time when I promised I would join her in the great resurrection. God, keep us until that time.