A Tribute to My Mom at Her Heavenly Homegoing

My mom, Phyllis (nee McCarry) Christie, was welcomed to her heavenly home by her Savior Jesus Christ on Monday, March 10, 2025, at the age of ninety. Here’s a short summary of Mom’s life and a brief tribute to her.

All glory to God for His innumerable blessings to Mom throughout her life and continuing now in eternity. Praise Him for using her to bring tremendous blessing to countless people during life and, through her ongoing memory and influence, even after death.

Mom was born at Trout Lake, Michigan, on April 22, 1934. She grew up on her parents’ farm near Trout Lake.

She and her siblings were taught high moral values by their parents. They did not do any farmwork on Sundays, except caring for the animals. However, they never attended church.

But when Mom was nine years old, a Rev. Morrison and his wife taught a Vacation Bible School at Trout Lake. Mom was able to attend it, and that week believed in and received Jesus as her Savior. She never again saw the Morrisons, who were not from that area, but thanked God many times afterwards for bringing them into her life to lead her to the Savior.

Mom attended school at Trout Lake through the tenth grade, and gave the valedictory address at her eighth-grade graduation. She completed the final two years of high school in Rudyard, Michigan, graduating one month after her seventeenth birthday.

She married George Christie at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan on March 1, 1952. The Lord blessed them with two sons and two daughters, who even arrived in the birth order they desired. (We their kids were “always” remarkably cooperative children! 😊) Dad and Mom were married for sixty-six years, until his death in 2018.

Mom faithfully supported Dad as he served a stint in the Army, then completed his college and seminary education. For forty-four years they actively and sacrificially served together as pastor and pastor’s wife of four established Grace Brethren congregations and three church plants, all in Washington State. Mom ministered to many people through her special gift of hospitality and as a capable women’s ministry leader in their local churches and in their denomination.

Her gift of hospitality truly was exceptional, though she viewed it as just normal. Dad and Mom hosted many of their church people in their home for meals, or for refreshments after Sunday evening services. They also hosted virtually all the church guest speakers in their home for a meal and a place to spend the night. 

Mom used her considerable organizational and secretarial skills in a variety of medical office jobs, including many years as a medical transcriptionist. She thus supplemented the modest salary her husband received from the small churches they served.

Mom was always very interested in and devoted to her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren, all of whom, along with their spouses, came to number over forty. Though she lived at a distance from many of them, she kept in touch with all through a steady stream of letters, cards, phone calls and gifts. In-person visits to or from family members were always highlights of Mom’s years.

Her letter and card writing were extraordinary. In addition to writing her own kids, grandkids, etc., she also maintained a voluminous correspondence with literally hundreds of other friends and relatives. Her annual Christmas card list typically included over 200 people, and many of those individuals received additional cards and letters from her at other times during the year. For more than twenty years after she went legally blind from macular degeneration, Mom continued to type (with almost no typographical errors) hundreds of letters per year.

She also had an exceptional prayer ministry for her family. With Dad while he was still living, then on her own after He went to be with the Lord, she prayed for all her family members every day. One night while visiting at Mom’s home a few years ago, I heard her talking aloud in her bedroom after she had gone to bed and turned out the lights. Surprised, I paused to listen briefly, to make sure she was alright. I quickly realized she was praying for individual family members. I went to bed that night with a fresh reminder of how blessed we were as a family to have a faithful, praying Mom and Grandma. Many other friends were included in her prayers as well.

Mom responded to the increasing challenges of her latter years with her typical overcoming spirit. After going legally blind at age sixty-seven, she could no longer carry out all the work and ministry she was accustomed to doing. But she remained actively engaged in life by continuing to care for her home and family, serving as pastor’s wife for five more years, and maintaining caring contact with many others to the end of her life. When Dad’s health faltered and failed in the closing couple years of his life, Mom cared for him with unfaltering love, devotion and patience. She missed her spouse terribly ever after his passing, but even then did not give up on life.

Through all these adversities, I never once heard Mom complain or express self-pity. Instead, I continued to see her manifest a quiet trust that the Lord would continue to help and care for her.

She always had an interest in and a desire to preserve family history, both from the past and present. In the final years of her life, she compiled a family history and genealogical album, which began with Dad and Mom’s grandparents and continued down through all their (George and Phyllis’s) descendants born by that time. Mom provided a copy of that family history album – which includes detailed family trees, historical pictures, and pertinent newspaper articles – for each of her children and grandchildren.

Then, just in time for her 90^th birthday celebration last April, Mom wrote a collection of her personal memoirs entitled Memories of a Farmer’s Daughter and Pastor’s Wife. Those were compiled into an attractive eighty-page book which she gifted to family members and a number of friends.

In the past year, Mom’s strength largely deserted her. She became more and more desirous of going to be with the Lord in Heaven, and to be reunited with other Christian relatives and friends who had already gone there. Her desire was granted when she died suddenly and peacefully on March 10.

Also fulfilled for her at that time were the promises of Christ Jesus Himself to those who follow Him: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3).

Copyright 2025 by Vance E. Christie