Remembering Clifford Winger

He spent his life coaxing things to grow in the Canadian soil.  In the 1920s and 30s he was on his parents’ 100 acre farm, along with his seven sisters.  Then he started a new life when he married Ada Cober in 1938.  Together they would go on to raise four children, one of whom tragically died at the young age of 16.

He continued to tame the earth and make sweet things appear – sweet corn, sweet apples and sweet milk.  No other corn would taste the same once his family had enjoyed the sweet corn from the farm.  Sometimes the soil and the weather would be difficult, but he worked hard and somehow brought things to life.

On into his 90s he continued to work garden plots, making beautiful things grow.  He seemed to know just how to mix seed and soil and sunshine, and he remained interested in the farms and crops and techniques being used in the area.  He was 95 when he passed away on 16 January 2006.

But it’s not just the sweet corn that the family remembers.  They also remember the way he handled the seed of God’s Word and let God grow sweet things in his heart.  The picture that remains in memory is a man sitting in his chair with a magnifying glass, straining to see what new truth God would bring to life.  He knew that God was the greatest farmer of all, able to make things grow in the driest soul.  God can work miracles in any heart transforming it to accept the seed, but it all had to start with the right seed.  And he knew where to find it.

How fitting that the last passage the family saw him reading with his magnifying glass was Matthew chapter 13, the words of Jesus:

Behold, a sower went out to sow.

But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop:  some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

Clifford Winger dedicated his life to getting that seed into people’s hands, teaching the Word, sharing the Word, living the Word.  Grandpa, you’ve reminded us to allow God to remove the weeds, pull out the rocks and work the soil so that His seed in our hearts can grow into something sweet.

Maybe when we remember your fields of sweet corn we’ll remember to ask God to multiply His sweet Truth and Love in us.  You have no idea how the seed you’ve planted will grow in the years ahead…but we know you’ll be there to see the harvest.  Goodbye until then.

Display at the funeral home with Clifford Winger’s picture.
The magnifying glass was on Matthew 13.