Memorial Celebrates the Life of Luci Swindoll on the Day of Her Birth

On Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021, a memorial service was held to honor the life of Luci Swindoll, who passed from COVID-19 on Oct. 20, 2020. Luci’s younger brother, preacher and author Chuck Swindoll, said that it was fitting to celebrate his sister’s life on the day of her birth.

“We chose this day on purpose,” said Chuck Swindoll at the memorial’s opening. “Were she still with us, she would have wanted us to celebrate her birthday with her. You see, Luci would have turned 89 years young today.” His sister, said Chuck, “lived every year of her life full of outrageous enthusiasm and unhindered excitement and always contagious joy.”

READ: Luci Swindoll Dead at 88 After Contracting COVID-19

Luci Swindoll: Soaked in the Grace of God

Those who shared about Luci Swindoll’s life during the memorial service included friends of hers from the Women of Faith movement, as well as her brothers, Orville and Chuck. The service also featured several musical performances, including one by Luci’s friend, Nichole Nordeman.

Women of Faith, a counterpart to Promise Keepers, launched in 1996; team members would travel throughout the world holding conferences where they encouraged women to follow God. Christian artist Sandi Patty, who travelled with the movement, said it was her “great sorrowful joy” to share her memories of Luci. Patty performed “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” saying, “This would always be the song that Luci and I would sing.”

Part of the memorial featured humorous clips of Luci speaking with Women of Faith. In one, she recounted a time when she taught her younger brother, Chuck, to “smoke.” She made a “cigarette” by taking some tree bark and wrapping it in a sheet of 8 ½ x 11 paper. Chuck put the “cigarette” in his mouth, Luci lit the end, and he inhaled. The fire burned “his lips, his mouth, the end of his nose, around the mouth, and the two front teeth,” said Luci. “And I looked at him, I thought, ‘This is not good.’” 

Marilyn Meberg, formerly of Women of Faith, shared that when she first met Luci, the two hit it off “cataclysmically.” Said Meberg, “There is and was, this incredible ability of Luci’s to zero in on what you’re saying, beyond what you’re saying.”

Sheila Walsh, who also knew Luci through Women of Faith, said “the clear thread through every single story [of the women on the team] was that God was the hero.” When Luci spoke at Women of Faith events, “She was so comfortable in her own skin…it just made every woman in the arena comfortable in theirs.”