The Journey of Widowhood

Whether you have been a widow for a month or a year or ten years, the journey began the moment your husband died.  In an instant, you went from being a wife to a widow. It is not a journey you asked for or probably thought much about when you first met your husband. If your husband died after an illness, perhaps you had some anticipation of becoming a widow, but for most of us, it caught us by surprise. When my husband died, we had seen the oncologist on a Thursday afternoon. She told us there was nothing more we could do and it was time to call hospice to help manage his pain. I asked her how long she thought he had left to live. She said perhaps a month or two, but she couldn’t be sure, of course. So I was taken by surprise when he actually passed away less than 48 hours later, on that Saturday morning.

While some people like to be spontaneous when they plan things, I am not that way. Whenever I plan to go on a trip, it is usually planned well in advance. I know when and where I am leaving from, because if you don’t know where to start your journey, you won’t get anywhere! I know my destination, how long I will stay, and how to get there.

However, regardless of all that planning, I have a bad habit of trying to pack too much in my suitcases when I travel, which makes them heavy. I often return home with unused items after my trip. But I had packed those things “just in case.”  It was out of fear that I have been this way – I was afraid I would need something and not have it available. But the burden of carrying too much was just as bad! I am learning to let go and to travel lightly, and living in Europe has been teaching me to be more flexible!

Grief feels like a journey into the wilderness and it can be tempting to try to carry too much with us. It becomes evident very quickly that we cannot continue to carry all these burdens every day. This blog will hopefully be a guide to help you release some of the burdens you are carrying. If you feel broken and in pain, I cannot fix you, but I can point you to the One who can help you heal. I can walk with you, helping guide you through your journey from my experiences. Because one of the most important things that people need when they are grieving, broken, and in pain, is to know that they are not alone, and that there will come a day when the sun will shine brighter for them and the waves of sorrow will become smaller and less frequent.

Grief can also feel like you are in exile, like you have been uprooted from all that you know and love. Much of the Old Testament warns the children of Israel about the risk of being sent into exile, and while God used exile as a way to punish them, He also used exile as a means to bring His children back into relationship with Him. I want to be very clear – I am NOT saying that the loss of your husband was a punishment from God. We can learn from the stories of exile in the Bible, however, because God wants to use this season of suffering to draw you closer to His heart.

In the fall of 2023, I attended a spiritual life retreat where we learned about different spiritual disciplines to help us grow in the depth of our faith. One afternoon, I was meditating on Zephaniah 3:14-20. Verse 17 is well known: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing.” (ESV) But suddenly, verse 18 brought tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat. I could not understand fully until I read it in The Message translation: “The accumulated sorrows of your exile will dissipate. I, your God, will get rid of them for you. You’ve carried those burdens long enough.” I felt like God was freeing me from a place of sorrow that was not where I was meant to stay. 

During this same time, I was wrestling with the timing of when to move from Romania back to the United States and my home there. I have loved the people in Romania and the work that God called me to do here. But Romania is not my home. And I knew that somehow the two paths of thought were connected. 

I do not believe in coincidences in God’s kingdom. I follow a chronological Bible reading plan every morning (The Bible Recap), and during my week at the retreat, I was finishing reading through the Old Testament. I thought we had already read all of the Psalms at that point, but on the final morning of the retreat, there in my reading plan was Psalm 126. This Psalm recalls the captives returning to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon. As I read it that morning, I had tears streaming down my cheeks. Verses 5 and 6 were especially meaningful to me: “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.” God knew I needed to read those words on that day as a promise that when I return to my home in the United States, I will have a song of joy in my heart! And I have faith that God will produce a harvest from the seeds He has helped me to sow here in Romania.

It is my deepest prayer that what the Spirit has led me to write will become a light for you, my sister in Christ and in sorrow. As I scatter these seeds of hope, I pray the Lord will produce in you a harvest of hope, faith and peace. And that perhaps, you will scatter the seeds He has planted in you so that others may also hear the good news of Jesus Christ and the hope that He offers.

This verse in Romans 12 became an anchor for me in my grief journey. Every day, I can be joyful in the hope of God’s presence. I can be patient in affliction because the Lord will give me His strength. And being faithful in prayer is the best route to a closer walk with God.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Romans 12:12

What burdens are you carrying that God is asking you to release? Guilt, anger, hopelessness, fear, despair…all of these, and more, are common in grief, but don’t let them become permanent companions.

What step can you take this week to move forward through your grief journey?

How can I pray for you?

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