Widowed

On the Saturday after New Years, my sister took her husband to the emergency room in the midst of a heart attack. After an emotional roller-coaster ride of hope and complications, he left her alone on 26 January. They have no children, few family members to wrap her in care – none close, but many prayed for her.

Last year one of my dearest prayer partners went to work last spring. My son-in-law went over that morning to help her husband with some mowing. He found his friend in the back yard of their home, dead of a heart attack. My prayer partner has many siblings, a child and a church full of friends to wrap her in prayerful care.

A mother of one of my Sunday School Junior High Girls heard her husband snoring and nudged him. He fell out of bed, unresponsive. A heart attack placed him in a coma for several days, then he left her alone, too. She has three children, one still in school. She remains in our prayer

Yet another wife in our church was left alone last year as her husband succumbed to cancer. His battle gave him five years the doctors did not originally offer as hope. He played with grandchildren that at one time he had no hope of seeing. Yet, in time, his wife was left alone, accompanied by prayer.

These women will commonly be called widowed – but their stories have little in common. Their lives are not similar, and we cannot respond to each of them in the same way. They will grieve at different times, in different ways, in different steps. Their lives are unique, though counselors will tell you the grief process is the same.

The smallest list of steps I’ve seen are: Denial; Anger; Bargaining; Depression; Acceptance. But that doesn’t begin to cover the depth and breadth of emotions.

And, those emotions can swing within a few moments, hours. The bereaved widow can experience a loss of appetite or a need to eat everything in sight, insomnia or a desire to sleep all day. She may retreat socially or need to be with people. She may experience nightmares or not be able to sleep. She may treasure or avoid momentos of her husband.

The ones I fear the most are bargaining – or guilt. The ‘What if …’ There is nothing that could have been done differently, there are no second chances. The second I fear is depression.

For which one of us, when we see our family and friends experience their loss, do not look around and appreciate that which we have, and fear for a moment its loss.

Recognize that your friends have a huge hole in their lives. The oneness that marriage brought is gone. Half their life has been ripped away. Walk with them a while as that rip slowly heals, and pray for His strength to uphold you, too, as you offer a shoulder to lean on. Know that He is with us always.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:20)

And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, (2 Thessalonians 1:7)

Know, too, that everything is a part of His plan:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)

This, then is A time to weep … a time to mourn. There shall come another, a time to laugh … and a time to dance; (Ecclesiastes 3:4)