From Dec 10,2020
A friend introduced me recently to another widow friend of hers. We had a good time getting acquainted and sharing something of our experiences with one another. My friend who introduced us keeps telling me we need to start a group for the growing number of widows in our circle of acquaintances.
I was part of a weekly prayer and study group with 8 or so women when I was in my 40’s. All of them were a decade to 4 decades older than I was at the time. I was profoundly averse to the possibility of being left alone thru death or divorce and had that fear through out most of my marriage at age 18. In the years I spent with these women I watched four of them become widowed. I watched the sufficiency of God’s grace in their lives, their varied ways of dealing with grief, their strength found in their relationships with Christ and family and friends, their pragmatic ways of dealing with the reality of their changed circumstances and I found in them role models for what many of us women know is a possibility in our later years- singleness- however it finds its way into our lives. I found it better to face my fear and deal with it the only way I knew how to deal with any fear….. asking myself, “If this feared thing happens what is the worst consequence I can imagine and how do I prepare for such a contingency?” If I can look the beast in the face and imagine myself equipping myself to steel myself against its fangs with the resources made available to me by God- spiritual, financial, educational, emotional, relational, etc.- I know I can face anything and get through it to whatever destination God is leading me. The most important part is knowing that He IS with me. I had already learned that lesson by my 40’s and was being schooled in the reality that He WOULD ALWAYS be there, no matter what I face in life or death. It was an instructive few years in the company of women who were, unbeknown to any of us, divinely appointed to prepare me for such a time as this.
I thank God for those years, for the witness of their marriages and lives, for the patience they had with me and for revealing things about myself and about God that I needed to know.
My heart aches for those who grieve inconsolably, like a woman I knew almost 30 years ago who, when her husband died, hermited herself in her home, withdrew from living and after a couple of years, fell in her home, was injured and died, lying there several days before someone found her. I take Scripture at its word when we are told that we do not have to grieve like those who have no hope. My hope is in Christ. As my 92-year old, three- time widowed friend says when asked how she’s doing replies, “I woke up this morning. God has a reason for me being here. I pray before putting my feet on the floor for God to give me something or someone today for whom to pray. He never fails me.”
Addendum: 12/10/2020
“This morning’s fog has been amazing. Now it is so thick I cannot see the lake or the dock but the sun is shining in my yard and the air is clear. 20 minutes ago it was wrapping my home in dreary grey.”
