The stresses and trials of being a widow can really test our faith. It’s the hard times and difficult situations this life brings that show us the strength of our conviction to trust God, or reveal our lack of understanding or our unwillingness to believe God is who He says He is.
The enemy’s plan is to frustrate our faith. He tries to get us to somehow walk away from it, set it aside, and distract us from the only real solution. He wants to get us to place our faith anywhere else but in the Lord. If he can get us to expect our church, our family or our friends to take care of us, we may forget to give our cares over to Jesus. If the enemy can get us to trust doctors, counselors, or medication to soothe or mask our pain, maybe we won’t think we need God. Jesus told us we will have trials and tribulations in this earthly life… but we don’t need to worry about that. We can trust Him to see us through.
And everything I’ve taught you is so the peace which is in Me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in Me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!
John 16: 33 TPT
When you find yourself discouraged and in pain, how do you respond? How do you encourage yourself in the Lord when life gets overwhelming? The Bible tells us David encouraged himself when his troops were ready to turn on him and kill him because the enemy took their wives and children and all their earthly goods.
Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found the Amalekites made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground. They carried off the women and children and everyone else but without killing anyone.
When David and his men saw the ruins and realized what happened to their families, they wept until they could weep no more. David’s two wives, Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel, were among those captured. David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him. But David found strength in the LORD his God.
1 Samuel 30:1-6 NLT
The loss of our beloved husband is about the worse pain we can possibly go through. It’s very hard to pick up the pieces of our broken life and find the path forward. In fact, I believe it is impossible without God’s divine help. We will definitely negotiate the thorny and broken path more easily if we are blessed with caring and supportive people to walk beside us and encourage us. God made us to thrive in relationships so we can be there for each other through the good times and the hard times.
For many of us however, the very people we thought would be there for us in our time of need are not. Some people are oblivious to the depth and magnitude of the pain we suddenly find ourselves in. Some people refuse to join us on the journey because they either don’t know what to do or say, or because they don’t want to. For some, the situation might trigger fear or pain inside themselves they don’t want to acknowledge or face.
How do I encourage myself in the Lord when life is difficult? It starts with a relationship with God and honestly believing He is good, loves us, and has a plan and purpose for each and every one of us. That relationship starts with getting to know Him by reading the Bible and taking time every day to pray and talk to Him. A relationship also requires us to listen to Him respond to us when we talk to Him.
A good way to begin to get an understanding of who God is can be found in reading the Psalms and Proverbs. The Gospel of John is known as the love Gospel and reveals a lot about God’s love for us. Before you start reading, just take a moment to ask God to reveal Himself as you read and help you understand and hear His voice. He is so happy to answer your prayer. My favorite translation of the Bible is The Passion Translation. It brings the Word alive and makes it relevant to me. Here are some passages from the Book of Psalms to show you what I mean.
What delight comes to the one who follows God’s ways! He won’t walk in step with the wicked, nor share the sinner’s way, nor be found sitting in the scorner’s seat. His passion is to remain true to the Word of “I AM,” meditating day and night on the true revelation of light. He will be standing firm like a flourishing tree planted by God’s design, deeply rooted by the brooks of bliss, bearing fruit in every season of life. He is never dry, never fainting, ever blessed, ever prosperous.
Psalm 1: 1-3 TPT
Because I set you, YAHWEH, always close to me, my confidence will never be weakened, for I experience Your wraparound presence every moment. My heart and soul explode with joy—full of glory! Even my body will rest confident and secure. For You will not abandon me to the realm of death, nor will You allow Your Faithful One to experience corruption. Because of You, I know the path of life, as I taste the fullness of joy in Your presence. At Your right side I experience divine pleasures forevermore!
Psalm 16: 8-11 TPT
The Gospel of John is written by one of Jesus closest disciples. John referred to himself as the one Jesus loved. The biggest theme threading this book together is love. Probably the best known and most widely memorized and quoted verses of the Bible is in John 3: 16.
For here is the way God loved the world—He gave His only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in Him will never perish but experience everlasting life.
John 3: 16 TPT
Jesus beckons us to Himself because He loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. He wants to be our best friend. He has the answers to our questions and the solutions to our problems. He tells us He is the Bread of life to express His saving relationship toward the world. Bread represents the most basic and essential food we need to live our life. When we share in fellowship with people we love and cherish we tend to gather to share a meal together. Passover tradition and celebrations include eating bread, and many beloved stories from the Bible are about God supernaturally providing food in famines, wars and deserts.
Jesus said to them, “I am the Bread of Life. Come every day to Me and you will never be hungry. Believe in Me and you will never be thirsty. Yet I’ve told you even though you’ve seen Me, you still don’t believe in Me. But everyone My Father has given to Me, they will come. And all who come to Me, I will embrace and will never turn them away. And I have come out of heaven not for My own desires, but for the satisfaction of My Father who sent Me. My Father who sent Me determined that I will not lose even one of those He has given to Me, and I will raise them up in the last day. For the longing of My Father is that everyone who embraces the Son and believes in Him will experience eternal life and I will raise them up in the last day!”
John 6: 35-40 TPT
Don’t miss the whispers of God’s love as He leads you where He is bringing you so He can bless you, heal you, and empower you to fulfill every plan and purpose He designed you for. I pray this passage right from the Book of Ephesians over you right now.
I pray the Father of glory, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, would impart to you the riches of the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of revelation to know Him through your deepening intimacy with Him. I pray the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination, flooding you with light, until you experience the full revelation of the hope of His calling—that is, the wealth of God’s glorious inheritances He finds in us, His holy ones! I pray you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith. Then your life will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you! This is the mighty power released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted Him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm!
Ephesians 1: 17-20 TPT
God still has new chapters to your story. We might have some bad chapters in our life, but never forget God is the author and the finisher. I want to encourage you today by reminding you God’s not done writing your story. We live our lives and sometimes don’t think we are very important or special in God’s eyes. He is pouring out His blessings and we can trust Him. He has our days planned out for us. He has a purpose He created you to do.
You have a story to tell. God created you before the earth was formed and gave you an identity, purpose and destiny. Your story is totally unique to you and who God created you to be. God doesn’t write bad stories. He has chapters yet ahead that are meant to redeem and restore things in your life. I call these things forth in Jesus’ mighty name. I decree all guilt, shame, and fear is rooted out of your heart and mind. A Spirit of power, love and a sound mind is yours. 2 Timothy 1: 7 Let God define who you are and bring you into the fullness of the life He has for you as you go through this next chapter. Amen.
About Teri Miner
Teri’s dance with grief actually began over five years before she watched her beloved husband of almost 37 years take his last breath and enter Heaven’s door on October 6, 2019. A terminal degenerative neurological disease steadily and increasingly attacked nearly every major system of his body and transformed him from a vibrant, brilliant, strong and caring man to a bedfast invalid at the end. She was devoted to caring for him and doing her best to make the most of every minute they had left, to love him and pray for a miracle.
She thought she knew what her future held, but she had no idea. Losing him was the first time she experienced a close and personal loss. He was the love of her life. The onslaught of the pandemic with its reign of fear-mongering, forced isolation and separation entering the scene and disrupting or destroying whatever sense of “normal” that remained, just added insult to injury.
Her faith in God is the sustaining force keeping her fighting spirit to find and share hope in a bright future. Her heart’s desire is to walk beside her fellow widows toward a path of promise and healing. She wants to offer encouragement and hope so others can find the strength to take that next breath or next step. She recently started her own blog, https://widowwhispers.blogspot.com/, to share with other widows not only the struggles and hardships of widowhood, but the triumphs. Her hope is found in leaning on the Lord Jesus to enjoy a God inspired future anchored in expectation He will bring us to a fulfilling and meaningful life.
Thank you Teri for putting this out there as I was looking for comfort with a spiritual content. I have walked with Jesus for 48 years but the last 21 months and 21 days without my husband, Jerry, has been the hardest thing ever. The loss of my parents in 2009 and 2016 doesn’t come close and I loved them both. I’m 70 years old and my life has completely started again, alone. I am in the word daily, I know God is with me, I feel the Holy Spirit calm me and speak words of love and encouragement but I’m still sad. Jerry and I were married 40 years and he was my gift from God after my first marriage ended in divorce after 10 years. He was the man of God I needed to help me raise my 2 children. He was a true father to them and then the 6 grandchildren adored him. We all adored him and now we miss him so much. They all live many miles away so I can’t run to them. Jerry was my best friend ever. Tomorrow is his birthday and I’m even sadder tonight. My joy has been shaken and trampled and I doubt my own strength though I know the joy of the Lord is my strength. Those words come out of my mouth but my heart is broken still. Daily I curl up in the Lords arms and daily he quiets my soul. He is my firm foundation but there is a big crack that has not been mended or fixed. I will continue to seek after him because Jesus is my first love but I so miss the man he gave me for 4 decades. Now I’m old and gray and it’s hard to see what the rest of my life is supposed to be without Jerry. Widowhood is the hardest and strangest journey and the valley is dark but Jesus gives me glimmers of light to keep walking on the path set before me. Onward to tomorrow I go. Thank you again for your words and your prayers for each of us he places in your path. May God pour his blessings on you abundantly!
I’m deeply sorry for your loss Debra. This loss of our great love causes a cataclysmic wound that takes time to heal… if it can even be truly healed. God understands this more than any person in our life can. He knows and understands how much of our life was invested in our love for our husband and the depth of the intimacy we shared. God created marriage as a very special and unique bond He described as making us one person in this union instead of two. Finding ourselves suddenly and permanently separated now from that life literally feels to us like part of us is missing and broken. It’s a very hard thing to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it. It’s even harder to have to learn how to now live without our husband. The impact reaches far more ways than we could imagine.
The good news is God understands and He is able to bring healing and restoration even in this situation. He loves you and is pouring out His grace and mercy to bring hope and encourage your strength to keep trusting Him as you put one foot in front of the other. I pray this passage from Ephesians neatly every day to help me remember God has this… even when it feels impossible. I pray it will help you as well.
I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of my Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. I pray He would unveil within me the unlimited riches of His glory and favor until supernatural strength floods my innermost being with His divine might and explosive power.
Then, by constantly using my faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside me, and the resting place of His love will become the very source and root of my life. I will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is His love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends my understanding—this extravagant love pours into me until I am filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!
I will never doubt God’s mighty power to work in me and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than my greatest request, my most unbelievable dream, and exceed my wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energizes me. I offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. Amen! Ephesians 3: 14-21
I decree all emotional wounds we have are healed now by the power of God. Everything we do springs forth out of wholeness and soundness of being. I speak internal healing and health in us in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
This is helpful. My husband passed away unexpectedly and my son, daughter, and me are alone in this. Everything in our life has changed, we had to move from our home of 17 years losing neighborhood, neighbors, friends, our whole daily life. We are facing uncertainty in every way. Thank you for this reminder!
There is nothing easy about navigating the changes and uncertainties we face as widows. Even as time begins to go by and we think we might be getting the hang of it, new challenges and obstacles can come and bring in a whole new level of frustration.
God is bigger than anything the enemy might bring to knock us down. He has good plans and a purpose for us. I keep reading Jeremiah 29: 11-14 when I need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness. I want His plans over my plans and to be in His will for my life.
This is God’s Word on the subject: … I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. When you call on Me, when you come and pray to Me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for Me, you’ll find Me. Jeremiah 29: 11-14
I encourage you to keep looking to Father God to see you through each step and each day. He loves you and He will do this for you. God bless you.