You are not the only one. We have walked this path too.

On a rainy afternoon, I set hundreds of thank-you cards on the checkout conveyor belt at my neighborhood Target.

In normal circumstances, a trip to Target would have been a treat. It would have put a pep in my step and a Starbucks coffee in my hand. But not this time.

This time, I could not enjoy Target. I was too exhausted.

Exhausted from crying. Exhausted from sleepless nights. Exhausted from funeral planning. Exhausted from the sheer amount of effort it was taking to get through each waking minute in this new unwanted reality.

As the cashier rang up my thank-you cards, he looked up and cracked a smile.

“What are all of these thank-you cards for? Did you just get married?” he asked cheerfully.

My heart sank.

I was frozen in time. Why would he ask me such a thing? How cruel. How heartless.

Scenes of my wedding day flashed before my eyes until I came back to myself.

“Ahem. Uhhh, no. No, I didn’t.” I looked up, dazed as the shock wore off. There was no way I was about to tell him these were thank-you cards for the people who had just attended my late husband’s funeral the week before. The funeral I hated planning. Nope. I knew I could not get that sentence out of my mouth without a full-on public meltdown.

I managed to muster up a fake half-smile, hurried up and grabbed all of my shopping bags, and walked toward the exit door as fast as I could.

In an air of embarrassment, I walked through the parking lot to my car with tears in my eyes.

Those tears were the kinds of tears shed in moments when we feel most alone. In the moments that remind us that while we are walking through one of the most horrific times of our lives, others are living carefree. Unburdened.

They are laughing. They are falling in love. They are getting married.

And, although we may be someone who would usually rejoice for others, this contrast can stir up sadness and loneliness, even for the best of us.

If you have found yourself in this kind of loneliness, remember you are not alone.

Even if you do not know anyone currently, trust and know many have passed the way you are facing right now. I share this story to remind you of that truth. Many of us have walked this path before you and made it to a new reality in which our broken hearts are mended. Somehow and with time, we have welcomed a return of love, joy, and peace, and so will you.

“Widowed? Who am I now?”

“If I am widowed, am I still a wife or husband?” 

This is a million-dollar question for so many of us after spousal loss.

I guarantee you that perspectives on the answer to this question vary widely. 

Nevertheless, in efforts to connect us around the topic of secondary loss, particularly identity loss as a widower/widow, I want to share a bit from my journey as I sought to answer this question as a widow.

I tried so hard after the loss of my husband to embrace this identity of the seemingly ideal, “saved, single, and satisfied” woman. 

Confident. Independent. Ambitious. Decisive. This seemed to me what a “successful, single Christian” woman was supposed to be, and I am thinking this idea was perhaps derived from years of church teaching, media, books, and/or my perception of others. 

Needless to say…this attempt didn’t work for me.

I didn’t feel independent. How could I when all I wanted was someone else to drive my car at night because my husband always drove at night because it made be nervous? How could I when I didn’t feel decisive?

I suddenly had all these decisions to make for my children and I that I never imagined I would have to make alone. I didn’t want this solo life. I wanted someone to hold my hand, to hold me while I cried, to listen and make decisions in partnership with me. 

No matter how hard I tried to distance myself from my “wife identity” or desires, it did not work because that version of me was so deeply ingrained and the only adult life I had known. I wasn’t married, but I definitely didn’t identify with being the kind of “ideal” single I thought I was supposed to be.

So, I let that go. I stopped trying to get in a box.

I accepted I was going through a huge transition. Sometimes I would feel like a wife whose husband was away on a long trip. I knew that wasn’t true, but it was okay that the experience felt like that to me. I accepted that I would have to LEARN how to be single and that was okay. I would have the privilege of deciding how I wanted to show up as a new version of me in a new season of life.

Can you relate to this question/process? If so, how did you/are you handling it?

Nurturing Joy

Have you lost your joy along the way?

I ask this question to evoke a moment of introspection and not as an indictment.

In the midst of grief and loss, we can carry a sense of guilt for our lack of enthusiasm for life. Something about losing our joy doesn’t seem socially acceptable in the world of social media accounts exuding perfection and highlight reels. As a result, we don’t talk openly about how we are feeling when our joy tank gets low. We also don’t always do the soul-searching necessary to identify where we are with our joy.

This is often to our detriment because the lackluster state of our mind, will, and emotions impact our strength and our ability to forge ahead in life. To create. To work. To show up strong in life and in purpose.

Nehemiah 8:10 reads,

'Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. '”

This verse lets us know the joy of the Lord is our strength. When we lack joy we lack strength.

We will have seasons of heavy, all-encompassing grief and sadness in which we are lacking the level of joy and therefore, fortitude needed. This happens when we lose a loved one and/or when we face immense disappointment. In those times, we need support from others and it is healthy to lean on others. However, in the long run, we will need to develop our capacity and methods of lifting ourselves up. In the long run, we must take responsibility for our own joy.

Although grief, loss, pain, and disappointment can drain us, joy is a virtue that can be nurtured in the soul.

What does it mean to “nurture” joy? To nurture means: the process of caring for and encouraging the growth or development of someone or something.

Nurturing joy in your soul means intentionally watering it, cultivating, boosting, and developing it.

How can we nurture joy in our lives?

We can nurture joy in our lives by spending time with God and meditating on His love for us.

Galatians 5:22 reads,

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

The joy of the Lord is a fruit of the spirit and we cultivate it when we spend time in God’s presence and in his word. We cultivate it as we meditate on songs or praise and worship. We develop it as we read God’s word and speak his promises over our lives.

In John 15:9-11 Jesus said he was intentionally nurturing the joy of the disciples when told them about his love for them. He explained,

 “As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in My love.

If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.

These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”

It has been said that joy is a state beyond happiness. That it is more than an emotion. It comes from the spirit and not our circumstances. Jesus spoke to his disciples about his love for them and told them he did that so his joy would remain in them and their joy would be full. We can become infused from the inside out with joy from a deep place as we sit and meditate on God’s great love for us. His love is immeasurable and it lifts our soul out of low places.

Ephesians 3:16-19

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

There are so many distractions that can hinder us from getting still enough to pray and to spend time reading and meditating on God’s word and love for us. However, His love is the foundation of everything we do. It is foundational to joy. Paul explains that God’s love is vast, wide, long, high, and deep. It is important we are rooted in it and “…filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

I pray that you find and make time to pray and meditate on God’s love for you and that you experience a restoration of your joy in the upcoming weeks.

By His Grace,

LaSandra