When I became a widow, I noticed how many widows and widowers were around me. So many people, young and old, had felt the deep pain of losing the one with whom they had been one flesh.
One widower told me he eventually had to move out of town and find a new job. Otherwise, everywhere he went, and with everyone he met, he felt like he was “bleeding all over the place.”
I have had other widows look me straight in the eye and say, “Renee, you will be okay.” They would say it over and over to me. Not, “Everything will be okay,” but rather, “You, Renee, will be okay.” They could say that. They had been through it. They trusted that God would help me be okay.
Through these conversations with other widows and my own experience, I realized that God does not promise us a better life after such loss, or the same life, but rather new life. And this new life is still good and worth living.
This message is adapted from “Widow” by Renee Splichal Larson in the January/February 2017 issue of Gather, where it was reprinted from “A Witness,” Wipf and Stock, 2016, and used with permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers, www.wipfandstock.com.
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