Tentative, thoughtfully fumbling with his words, my adult son asked me over a shared breakfast date, “So, … what’s it like being single(?)—I mean, … what’s it like being a Widow?” God love him; this same son, at barely five years old, intently studying his gramma as she applied her makeup for the day, asked if her “crinkles” hurt. My son—he’s such an empathetic dear.

Seconds later, catching up to my breath (because I assure you, it instantly fled me…), I sat there wistfully thinking, ‘Thank you, Lord, some things haven’t changed much.’

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Sweet nostalgia aside, as shockingly bald and uncomfortable it may have been to receive it, indeed, it’s a fair and caring question to ask of one’s own mother. In truth, I’m often asked or receive messages from well-meaning friends regarding much the same question. There’s no easy answer. This new experience of being a widow is fluid, difficult to contain—and only able to be adequately described one moment at a time. Tomorrow the story may be entirely different.

I determined after my last conviction post, while still processing the inconceivable, that I had shared quite enough about grieving. Nobody wants to hear too much of that stuff. On this platform, who is it going to help, anyway? As hope-filled, entirely truthful, and trusting in God as those early grief posts may be, the subject still is, you know—awkward, depressing—who wants to dwell there? Let’s move along now, right??

Finding it impossible to pry my mind free from this sincerest of questions, I’ve determined it’s a valuable one to answer, even publicly. Often I’ve been comforted by hearing how God is present and working in others’ lives. I’m guessing we all have someone in our lives experiencing loss. Consider this an exercise in grief awareness, if you will.

Life isn’t tidy

As much as we would like it to be, LIFE is far from tidy. What’s new, right?! Recently, reading a string of mini social media testimonies regarding God’s work in others’ lives, I’ve come to recognize many disappoint by sounding so…unrelatable, pious, cleaned up just short of perfection, unhuman—even off-putting and judgy.

Steeped deeply in the murky realities of our lives, reading impossibly tidy stories can become almost …repulsive. I can assure you that I’ve spent days and weeks on this dual question, and I won’t be serving you the cleaned-up version by any measure of the word. I believe we honor God more when we are willing to share our ‘yucky uglies’ alongside God’s saving mercies over them.

To be sure, individual perspective bears some mention. I wonder, do you envision me, at this very moment, closed up in my room typing amongst tussled piles of clean laundry and an unmade bed, all the while with ratty frizzed out hair twisted high up on my head—pleading along with the rest of my person to be washed two days ago?

Or do you see me, hair softly braided to one side, out back in my wildish, only partially kept garden bursting gloriously with summer flowers and fresh produce ready to bless anyone who will notice? The eighty-five-degree weather is barely tolerable for this heat-sensitive princess. Still, the garden calls me, partially for my genuine awe of it and all the more likely because it was ‘his.’ It soothes and feeds me somehow—in more ways than one.

Of late, either and both scenarios have been the truth.

Sayin’ It Like It Is

Eight months into this new life, I find myself caught ineptly duking it out, so to speak, in an undeniable battle with chronic lethargy, out-of-the-blue days of mental numbness paired with varying degrees of daily exaggerated physical pain, weakness, and instability with my steps.

I randomly need to tear myself awake from nightmares that refuse to release my imagination even weeks after the dream. Sudden unwelcome daytime images, memories triggered from every God-given blessed sense, and pressing questions only God can answer weighs heavy in my spirit.

Imagine, if you will, a female version of a ridiculous but lovable character straight out of the 60s ‘Gomer Pyle meets Pigpen,’ and give me a wave.

Aware of spiritual battles raging, I distractedly attempt to keep my mind alert and stand guard, dressed in incomplete war-torn armor with my mind intent on discovering anything lovely or true to save my life. Daily surges often begin before I have a conscious choice to make. I’m too often caught grabbing at my battle gear; too little too late to save the day.

Battle weary and decidedly undignified, these past few weeks, I resemble less and less of my preferred (daughter of the King) princess self. Thankfully, like Charlie Brown’s friend, Pigpen, I have friends and family who genuinely love me regardless of my scrappy mess. They call, text, and chase me down when I go missing. They invite me into their lives and literally pick me up—even though parts of me would much prefer to simply disappear.

Sudden Singleness

After nearly forty years of marriage to my love, singleness feels like an intense study of contrasts; soul-crushing and spirit-filling, exhausting and life-giving, stifled and set-free, lonely, known, and overwhelmed by BIG love.

These both/and feelings and state-of-being(s) never negate each other. They are natural, God-gifted, and each is true in and of itself.

I experience an empty, dried-up measure of creativity in the kitchen and my personal writing on any given day. There is this hovering sense of imposture syndrome when it comes to my purpose in life, ALL while still filled with a fresh daily portion of overflowing hope.

I am, more often than not, bone-weary exhausted with very little left to give, yet equally steadfast and determined within my spirit with a sense of passion for living in victory over the enemy’s wiles.

Daily I face the limitations of changed capacity, living life as a single rather than paired with my Stache—you’d have to know him to appreciate the significance of this fact—but trust me, it’s dramatic! Still, to be frank, the lost necessity for compromise or decisions made purely for my mate’s behalf is an astonishingly freeing gift. Who knew there could be any joy in such grievous loss? (Does that come across as selfishly gross(?) ’cause suddenly I’m embarrassed.)

Experiencing God Care

With all my heart, I believe God has been bearing the heaviest of the loneliness load for me. Stache wasn’t just a companion I hung out with because it was the way things were or the ‘Christian’ thing to do—after all, I vowed to do so back in the early 80s. God help me; I sincerely love the man! Adequate or not, I gave him everything I had and more.

I’ve previously shared how unreal his loss has felt, still expecting Stache to charge through the front door like a sudden midwestern storm, coming out of nowhere—as if nothing had ever happened. Now, this shadowed, treacherous, rocky wilderness trail I’m trekking is getting ever so long and far too real to deny it. Given only an obstructed, blurry view of where we are headed, I find myself childlike, pleading blindingly in my spirit with God, ‘Are we done yet? Can we go back now?’

Though I’ve experienced such overwhelming love from God himself, our kids, and our amazing community of family and friends, I’ve also irreversibly lost my person, my other half, my love. This literal torn-off, gaping wound hurts like every unmentionable misery of this world and the next. The contradictions playing out in my sudden singleness are difficult to adequately describe, but one thing is sure. I’ve actually GAINED more love than I’ve ever allowed myself to confidently know. And God made it so.

Unimaginable Widowhood

Widowhood has resembled very little I might have expected. I must say, I had almost no expectation in this regard because my Stache was so ALIVE, so present, so much healthier, and infinitely stronger than myself. Of the million things my humanness could have latched on to be anxious and labor over, this version of reality wasn’t it.

Unimaginable is the best word I’ve got to this very day.

They say grieving is different for everyone. They say although utterly uncharacteristic of my typically weepy self, my grief (measured by mental numbness, exaggerated physical pain, over-sleepiness, and regular bouts of overwhelm, spilling only the daintiest teacups filled with tears), compared to anyone else’s grief (let’s assume it’s something textbook or ‘Hollywood’ —like crying more flood waters than the world’s 4, 5, even 7 oceans have ever known), and everyone who might grieve in between—it’s all pretty much “normal.” Excuse me when I ask, what does that even mean?!

Widowhood has felt like being nineteen years old again—perhaps because the last time I faced life ‘alone’ was that minuscule space of time between coming-of-age singleness and marriage—lasting about half a second. A world of possibility and responsibility suddenly lain at my feet, waiting ever so insistently for me to choose my way.

Similar young adult pressures and questions present themselves, choices mysteriously cloaked, refusing a clear view of their ultimate consequence, much less how to begin. The most fantastic gift forty years has graced to weigh in on this sudden deja-vu equation is not only a doozy full of life experience but an invested relationship with God. We’ve walked through quite a bit of “messy” together—I trust His sustaining care like nothing else.

Prepared Doesn’t Mean Pretty

Well before the respective ages of nineteen and fifty-nine, God prepared me. Although I haven’t always heeded God’s will, I knew right from wrong and my ultimate purpose in life. It hasn’t always come out pretty, but given knowledge, choices, and living through the situations of life God allowed—it’s always been my response to His Lordship that mattered.

Funny how God uses all things to direct and draw us closer to Him—even the things we get wrong.

There’s been something so knowing, so loving to recognize He’s been there every step of the way. It’s disheartening to forget that He knows pain as I’ve never known it. When I get caught up and overcome with distractions, I tend to forget Him within my moment-to-moment self-focused woes. Sure enough, I’ve repeatedly found him waiting for me. And when I let go, reluctantly as it may be, trusting and obeying Him—things always come to right.

You might angrily ask how in the world such tragedy comes to right—because, in centuries of recorded human experience, there’s no ‘right’ to be found in this thing called death.

I get it. I agree!

There’s no right to be made in this world of loss and suffering. But that’s just the thing. It’s not this world that holds my future or yours. It’s not this world that completes the story. Jesus completed the story with his death and resurrection. He overcame death. We only need to trust him.

The Point

So, what’s the point? What possible value comes from the humbled confessions of a shower starved, grieving-out-loud, self-declared, somewhat ‘normal,’ average Jane? Plenty of days go by where I can’t readily articulate it. But you must know, I still daily experience a God who is faithful. In this season of life, He’s asked me to trust him more, but He hasn’t let me down. I still wait expectantly for Him. I hope to encourage you in that.

God is not only the light that directs my way—He’s long been my salvation, my one hope, my source of strength, and further now—He’s my portion. I can’t do this single widowhood thing on my own. Bless God, He never asks me to go it alone. He tends well to the brokenhearted.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I have no idea what it was, but the Apostle Paul of the Bible speaks of a messenger of Satan implanting a ‘thorn in the flesh,’ some kind of humbling weakness that God refused to remove for Paul’s better good. God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

As much as I might shrink back and quake at the thought of exposing my current realities, there’s value in transparent weaknesses, such that many can see God’s power in His ultimate victory over them. Still, I tremble—I’m most assuredly no Paul! That tiny segment of Scripture stating, “for Christ’s sake,” gives me a healthy pause. Is my motivation in sharing my weak woundedness, for Christ’s sake?

I sincerely believe so.

There is hope in knowing I don’t see myself abandoned. There’s camaraderie in knowing you’re not the only one who suffers as you do or asks God big questions like, ‘Why?!’ There’s an amazing awareness of love by hearing the testimony of God’s provision of care.

If you are hurting or worn down by life circumstances today, I encourage you to turn to Him, trust Him, and wait on Him to make things right. He is good. And He is worthy of our trust.

Now, about that long-awaited shower thing—it’s high time!

Much love and a sincere thank-you for caring! ~Grammie