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For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11 ESV
I encourage you, sisters, to join me in a three part series I wrote years ago as I started this ministry. I was struck by how unique and compelling each woman’s story was, and yet how similarly the threads of love, loss, and healing weave through all of our stories–creating one message: Hope in Christ. The original writing was three times the length of our current articles, so I have split these into three parts. Part One focused on the early days of grief. Part Two was about that second year of grief. Today’s part focuses on starting over. I hope it blesses as many readers the second time around! ~Kit
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We announced to everyone we would never remarry. We left half of the headstone blank—certain we’d want to be rested next to him forever. We dedicated the entire headstone to him, recognizing twenty-seven is too young to assume there will never be another. Some of us admitted to ourselves we’d want to remarry—sooner than later. Some of us knew this would be it, that kind of love won’t repeat itself in our lives. We wore our wedding rings for two years straight. We wore our wedding rings for six months. We’re still wearing our wedding rings after twenty years. We kept our rings on for the first year, then added them to chains around our necks, and then finally stopped wearing them altogether. We took some of the life insurance money and bought for ourselves beautiful diamond rings because we knew they always wanted to give us them and never got around to it in their lifetimes. We wore their wedding bands on our thumbs. We wore their bands on necklace chains. We hung their wedding bands on our vanity mirrors. We buried them with their bands on their hands. We buried them with our wedding rings placed in their hands. We saved both rings for our children.
The aching for a man started. Some of us felt vulnerable right away. Some of us felt it within a few months. Some of us still don’t feel it. Some of us were ashamed of the impure thoughts we had for the men we see each day at our churches or behind the counters at Starbucks. Some of us knew that was normal and went home and cried about our husbands. Some of us confused it for love and were taken advantage of.
We started over. Some of us started new careers. Some of us started to date. Some of us started new marriages and families. Some of us started sinking further into loneliness, refusing to start over. Some of us needed more time for grieving than others. Some of us wondered at others of us who move on too quickly for our comfort. Some of us wondered at others of us who we wanted to see moving on and living life more.
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But all of us do… live life more. Whether it’s through grieving more deeply or actively starting life more quickly, we live life more. Our tragedies are parallel and the ripples from our tragedies go in all different directions. And somehow, always lead to redemption.
Father God, I thank You for these sisters who continue to share their stories with us. I marvel at how strong each of them is, and how You have taken the horrible losses in their lives to transform them and glorify You.
