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Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.
Proverbs 19:21 ESV

I encourage you, sisters, to join me in a three-part series I 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 those early days of grief. Today’s part focuses on that second year when life goes on, but your heart is still broken to pieces. Look next month for part three which will focus on a new season. Bless you, sisters. Our stories share a common thread–God’s love for the widow. ~Kit

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We tried counseling. We loved it—we were finally able to get why we loved him so much and yet in some ways felt relieved not to have the same arguments repeated. We hated counseling—felt like we had a better grip on loss than the trained counselor. We dragged our children to counselors against their will, and were later glad we did—what would have happened with that grumpy teenager had we not gotten him to vent? We dragged our children to counselors and found out dragging didn’t work at all—the teenager only dug his heels in. We brought our children to a counselor who won their trust and got them on a healthy road of grieving right away. We got our kids to a counselor just in time. We got our kids to a counselor too late—but is it ever too late? We started counseling and thought we didn’t need it anymore and found ourselves later crawling back when life without our husbands got really rough.

We took on our husbands’ legacies. Some of us opened that coffee shop he always dreamed of starting, only to find it too overwhelming to handle without him. Some of us started that summer camp he dreamed about on the property he purchased a year before the accident. What purpose it gave us. How would we have survived without something to focus on! We raised our stepchildren that now had no biological parent to raise them. We struggled with a stepchild’s loyalty issues—loved by us, but still feeling like an orphan.

We blamed God. We didn’t blame God, but had a handle on how to just trust Him and accept. Maybe we’d already been through some pretty rough blows in life and knew bad things just happen and in the end, it all fits into some part of His will. We didn’t blame Him at first, but then life got harder. The bills mounted. The kids got squirrely. We got lonely. We’re still learning how to stop blaming God. We know we don’t really blame Him. We’re just plain mad.

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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. 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.