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“All of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it.”
1 Corinthians 12:27 (NLT)

It is a marvel how God unites two to become one in marriage. Oddly enough, I recognize and appreciate this mystery even more now that I am widowed. In marriage each partner mutually commits strengths and abilities to benefit their shared life. With my beloved’s life amputated from my own, I felt incomplete. We had learned each other’s strengths and leaned into them as partners. Over the years, oneness was a state of being, and once he was absent, I wondered how I was to take on as one person what had taken two?

Like many widows, I felt thrust into making important decisions when my brain was fuzzy and my heart was broken. I felt caught up short in all ways, except for the immense security I had in the love of Christ—His unchanging, all-knowing, consistent and extraordinary love. I invited Him into all my struggles. He has walked with me since that life-altering day when Frank went to the joy of unbroken fellowship with His Lord and mine.

Since then I have made scores of difficult choices and adjustments, but I still miss my husband and the quietness of my home accentuates its emptiness. Retired, days can lapse without a verbal conversation and the feeling of isolation encroach.

In the absence of daily verbal conversations, I recognized the legitimate need for healthy human interaction. Have you ever just wanted a hug? It turns out there is a good reason for that physiologically. Hugging increases a natural hormone which can offset the stress hormone, Cortisol. The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory lists the death of a spouse as number one, so when we are hugged, the love expressed is the best part but there is stress relief as well.

Although widowed, we remain part of a larger union–the body of Christ. The body builds itself up in love and takes God’s love to the world, our collective neighbors. Both activities represent vital human connections. For some it may mean participating in a book club, a quilting or crafting group, a bible study, or volunteering at a hospital or elsewhere.

God’s answer to my prayer has evolved over time but includes hosting groups in my home, mini-retreats, quilting bees, volunteering at a veteran’s resource center, serving as a Stephen Ministry leader and most recently, joining this team, A Widow’s Might.

In this way I reject the isolation. Too much “me” time is unhealthy for me. I can think myself into a pit in a gnat’s blink. I recharge alone but to “love one another,” I must be in community–to spend time in good company. This, too, is a way to take ownership of my grief.

I didn’t choose to be a widow but I can choose how I’m going to live as one.

For awhile it was survival or subsistence living but God’s love, fueled by His empowering grace, led me on. Christ made possible the will and the means to embrace life with His purpose and to honor His love in my heart. He did it. I had to take the steps.

My encouragement to you, when you are ready, is to pray and seek trusted counsel on how best to honor the need to connect with others. Your contribution is still needed in this troubled world, and you are God’s gal for meeting needs and touching lives in very specific and special ways. God knows what that “something more,” is for you.

Lord, refresh our lives through Your love. There are places You have reached in our hearts that only devastating pain can access and it makes us so attuned to those who suffer. Show us where to give and where to receive, how to be fruitful and how to accept, or even ask, for help. You are a good God, faithful and true. Guide us in community and be more than our partner, our friend, but our Lord. In Jesus Name. Amen