Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

BEGINNING, ENDING, AND BEGINNING AGAIN

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; ... a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

ECCLESIASTES3: 1–2, 4

The discomfort in his right side started late in the summer. Since several family members had wrestled with gallbladder troubles, my husband assumed he was facing surgery at worst, diet changes at best. As his pains persisted, we went to a surgeon who ordered tests but was not alarmed at the symptoms. Follow-up appointments got delayed several times as the surgeon faced serious health problems of his own. Finally, after the third delay, we switched surgeons. This doctor took a more serious and aggressive approach to the problem.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Chest X-rays, MRIs, CT scans — the data was collected and the unthinkable climbed to the top of the pile of possibilities. Lung cancer! My husband had never smoked. A tumor the size of a golf ball was present in his right lung. Other smaller tumors were splattered over the lining of the lung like slush on a windshield. Shock is too mild a word for what we felt when we got the news in a phone call. We sat together, held each other, and sobbed.

A biopsy confirmed the diagnosis as adenocarcinoma. My husband underwent surgery in mid-January, and a difficult postoperative period began. Though we were told his pain would last six to eight weeks, he was in pain for the rest of his life — eleven months. The oncologist held out hope that he might have two years left to live or perhaps even longer. The day my husband died, two hospice workers visited him in our home, one in the morning and one in the early evening. That same day he was able to walk a short distance, talk to people visiting, and endure various treatments. But around 6:00 p.m., I noticed some troubling changes. I took the hospice nurse aside and pointedly asked her if he was dying. She responded that he was not actively dying, but five hours later he was dead.

Medical workers can try to estimate the time of death but only God knows when we will die. Approximately three hours after the hospice nurse left, my husband's pain increased dramatically. I frantically called the hospice and pleaded with them to send another nurse, but they did not consent to my request. I hung up and immediately called for an ambulance, but within minutes my husband took his last breaths. It was unreal. I am grateful to God that my husband died at home, as he wished, and not in the hospital. I saw God powerfully at work that night.

I was blessed that most of my extended family lives nearby. Having two of my sisters-in-law present when my husband died was comforting. They are sweet, thoughtful women, and it was good not to be alone. I called our son to tell him his dad had died. How utterly devastating it was to lose his father! There is something profoundly sad about hearing a strong young man cry — such a juxtaposition of physical strength and emotional fragility, a desire to be strong and a shattered heart. We were up all night.

Family members and friends provided every needed comfort during and after my husband's illness and death. One friend stayed with me for several nights immediately after my husband's death. What a comfort to be with a mature Christian woman who knew when to speak and when to be silent! She gently pointed me to the Lord for comfort, prayed with me, and reminded me of the hope we have in Christ both for this life and the life to come. In my exhaustion, it was a significant help to have someone reminding me of these things.

At the funeral service, my pastor blessed us with a message that com- forted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. I was thankful for his words. He didn't waste the opportunity to tell the truth of the gospel. Then we drove to the cemetery for the graveside service. It was a sunny day but sharply cold. I stepped out of the limousine and took my son's arm. As we approached the grave, the funeral director motioned for us to sit in that place where none of us want to find ourselves — the front row — the next of kin. I could barely contain my sobs and silently prayed for strength. This was it. The body consigned to the ground. No more lingering hugs, no warm holding of hands, no sweet kisses from lips that I knew so well, no more sparkle in hazel eyes that twinkled with mischievous humor. I praise God that I will see my husband again some day. I don't know how long that will be, but God knows, and that makes it all right.

EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS

Though my husband passed on, my life continued. During daylight hours I was okay, but as the sun set and the winter darkness fell around me, it seemed as if the walls moved closer together. At that time of day I was incredulous that my husband was gone. When I started to cry, I wondered how I would ever stop.

Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
It helped to read aloud verses of Scripture and texts of hymns (I scarcely had enough breath to speak, much less sing). These verses from a hymn helped soothe my aching soul:

Does Jesus care when my way is dark with a nameless dread and fear?

As the daylight fades into deep night shades, does He care enough to be near?

Does Jesus care when I've said "goodbye" to the dearest on earth to me, and my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks, Is it aught to Him? Does He see?

Oh yes, He cares, I know He cares, his heart is touched with my grief; when the days are weary the long nights dreary, I know my Savior cares. Jesus cares and he comforts. Recently, I realized that I no longer have large boxes of tissues in every room. Progress, definite progress.

Weekends were difficult to get through and still can be at times, though I do see progress there also. I need to accept a whole different rhythm to my life and to gladly accept it week by week. A friend who is a missionary in Europe and is single counseled me to start my own new traditions. By this she meant that I needed to form new patterns to my days and weeks and months and years. I understood I would need to do this in regard to holidays, but my friend showed me I needed new routines even for ordinary days.

CHECKING OFF A DIFFERENT BOX

I was my husband's caretaker for the year he lived after his diagnosis. I watched as more downs than ups finally claimed his life. The world couldn't be without him in it, could it? We met in high school, dated through college, and married soon after graduation. I've often thought about the biblical teaching regarding the spouse of your youth. It's special, that young love, and more so as the years go by and love matures. Friends for forty-five years — friends like that don't go away, do they? Lovers for thirty-eight years — can love like that leave my life?

Yes, it can. It did. Now I'm single again. Now I'm something I never expected to be. (I should have been more realistic.) I'm a widow. The first time I checked off "widow" on a form it conjured up images of frail old ladies dressed in black, sitting in rocking chairs, and staring blankly into nowhere. It led me to recall a Dylan Thomas story. Referring to elderly aunts he writes, "And some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edges of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers." I felt like I could break. Would I?

Periods of intense grief become fewer and farther between as we learn to put our trust in God and walk by faith, not by sight. It's like driving in patchy fog early in the morning. The murkiness clears and you cover some distance, then meet with reduced visibility again until the sun burns off the fog and the road is clear ahead. It's vital not to lose sight of the Lord as we travel this misty path. God is watching over us with eyes of empathy and love. "When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God, we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us. When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth." We need grace to set our mind's eye on the Lord and not to take it off. He knows our suffering and longs to comfort us in it. He is not distant or uncaring. He doesn't want us to travel the foggy road alone. He can and will help us in every way.

GOD'S INVOLVEMENT

Widowhood is not simply a problem to be solved or a circumstance that must somehow be overcome. Because God is sovereign over all things, he is in control of our situation for his glory and our good. I found a helpful article by Geoff Thomas while searching for materials with which to counsel myself. It is entitled "Singleness." If you are newly widowed, this article may be hard to read but nonetheless encouraging. Thomas gives us a godly perspective by explaining that singleness is a calling from God:

Both marriage and singleness are callings, or vocations. The idea of calling, or vocation, is not one we often use, but it is very significant. When we view our lives as a calling from God, we believe that God has arranged for us to enter a certain state, and God qualifies us to live in that state, and God will use us in that state to bring in the kingdom of God. That is also true for the Christian whose spouse has died, and it is true for the Christian whose spouse has walked out and deserted him or her. Now you have a vocation from God to be single. That is your calling and you can live positively and productively as a single person; you were once single and glorified God by that, and then you were married and you glorified God by that and now you are single again, and that was not bad luck or chance but the will of God, a good gift from the Lord. Jesus said that anyone who can accept this gift should accept it. Let me say quickly that to be sure, no one would expect such a person to think about the advantages of singleness immediately after some traumatic event that has made him or her single, but God reigns and God keeps us all.

You see, the primary reason we are here is to bring glory to God. We are workers in his kingdom. This life is not principally about comfort or enjoyment as we define them but as God defines them for us.

For over twenty years, I've been ministering to women and their families as a biblical counselor. I've also been teaching women's Bible studies. My seminary education and church ministry experience were lifesavers during my husband's illness and after his death. During this time I started journaling. I emphasized in my writing those things for which I could thank God each day. By doing this I was better able to keep my eyes on Christ and on the good things God was doing during these trials. I commend the practice of journaling to you.

I hope in this book you will find blessing in the things the Lord used to comfort and encourage me. God has no favorites. What he did for me he can do for you. May your heart be strengthened and your soul soothed by God's Word and Spirit. The Lord specializes in providing comfort to those who find themselves at breaking points. I am eager to tell you how he kept me from breaking and even brought me to the point of incandescent joy in him in the midst of bereavement.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side;
IDENTIFYING YOURSELF ANEW

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:10

In the past, the word widow conjured up all kinds of negative images in my mind — black clothing, sad looks, desperate sighs, and whispered comments.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

My first experience knowing a widow was as a small child. I remember thinking there was something different about my great-aunt. (All my other aunts were connected to an uncle.) My great-uncle had died, and I heard her called a "widow." Whatever that meant, I could sense it wasn't a good thing. It was kept quiet, whispered.

By dictionary definition, a widow is a woman who has lost her husband by death and has not married again. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2006 there were over eleven million widows in this country. I was astonished when I first saw that number. After joining the ranks of those millions, I searched for some books that would comfort and instruct me. But, with the exception of a small booklet by Elisabeth Elliot and a book written in 1841, I couldn't find anything that specifically and significantly spoke to my experience. As a result, I began counseling myself by writing down things that resonated with what I was going through and offered the comfort of God's Word. I wanted to know what God's Word said about widows. I needed to inform my mind and organize scriptural teaching about widowhood so I could understand and learn from it. All of us interpret what is happening to us, and I wanted my interpretations to flow from God's truth.

It's essential to look first into God's Word. If we begin elsewhere, we will not know how to think biblically about widowhood. By "thinking biblically," I mean that we must know what God says so we can think his thoughts after him. This is the path to blessing and real help. I was desperate to find out how God would meet me in my sorrow and loneliness. God says much in his Word about the condition and care of widows. We will consider some verses now and others in subsequent chapters.

YOUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST

According to the Scriptures, our identity as Christians flows primarily from the fact that we are children of God, adopted into his family and saved from an eternity in hell because his Son, Jesus, died in our place to pay the penalty for our sin. God is our heavenly Father, and we belong to him and to our Savior: "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). The Scriptures direct us to think of ourselves in this way. God's Word uses other metaphors to describe those who belong to God, but "child" or "son" is the principal description and the most endearing. You may have a more difficult time adjusting to life without your spouse if in the past you primarily thought of yourself as a wife. Please don't misunderstand — being a wife is a wonderful gift from God and a significant privilege. But if your understanding of yourself was largely attached to that role, then when you lose that role you lose a strong sense of who you are.

Several months after my husband died, I was sitting with a friend sipping tea and she asked me how I was doing. My friend had been divorced years earlier and knew the heartache and loneliness of formerly being a wife and then wrestling to adjust to altered circumstances. The hasty answer that came out of my mouth surprised me but did not surprise her. I, who had thought I had all my identity ducks in a row, replied that I was trying to figure out who I now was. She nodded knowingly, but I sat silent for a minute or two wondering if I still had my wits intact. What did I just say? My understanding of my identity was being pummeled by my emotions.

I battled for months in the strength of the Holy Spirit to keep a firm hold on my identity in Christ. How we see God — what we understand about him — is essential to every aspect of our lives. From those beliefs flows our understanding of ourselves. The more accurate our beliefs about God, the more our lives will be honoring to him (see John 10:28–29). I needed to remind myself of who God is and who I am in relation to him. This is the key relationship in life. I can lose everyone and everything, but I cannot lose God. He has hold of me and will not let me go. The last part of verse 5 in Hebrews 13 says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." In the original language the verse has more the sense of "I will never not ever no never forsake you." God is telling us in the clearest possible way that he will never abandon his children.

Elisabeth Elliot, who was widowed twice, would open her radio program with the words, "You are loved with an everlasting love and underneath are the everlasting arms." Those lovely and comforting words come directly from Scripture: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you" (Jer. 31:3) and "The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:27). Everlasting, eternal, never ceasing, unending — he will never forget you, abandon you, leave you alone, ignore you, or reject you. Let these promises of God soak into your spirit until they revive your wilting soul.

---

Excerpted from "The Undistracted Widow"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Carol W. Cornish.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---