Hope Speaker

I wish someone had warned me of all the vulnerabilities when I became a widow...

Not because I needed another reason to be afraid, but because I needed to be prepared.

After being widowed, I was taken advantage of in multiple ways by others, and also struggled with the weakness of my own flesh more than any other time in my life.

I knew I was in survival mode in grief, but I didn't know how much that could affect my awareness, my judgment, my boundaries, and my desire for relief from pain.

And as I've walked alongside so many other widows, I've seen some of these same vulnerabilities show up again and again.

It's why I wrote this week: I want to talk honestly about the things we need to guard against—both the threats that can come from outside of us and the vulnerabilities we carry inside our own hearts.

You can read the Hope Speaker Blog:
Vulnerabilities of Widowhood: Protect Yourself

[Linked in comments] ❤️

You are not alone here sister.

With you,
Rachel

"How desolate," thought Much-Afraid, "...It seems as though nothing can grow anywhere in all this barren waste."

Just then she looked up at the cliffs above her head and started with surprise and delight. In a tiny crevice of the rock, where a few drops from the trickling waterfall could occasionally sprinkle it, was a single plant. It had just two or three leaves, and one fragile stem, almost hairlike in its slenderness, grew out at right angles to the wall. On the stem was one flower, blood red in color, which glowed like a lamp or flame of fire in the early rays of the sun.

Much-Afraid stared at it for some moments, noticing the wall which completely imprisoned it, and minute aperture through which it had forced its way to the light, and the barren loneliness of its surroundings. Its roots were clamped around by sheer rock, its leaves scarcely able to press outside the prison house, yet it had insisted on bursting into bloom, and was holding its little face open to the sun and burning like a flame of joy. As she looked up at it Much-Afraid asked, as she had in the desert, "What is your name, little flower, for indeed I never saw another like you."

At that moment the sun touched the blood-red petals, so that they shone more vividly than ever, and a little whisper rustled from the leaves.

"My name is 'Bearing-the-Cost,' but some call me 'Forgiveness... I was separated from all my companions, exiled from home, carried here and imprisoned in this rock. It was not my choice, but the work of others who, when they had dropped me here, went away and left me to bear the results of what they had done.

"I have borne and have not fainted; I have not ceased to love, and Love helped me push through the crack in the rock until I could look right out on my Love the sun himself. See now! There is nothing whatever between my Love and my heart, nothing around me to distract me from him. He shines upon me and makes me to rejoice, and has atoned to me for all that was taken from me and all that was done against me. There is no flower in all the world more blessed or more satisfied than I, for I look up to him as a weaned child and say, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire but thee.'"

-Hinds' Feet on High Places

There are gifts even in widowhood.
There are blessings even in the suffering.

With you, sister
Rachel

🌹 If you found this encouraging, it's an excerpt from last week's Get Your Hopes Up newsletter.

My widow sisters can spoil your inbox weekly and get it here:

www.HopeSpeaker.com/Subscribe-To-Hope

Grief ISN'T a spiritual performance. Today I'm unburdening my widow sisters who love Jesus and want to honor Him in their grief.

Whether internally, or from others outside of our widowhood, we already face judgement and shame as we try to navigate this.

Our faith in Christ should be the safe place of refuge we go to, not a place to have to ask if we are doing this "right," or if our grief is "legitimate.”

Christian sister, grief isn't the enemy of faith. Yes, we can sin while grieving—just like we can at any other time. BUT:

“The point of the Gospel is not that you become good enough at your grief. The point is Christ.”

I wrote more about this in this week's Blog: Jesus Isn't Judging Your Grief | Why Widowhood Isn't a Spiritual Performance

This will encourage you, refresh you, and give you HOPE today:

www. HopeSpeaker .com/Blog

Look to Jesus. ❤️

With you,
Rachel