After my husband passed away, I was in a dark place for a year. I was angry with God and carrying around guilt. I am ashamed to say that now. It took me nearly falling asleep while driving, stopping mere inches in front of a tree, and hearing God say, “Your mother prayed for a child. I gave her you. I gave you, and I can take you.” It was the wake-up call I needed to ask God for help and to get help from a professional because what I was doing was not working. Grief has no timeline; like lice, it is no respecter of persons. In repentance, I asked God for forgiveness and to return to my life.
You may ask, “Guilt? Why would you have guilt? It’s called Survivor’s guilt. This happens when a person believes that something they did or did not do led to the death of a person or a loved one. I didn’t feel like I prayed enough or had sufficient faith to believe in his healing. In the final week of his life, I prayed that the Lord end his suffering and take him to heaven. This was the traumatic event that started my survivor’s guilt.
My anger toward God began when we discovered in March 2020 that he had cancer in his brain and Stage 5 cancer in his lungs. He passed away in July 2020 exactly 4 months after his diagnosis. I didn’t feel like I had time to get things in order, didn’t have time to process that he was dying, and didn’t have time to say goodbye to my best friend and husband. There was no time to do all the things we had planned to do when he retired.
I didn’t want to be a widow. To try and prepare myself, I read varied materials about grief and watched a hilarious video with a giraffe about the five stages of grief.
Then, in grief counseling, I learned about the 3 Cs of grief – Choose, Connect, and Communicate.
Choose – Each day, intentionally make one decision for yourself. It can be something as simple as choosing what you have for breakfast. Make a plan, then stick with it. It’s the beginning of taking control back of your life.
Connect – When caring for someone you love, frequently, you lose that social connection with friends, family, and co-workers. Your world shrinks to a few people. I became isolated and only saw only a few people in the final two weeks before my husband died. My husband was an extrovert. There was not a person he couldn’t talk to. I am the opposite. My husband was the one to guide me through social gatherings, often holding my hand. After his passing, I had social anxiety. This was also compounded by COVID-19. It was a slow journey back out into groups of people. My counselor gave these suggestions. Go for a walk and say hello to 3 random people, call one person a day I had not talked to in 3/6/9/12 months, and invite family member(s) to dinner or a movie once a week.
Communicate – This is the hardest part of the process. Communication starts by being honest. If it’s a bad day, say, “It’s a bad day.” We don’t have to be strong 24/7. We do not have to mask our emotions to make everyone around us feel better. Talking to people and telling people how I felt was so hard.
How do you tell the ones you love that you don’t want to hear Ecclesiastes 31:1-14 or Revelations 21:4 and that if one more person said those words to you, you would throw the kitchen sink at them?
How do you tell them that you packed the Bibles and anything religious away in the closet with his clothes and mementos?
How do you not cry when talking about the simplest memories?
How do you talk to people when the smell of Folgers coffee brings tears to your eyes in a restaurant?
After my encounter with God and the tree, my eyes began to open. Instead of running from God, I began to run to Him.
“The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble;
and he knoweth them that trust in him.”
Nahum 1:7
“And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister
judgment to the people in uprightness. The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.”
Psalm 9:8-9
“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who health all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”
Psalm 103:2-4
I was only hurting and punishing myself when all I had to do was let go and submit to the Lord, who wanted to comfort me. It did not matter that I had not been in a church since 2005 and had not actively served him. He still wanted to give me peace and to mend my broken heart. All I had to do was answer his call and repent. He was waiting for me with his arms open.
I was the lost lamb. He was always there waiting for me to come to him. The Lord will only wait so long before he will walk away from us and allow our minds to be that of a reprobate. Once the Lord has turned his back, you will surely die.
“Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
Romans 1:32
He was at the point of letting me go my own way. I was raised in the church since birth. I knew the moment I heard the words “I gave you, and I can take you” that it was my last chance to have God in my life, and yet He was giving me one more chance to turn my life around and fulfill the calling he’d placed on my life as a young child.
We do not have to walk through our trials and sorrows alone. He will be with us if we let Him.
“For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:7-8
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