“It’s a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things you lack” (Germany Kent).
It’s easy to be thankful when things are going good or when a prayer is answered in the way you desired. Gratitude comes naturally when the sun is shining, the kids are obedient, and things seem to be going well.
But what about when you’ve begged God for healing, or a job, or wisdom in a situation, and the prayer goes unanswered. Or God chooses to answer differently than you expect - your spouse dies, you continue to be unemployed, or you’re at a loss to handle a difficult situation. What then? How can we be thankful for something that causes us pain or disappointment?
Read more...I also learned that trials do not define us.
The trial of losing my husband and losing my hope did not define me - I am His child; that is what defines me.
- Yes, I was a widow and single mom
- Yes, I was deep in grief
- But that is not my identity
- My identity is in Christ
Gal. 5:5 says, and I’m paraphrasing, “we eagerly await the hope of righteousness” when we are made into the image of Christ.
When there is conflict and struggle going on - cling to that hope. God promises that the struggle will not last forever. It will end. We can have hope that it is temporary.
I Cor. 15:19 - if we only have a human hope, we are to be pitied. If our hope is only in this life, then we’ve lost sight of our real reason for hope.
We are never without hope as believers!
Read more...In v. 3 Paul points out “we give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Giving thanks is a foundational discipline in the believer’s life, and I had forgotten that. I had stopped giving thanks. I wasn’t choosing gratitude for what I had, instead I was in despair because I was focused on what I had lost, how hard things were, and all the difficulties I was experiencing.
That didn’t mean that my grief would suddenly disappear because I started being thankful. Gratitude and grief can exist together - God’s grace can handle both at the same time.
In v. 5 is where the word hope shows up, and the first glimmer of healing began.
As believers, we are thankful because of the hope we have in Christ. When we lose hope we become depressed and anxious, which is exactly what happened to me. But we have a secure hope in something that we can depend on, which is the hope of Heaven.
He went on to talk about Rom. 5:3-5 - where it say: “...we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Read more...Did you know...
- Only 5% of widows in the US are under 40? I was 33 when I was widowed.
- Young widows often have small kids, and life is overwhelming. Grief often gets put on the back burner until it gets too big to ignore.
- Single parenting is different as a widow. You don’t get a break like you do in a two parent household or a divorce situation. You have to intentionally carve out time without your kids.
- Young widows need support, community, encouragement, and love. We feel like we don’t fit in anywhere.
We are going to take a brief pause in our current series on The Five Stages of Grief, and I want to share a little about our homeschooling journey. Homeschooling is definitely not for the faint of heart, especially as a widow, but I am so glad God allowed me to home school my kids. It wasn’t always easy, and there were sometimes tears over math or reading, but the rewards far outweigh the hard times.
Here are ten things I love about our homeschooling experience:
- Being able to teach my kids the truth of the Gospel through school subjects. Keeping our schooling centered around Biblical truth was important to me, and I specifically looked for Bible-centered materials. Along with Bible-focused curriculum, we also memorized scripture together, and my kids still remember many of the verses. We also sang some of the Gospel-centered hymns that I learned at a young age.
