I don’t know about you, but my whole life I thought I understood suffering, that was until it really came knocking on my door with the death of my husband. Then it became personal, and just like that the questions, doubts, and fears came rushing in all at once. Where was God in all of this? Would he be faithful to me? Could I make it without my husband? Did I have reason to hope like I had grown up believing?

These questions can be overwhelming and downright terrifying, but in my lowest moments, I found answers and hope in scripture, in Christ. When the tears were many and there was no place else to run, these words held me safe and gave the courage to take another step.

In the midst of your suffering, I urge you to turn to the only place you will find lasting hope and purpose in the pain. It won’t make all your problems disappear, but you will never be alone. God wants to meet you in your suffering—he promises to. Take the timeless words of scripture and write them on your heart, day by day repeat them to yourself, and watch how they renew your mind and bring you to a place of contentment and trust in God.

1.     God will be with you every step of the way!

Psalm 23:4: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

2.      You will feel like you can’t go on, but God WILL be your strength.

Psalm 73:26: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

3.      God brings us a comfort like no one else can.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

4.      God will bring the healing we desire!

1 Peter 5:10: “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

5.      Our suffering isn’t meaningless.

2 Corinthians 4:17: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

6.      In the pain, Christ is gain! (Cheesy but true!)

Philippians 3:8: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

7.      His heart is for the widow and the fatherless.

Psalm 68:5: “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.”

8.      In the hardest moments of our lives, God is fighting for us.

Isaiah 43:2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”

9.      There is purpose in our pain.

Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

10.  In the end, “all sad things come untrue.” (J.R.R Tolkien)

Revelation 21:4: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

God was a not silent about those who suffer, in fact scripture is full of his promises to meet you in the mourning. His Word makes it clear that he has not left us to make it alone. There is hope, respite, and even new joys to be found in Christ. Anchor yourself in His words and though your boat may rock, it will never be thrown off course. He is faithful.

After I was informed of my husband’s death, I realized my life was not ever going to be the same. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it, but there really wasn’t much time for that anyways. There were legal issues to deal with, memorials to help organize, preparations to be made in order to move back to the states, and a funeral to arrange. This felt like more than enough for me to deal with while processing my new reality, so I will be forever grateful for our church, community, friends, and family for stepping in and taking care of the small things, like making me eat—which are truly the big things.

The first year after my husband died is still pretty blurry. I think it always will be because the “widow’s fog” was so thick and heavy during this time. I was basically living on auto-pilot simply trying to focus on breathing, eating, showering, and sleeping. Every emotion you could think of was a tornado inside of me. I wanted to be around people, but then when I was, I just wanted to be alone. Ultimately, I just wanted to go back to my old life and be with Michael. And when I was asleep at night, I was with him, but every time I woke up I had to retell myself what had happened. Laying in my bed in the morning and reprocessing everything was something I would dread before I fell asleep the night before. As crazy as it sounds, there were moments I would wake up and try to believe that my real life was actually a horrible nightmare—but trying to believe a lie, never makes it truth. There are so many delicate struggles I wouldn’t have ever imagined that come along with a great loss.

My new life was weird. It was absolutely nothing like what I had planned. I felt like I had to start my life over again, but I didn’t know where to begin. My first year of widowhood I lived with my parents, so my next step would have to be moving out on my own. As much as I wanted to be living on my own, I was scared. Nevertheless, I began tr

ying to find someplace to rent until the widow’s fog had lifted and I would be mentally able to buy a home. After much trial and error (and a lot of prayer), I ended up renting a little house with the most amazing landlords I could have ever asked for. Living on my own as a single mom was a major adjustment, but I’m so glad God had me take that step of faith, because He has grown my trust in Him so much through the process and continues to as new steps arise.

For me, one of the hardest parts of adjusting to living without my husband was when the sun went down. I would rock my little baby to sleep, lay him in his crib, slowly tiptoe out of the room, and gently shut the door. My feeling of accomplishment that I had gotten him to sleep soon turned into a desire to wake him up. With my son in bed, and my dog curled up on the couch, the house was quiet. I felt the overwhelming need for my husband to be there with me and I wanted a distraction. There was no amount of earnest desire that could make him appear though, so I had to find a way to cope. At first, coping was going to sleep immediately after putting my son down for bed in order to avoid the feeling of loneliness. Eventually, I realized this wasn’t going to make it go away, so I had a choice to make. Was I going to believe that God himself would show up like He says He will and be my Comforter or not? Instead of believing the lie I heard every night, “You’re alone,” I had to choose the truth and believe God was with me.

By God’s faithfulness, the evenings are no longer a time I dread. However, when one struggle fades away, another seems to take its place. Grief has been a shape-shifter for me. Today, I have a 2-year-old son that is trying to figure out what a ‘daddy’ is. If you show my son a picture of his dad he will no doubt say, “That’s Daddy!” But because he has no context of what a ‘daddy’ is yet, he’ll also ask me after I speak with a male cashier at the store, “You talkin’ ta daddy, Mama?” To which, I remind him on his own level that daddy died and he doesn’t live on earth anymore. As much as I wish it didn’t sting, it does. Right now, in his 2-year-old mind, a daddy is just a male in their 20-30’s. Even though it will be awhile before my son feels the

sting of his father’s death, the brokenness of a 2-year-old not knowing the embrace of a father hurts me. I don’t know what that’s like to grow up having never met your father, but I pray God gives me wisdom in guiding my son through it and for him to look to Abba as Father.

God has been faithful to bring me this far through grief and I trust Him to carry us to the finish line. There isn’t a clear way to describe what life after the death of a husband is like, except that the waves of grief come and go and you never know how hard the next wave will hit. Feeling every emotion known to man in one day (or even one hour) is totally normal for a widow. We can’t have control over our grief, but we can have control over how we prepare for the waves, like reading God’s word and talking it through with Him. I don’t know how grief is going to look next year, but for today I will take whatever it is that hurts me to God and trust Him to use it to grow me deeper into Him.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” Psalm 42:11 ESV

At the time of my husband’s unexpected death, I had eight children under the age of ten. The first four months were filled with business meetings, phone calls, and visits from well-meaning friends, family, and even strangers…oh and chaos – complete grace-filled chaos! The normal rhythm of our daily life had been turned upside down.

There were days that I would focus on something I had planned to do, like teaching school, when suddenly, I found myself doing something completely unplanned! It was that “grief thing” of keeping busy so I wouldn’t feel the pain. Or, it could have been the “grief brain” that removed the ability to focus on anything at all. Can you can relate? In my flurry, I would often enter a room to put something away and before I walked out again, I was involved in something I hadn’t ever planned to do.

For example, one afternoon I had the idea to separate a set of bunk beds into twin beds. I zipped into the room to perform this simple task without any thought at all that it would be something beyond my physical capability. My husband built the kid’s furniture to withstand any storm, apparently except for my grief attack. As I pulled the top bed off, I quickly realized that this was not a task to accomplish by myself. I was stuck! I couldn’t get it down to the floor, and I couldn’t get the bed back on top, and I couldn’t leave it hanging in mid-air. Frantically, I looked around only to see my precious little ones staring up at me willing to assist in any way they could. With the help of my two sons (ages 4 and 5) and my determined six-year-old daughter we managed to get the bed to the floor without hurting the babies in the process. The only damage was a minor hole in the wall and a broken bed. That little fit of independence brought out so many emotions. My inability to complete a simple task brought about anger I has buried deep inside. What do I even do with all this unresolved anger? Who do I resolve it with? Is unresolved anger what leads to depression? Oh my, what an emotional price to pay for the new bedroom arrangement!

Taking care of 8 children was always a bit overwhelming, but now, without my husband, I felt shaken, pressed down to my wits end, and running over. Actually, I felt that I had been run over. Even though I knew God was working through it all, life was hard, oh so hard. Change was taking place – physical, emotional, and spiritual change. Many days by 5:00 p.m. I felt that I just couldn’t make it through the rest of the day. However, with a houseful of small children, stopping wasn’t an option, so I pushed through. Soon dinner would be over, children bathed, and we would be onto my favorite part of the day – devotions and listening to the hearts of my children. Often, I had to confess my own wrong attitudes, a poor choice of words, or an action I didn’t think fully though. I loved to hear my children share their hurts and struggles, as well. (Side note: this simple but planned time of communication brought more fruit to our family more than anything else we do.)

Even though I had help here and there with the whole single-parenting thing, I still felt that my yoke wasn’t easy, and my burden was not light! Didn’t the Bible offer that promise somewhere? I asked God to give order to each day and to the large task ahead. I worked hard to be brave and courageous, but honestly, I was overwhelmed and exhausted. As I evaluated where I was in the timeline of my life, there were some very difficult years still ahead of me. I didn’t have in-house babysitting, I had a bunch of toddlers that need lots of consistent training and encouragement, and the adjustment to doing all of this alone was still very new. If God’s yoke was easy and His burden light, then I must be wearing the wrong yoke, right? I felt confident that the old yoke would feel so much better than my new one! But, I couldn’t take this new yoke off! (Weren’t yokes made for two oxen? I’m sure if it was for one ox, the load behind was smaller than 8?!)

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light”  (Matthew 11:28-30 NASB).

Easy? This was anything but easy. Light? In my own strength my new load was heavy. Rest? I didn’t think that would be possible for decades. I found myself pulling into a shell. I wanted to hide, disappear, and pretend that this had not happened. God kept telling me this was not a shell but a cocoon. To get the easy-light-rest that the Bible talks about, I had to trust God and learn from Him in this season, so that I would come out a beautiful butterfly rather than a dead caterpillar. When I looked up the meaning of the word easy in this text, I learned that the Greek meaning was much different than one would think. Easy is not the opposite of hard, but rather means to be fit for use, virtuous, and good. The process in this spiritual cocoon would be worth it all, and it was. His faithfulness proved that His burden is light when received with humility from His hand. God was performing a work of grace with this yoke upon me.

His easy, purposed, fit-for-use yoke is always tailor made to fit just as He planned–for our good and His glory.