The celery is all cut up and ready for the dressing in the morning and the cranberry salad is made. The house will be warm in the morning when the turkey is in the oven and the potatoes are being peeled. Life has changed but living goes on. Thanksgiving was our favorite holiday and so I’m so pleased that I get to cook this year for my sister and family. We will have our first Thanksgiving together as widows. My sister doesn’t like the sound of that word, I’m not sure why. I don’t mind it because it is found so often in the Scripture and so I’m comforted knowing that God Himself regards me as a widow and He knows how I am afflicted.
The Hebrew word means “a desolate house---forsaken’ (solitary; lonely: a desolate place) and so I understand a bit better the word itself and why it fits so well with the loss of a husband. In this short week of being in a new place it explains exactly the ‘feelings’ that can overtake me in a moment of time. When the two are no longer one it does seem desolate, it is certainly solitary, there is a new vulnerability and I sense a feeling of being unprotected in a way that I never have before.
I imagine every new widow feels these things, thinks the same thoughts and so I run to His Word to find the solutions. I find great comfort knowing that there was a time when I was without Christ and a stranger to the covenants of promise, having no hope, now I have the patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and the promises of God. He has promised that He will never leave me nor forsake me so I’m not truly ‘a desolate house nor have I been forsaken by Him’. It may be that life will be lonelier but Jesus says He is with me alway, even unto the end of the world. So in the midst of discovering widowhood I discover again the Faithfulness of Christ Jesus!
Thank you dearest Jesus that you have caused me to find comfort in you and your promises this day!
Isaiah 41:13 “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you”
Happy Thanksgiving!