Hold My Hand

Today, I found a sunny little part of the day and mulched my favorite rosebush. It has given me two dozen roses every year since my husband, John, planted it for me on a long-ago Mother’s Day. We both tenderly cared for it, enjoying sharing bouquets of its fragrant pink blossoms each season. Oh, what memories! Twenty years later, I’m still facing life without John. We had thirty-six wonderful years of marriage; but what a struggle without him. Our families have dealt with the grief in their own way.

Such feelings of hopelessness, especially when our three-year-old grandson kept watching for his grandpa to come home. “Is he just playing hide-and-seek, Nana?” he asked every day for the longest time, refusing to be comforted by mere mortals. “Is he gonna come down the driveway today?” I’m thankful the Lord of comfort and hope has been a faithful friend to His sorrowing children, “to comfort all who mourn” as promised in Isaiah 61:2 (NKJV). Our family tombstone, with far too many names listed, reminds us of “that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13, KJV). As I have walked into the unseen days, Jesus, my forever Friend, has been with me and continues to remind me that He is and always will be present.

From Him come promises of deliverance, “for the LORD [has] sustained me” (Psalm 3:5, KJV). Despite my great loss, or maybe because of it, I have been able to minister to other widows —my neighbor most recently.

I handed her a vase of pink roses from John’s rosebush with a note, “These bloomed just for you!” Listening to her, crying with her, taking her tasty dishes, sometimes just holding her hand, have all helped her heal, and I am grateful I could be a part of that. Ladies, my heart breaks for you if you have had to experience the loss of a husband, but I am a firm believer in Jesus as the Great Healer of sorrows.

I desire to help Him defend the cause of the defenseless, (grand) fatherless, and widows.

Jane Wiggins Moore