Surviving Year One: After the Death of Your SpouseSample

He Will Help You Through

There was so much to do—taxes, bills, dinner, shopping, playing, homework—the list went on and on. And that didn’t include the post-death tasks of contacting our lawyer, retitling my husband’s car into my name, and the seemingly endless phone calls to work out insurance and Social Security. Without my husband, the full weight of our household was on my shoulders for the first time. My responsibilities had doubled right when it felt like my capacity had shrunk to zero. It was hard to breathe and nearly impossible to sleep. I wondered how I would ever manage on my own.

When the big things—and little things—overwhelmed me and I wasn’t sure I could make it through another day, I relied on these words from an old Saxton poem that was treasured by widowed missionary Elisabeth Elliott:

“Do it immediately, do it with prayer,

do it reliantly, casting all care.

Do it with reverence, tracing His hand,

who placed it before thee with earnest command.

Stayed on omnipotence, safe 'neath His wing,

leave all resultings, do the next thing.”

I printed the poem, traced the beautiful words with my favorite colorful markers, and stuck it to my fridge, where I would see it every day. This bite-sized approach to life gave me a way forward. I couldn’t handle everything on my to-do list, but I could do the next thing: get out of bed, eat breakfast, wake up my son. By doing the next thing, I survived hours that turned into days, which became weeks and eventually years. One step at a time, I began to live into the role of “widowed, young mother” that God had entrusted to me.

Jesus Himself encouraged us to approach life in this bite-sized way when He instructed the crowd, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). His realistic appraisal of life comforts me. Life is full of trouble, but we don’t have to figure out today how we will get through them all. Instead, we can just do the next thing. As we do, we will find that His promise, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), is true.