Chapter One – Our Strongest Emotions: Grief and Its Silent Partner, Depression

Have you discovered, as I have, that our emotions upon becoming a widow have an intensity we never experienced before? Grief, loneliness, anger, disappointment – these are not new emotions to us. What took me by surprise was the power, the all-consuming grip, the sudden shock of an emotion rolling over me, literally rendering me unable to function for a moment or sometimes longer.

Chapter Two – Fear: Normal Change, but Temporary

May I suggest six people you need at your table? You may have many more. These are actually positions with a function that need to be fulfilled in your new life.

I suggest these people: a godly widow, a person with financial wisdom, a practical friend, an encourager, a person with spiritual discernment and courage, and a relative whose priority is your well-being.

Chapter Three – Yes, We Can! Money

Our surveys show that finances are consistently first or second in importance in the issues we face when our husband dies. Widows with little money wonder, “How will I live?” Widows with much wonder, “How can I manage and protect this?”

Chapter Four – Change: Free Time and Flexibility

While the powerful currents that make us vulnerable seem to be the only force in our lives, in reality, something else is happening. It begins in those early solitary months almost imperceptibly. It is the sweet, gentle current of freedom.

Chapter Five – We Comfort Others, and Comfort Comes Back

Lasting comfort eludes us as long as we stay in the attic. After our husband leaves this earth, we must decide how long we will stay in that room. Will this be our permanent residence? If we stay, the essence of the woman God created can never emerge. The value of that woman can never be fully invested into others in her new life as a widow.

Chapter Six – Friends: Letting Go and Loving the Real Thing

I had read that widows report losing 75 percent of the people they believed were their friends. That won’t be me, I thought, as friends flooded our lives during my husband’s terminal illness. But I found that this statistic has been true for me as well.

Chapter Seven – Family: Healing After the Tree Shakes

Family relationships change when we lose our husbands. This is reality. We would be naive not to expect that children, cousins, grandparents, brothers, and sisters will not be affected by our mutual loss. This change becomes messy because we all make assumptions about each other’s feelings. And often we are wrong.

Chapter Eight – Finding Yourself: “I Didn’t Know You”

Many of us, myself included, discover upon becoming a widow that we don’t know who we are! What is still true of this new woman? What has changed?

Chapter Nine – Finding Your Mission: A Purpose Worth Living For “I didn’t know I could.”

Let’s address the question of purpose and meaning in our life today. We have two options: To stay in the tattered space of our life clutching at the torn remnants of our past, OR To create a new pattern of living, a new reason to face a new day.

Chapter Ten – A New Faith: God Moves from Good to Grand

I do not believe that we face death as we have without a profound change in our faith. Regardless of the size and strength of our faith before, regardless of the foundation of our faith, I believe that faith is never the same.

Who can face death and not undergo a profound examination of what we believe about this life? What’s worth living for, and what is, or is not, worth dying for?

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