Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:8
Widowhood is all about the experience of overwhelming loss: the loss of a loved one you have spent years nurturing a relationship with, building a home with, raising children with, eating meals with, paying bills with, watching TV with, making love with… And then – sometimes without warning – they’re gone.
But eventually – inevitably – widowhood is also about another kind of loss: the loss of the support you receive after your spouse dies. It’s a universal experience. At first, you’re surrounded by family and friends who offer overwhelming support. But they have their own life, too, and sooner or later they have to get back to living it. So slowly that support withers away. What had once been so comforting is now also gone.
I call this process of people drifting away after the death of a loved one “faded love.” In their book, The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine Life, the authors relate the poignant story of how one widowed father experienced this loss of support:
In the weeks following Sarah’s death, Dan was inundated with help. Neighbors organized a schedule for home-cooked meals, friends volunteered to drive the children to after-school activities, and it seemed like everyone was checking in on him. Dan found the influx of visitors and the focus on his state of mind overwhelming. Still, the help was desperately needed. And then…it all stopped. The meals were no longer delivered and the offers to shuttle the children around town dried up. Soon, his freezer, which had once been full of ready-made meals from the ‘casserole brigade’ was nearly empty. He and the children were suddenly on their own.
“It felt like I woke up one morning and it was all gone,” Dan said as he finished introducing himself to the group. “It seems like everyone got back to their normal lives. And now, it’s all on me.”1
Notice that Dan’s circle of support came from his neighbors and friends. But Christians treat their widowed exactly the same way. In the beginning, we help with the funeral and put on a family meal afterwards. We send cards and flowers and form a “casserole brigade.” We visit the home or offer our condolences at church. But eventually it all fades away and we go back to our normal routine. And sadly, we call this “the love of Christ” when in fact it simply parallels what non-Christians do.
Faded love is not the love of Christ, because Christ’s love never ends. If we do not as Christians consciously apply this radical truth to the widowed in our midst, we will simply imitate the world and eventually abandon them. Satan doesn’t care whether we love our widows and widowers, so long as we don’t love them with the love of Christ. Satan wants us to do nice things for them…and then abandon them. He wants our widows and widowers to feel the pain of loss again. He wants them to think that the church has abandoned them, that God has abandoned them, that their life of faith and service was all futile after all.
Christian, when it comes to our widowed, we have a higher calling than the world. We are called to be radically different. We are to love our widowed the way Christ has loved us. Putting this calling into practice does not happen automatically. It takes a plan of action that ensures our widows and widowers are cared for effectively and consistently for as long as they need us.
Don’t have a plan? Consider this your wakeup call.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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One thought on “Faded Love: Without a Plan, It’s Inevitable”
Herb, excellent points here. This rings true for families with chronic illness or disability, too. When there is an Acute illness or accident, friends come out of the woodwork. But when a condition is chronic, people vanish. Gone is the help or simple companionship. Like the widow, those suffering chronic illness or disability are often abandoned by the church.