A Widow's Grief & Recommitment to Christ

This is today's entry in L.B. Cowman's timeless but out of print devotional Consolation:

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Isaiah 41:18 KJV

There is something in bereavement which makes it mean a great deal in a woman's life. It is a sore disappointment. Dreams of love's happiness are shattered. The beauty which had only begun to be realized in her home, in her wedded joy, in the development of her plans and hopes is suddenly left to wither. Very great is the sorrow when one of two lovers is taken and the other left. Widowhood is very desolate and lonely.

Just how shall she meet her perplexities. She is a Christian. She is comforted in her grief by the truth of Divine love, that her sorrow was no accident, that her bereavement was not the plan of God to break up the goodness and beauty of her life, that nothing has really gone wrong in the plan of Christ for her. But the question presses itself upon her mind. I am sure it has done so a thousand times. How am I to go on in this broken life of mine? What am I to do in my shattering bereavement? Her life is not yet finished. She is only a girl in years. She may live, she probably will live, forty years or more. What does Christ want her to do with her broken life?

God's plan for her was not spoiled when her sorrow came interrupting everything leaving her in darkness. The sorrow was not a surprise to God, and His plan for her life runs on to the end of her years. What the remainder of the plan is she does not know for the present. She must not know. Her faith must not fail; she must not despair. She must go on in faith and confidence. Believe that all these broken things are in His hands. "Gather up the broken pieces that remain that nothing be lost," is what Christ is saying to her today. Let her gather up the broken pieces from this miracle of love and happiness. Let her keep all the fragments.

The next thing is for her to recommit her life, with its grief, its desolation, its broken things, all to Christ. She must not undertake to rebuild it. She must not make plans of her own for the years to come. She must let Christ lead her, let Him plan for her, mark out the way. He must build the life for her. He must have much of the love she has to give. Be brave dear soul! God's help is near! Dr. Miller

Oh, does this speak to my heart!