Widow for a Season: Finding Your Identity in Christ

Chapter Seven: Dance with Me

Summary: 

   This chapter will examine three of the top five most basic needs of a woman in the marriage relationship as identified by Dr. Willard F. Harley Jr. in his book entitled, His Needs, Her Needs.  God as creator of woman knows intimately the whole nature of this help meet He created for man.  He knows her nature does not change because her earthly husband has been taken, and He knows that those created desires must be nurtured and tended to if healing and health are to be accomplished.  The question is how do we learn to receive this nurturing and tenderness from our God?  The scriptural appropriateness of Christ as a spiritual Husband to the widow is examined in the areas of affection, conversation, and honesty and openness.

Excerpt:

Chapter Seven - Dance with Me

     Once, when my husband was bedfast, a neighbor brought in a meal. She had made some soup for her family and decided to share it with us. She also brought four small cups of tapioca pudding unaware that I had been wishing for some just days before. Tapioca pudding is one of my favorite desserts!  God knew what I had been thinking and made a tender provision for me through our neighbor.  Her gesture was the result of an unspoken oneness between God and me. It reminds me of a husband whose smiling eyes lock with his wife’s across a crowded room.  The intimacy of their relationship allows him to secretly know her thoughts without a word spoken between them.  We can experience this same intimacy with a Holy God.

. . . The first and hardest loss a widow may experience will not be the sexual relationship but the desire for affection, attention, and the sense of being loved by a man. Studies show that at an early age teenage daughters crave their father’s affection. If that father-daughter relationship is not developed teenage girls may become promiscuous as they seek to fill their need for male affection.  A widow experiences that same need for male companionship. This can become a great struggle, one that Satan will use against her. The tendency will be to seek to meet that need prematurely in an inappropriate relationship. We must be sure that our relationship with God is the one that fills and satisfies us first. Only then will we be able to enter into other healthy relationships.    

God’s love for you is greater than any love you can experience. If it is affection you crave, He is capable of giving it. You must learn to look for God’s affection. As in my illustration of the tapioca pudding, God knows how to extend tenderness to you. He knows what it will take to touch your heart. It will be a personal tenderness that may surprise you, but don’t mistake it for an unrelated coincidence. Begin to look for the tenderness and affection of God.  

 A widowed friend once shared with me that after her husband died, she never felt loneliness at night. When she lay down to sleep, she felt the arms of God holding her. I always thought the scene of the apostle John leaning his head on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper was such a tender scene. When I lay my head on my pillow at night, I try to imagine the same. I am with God in my room and He is watching over me through the night. I am in His presence. His tender love for me is a sweet and safe place. Psalm 139:17-18 says, “How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.” Notice that He is not with us, but we are with Him. “For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the whole earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chronicles. 16:9).

     God wants us to spend time with Him so that He can fulfill our need for companionship. You must try to imagine that you are with Christ wherever you go. Be aware of His presence. Speak out loud to Him. Cry to Him and give up your pain. Laugh with Him when no one else is around. When you feel like you are all alone, remind yourself that you are with Him. Include God in every event, decision, and emotion. Make Him the first one you consult.