How to Rebuild in Widowhood (Part 3/3): New Identity & Purpose

We are at the end of our three week series on navigating our grief journey in a healthy and redemptive way.

• Part 1: How to Navigate Grief as a Widow - Healthy Grieving

• Part 2: How to Heal Deeper as a Widow - Tending the Real Wounds

Now, in Part 3, we build on that foundation, and ask perhaps the hardest, holiest question yet:

“Can I discover my new identity and fulfilling purpose after being widowed? Can I rebuild a life—full of goodness—that I love again?"

It takes courage to ask that. It takes even more to believe the answer might be yes, for you.

But being open to the possibilities ahead, instead of rejecting them, is the first step.

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When my husband passed away, I felt that my life was over, too. Deep purpose, joy, and hope were out of reach (and out of my day-to-day experience). In the early years of widowhood, I didn’t dare to truly dream again.

I had accepted that my hollowed-out version of life after my husband’s suicide was all that remained for me. In an attempt to protect my heart, I actually rejected the things my soul wanted deep down: A life full of possibilities, goodness and abundance.

I felt it was a betrayal of my husband/my love for him, and I self-protected from further loss and disappointment by closing off to restoration. Additionally, so many circumstances continued to be hard that I threw my hands up, pitched a tent in the valley of the shadow of death, and allowed it to be my new "home."

In years of working with widows, I have found it also may look like anger or defensiveness of your pain, as though accepting grief that is less dark is always invalidation of your loss (it's not).

It often looks like maintaining life in a functional sense, but having lost your own identity apart from your spouse, and deep purpose for the rest of your life.

If any of that feels familiar, you’re not alone. Many widows get stuck there... which in turn shapes our continued reality, rather than the blessings and promises of God.

The empowering truth is we are participating in the creation of our life as we know it now (not entirely, but in large part). And, I offer you this hope: there is more available to us, if we are willing to receive and rebuild it.

The Quicksand: Limiting & Lie-Based Beliefs

Although it may be easy, it's dangerous to believe that our life after the loss of our husband will never measure up to life "before." We settle into lack, accepting loneliness and pain as permanent companions. We tell ourselves we’ll never be happy again, never thrive again, never feel fully alive.

Here's an incredible neurobiological reality- your own mind (through your thoughts and beliefs) is, largely, creating your experience? That by believing you’re stuck in a shadow of your former life, you’re unintentionally staying stuck in it?

What we think and believe, we act on and live out. If you’re constantly orbiting pain, loss, or disappointment, your brain will keep you in survival mode. It will resist and reject your rebuilding the abundant life Jesus still has for you.

Thankfully, as humans, we have the ability to not only evaluate our own thinking, but to change it, and therefore, change our lived experience.

Friend, this is not a minimization of your painful reality, nor is it a "name it and claim it," or "woo-woo" concept.

It's Biblical, for one thing: "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." -Romans 12:2 It’s also an invitation to manage your mind and reshape your life: to reclaim the promises the Lord has given you, and to rebuild what is still possible for you!

You are not just meant to survive this life—you were made to co-create something beautiful again with God. You still carry His Spirit within you. That means you have power, purpose, and a new identity.

We Widows Are NOT Victims

While we may have earthly disadvantages in widowhood, the ideas that we are unable to change anything, have no power, agency, or control are lies.

God didn’t promise us a life free of trouble. But He did promise His presence, His strength, and His HOPE through it all. I once heard that widowhood is not a curse, it's a calling.

As Christian widows, we are not helpless. In fact, we’ve been entrusted with the most sacred of opportunities: the resurrection of our own lives; beauty from ashes with the help of the Holy Spirit.

In Christ, we are offered:

• Hope that’s unshakable

• Joy that defies circumstances

• Purpose that doesn’t die when our husband did

• Authority to choose how we show up in our pain

• Power to live these as tangible realities (not only spiritual ideas)

• New identities as Brides of Christ (widowhood is an earthly season, NOT an identity)

One of my favorite quotes of all time, from a Christian sister widowed multiples times, describes it well:

"The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances." -Elisabeth Elliot

The determining factor in your future is not your circumstances, but your beliefs about what’s still true and possible. Focusing on the internal shifts and growth changes everything.

We don't have to accept every thought our brain offers us (especially a brain stuck in suffering). Have you ever considered: who would you be without those hopeless, stuck thoughts/beliefs?

When you can change them and learn the power of also shifting your emotional state, it impacts the actions you take. Your entire life can begin to shift.

These things are possible for anyone. But, how? Let me share a couple powerful steps.

3 Steps to Rebuild with HOPE

1) Reject Lies & Open to Possibilities

You may be terrified to hope again. That’s okay. Fear will show up—but it doesn’t have to be in charge. You can choose to believe that something good is still possible, and that God has abundant goodness for you (because He does, friend).

Hope is not naïve. Hope is holy.

When the enemy whispers, “Your dreams are lost,” reject that lie. Rebuke it! Lies give the enemy ground, and we have been given power to overcome them by the blood of Jesus.

God has more for you. Let yourself imagine abundant possibilities. Allow the Holy Spirit to stir creativity, beauty and meaning back into your heart and world.

This willingness and openness is the foundation to all rebuilding. Without it, you will continue on a trajectory in grief that will not bring you to God's deep joy, goodness and meaning.

2) Create a Vision for Your Future

Take time to get quiet with God and ask: What do I still long to experience and do ahead in my life? (Stay in a creative mode without limiting ideas and possibilities):

• Is it a new mission or purpose? A new career path?

• A trip you've always wanted to take?

• A new healing home for your family?

• Openness to love or remarriage?

• New traditions or connections with your family?

• A way the Lord is calling you to use your pain for purpose? To help others?

There are so many open doors ahead! The point to engage with your tangible future dreams.

Invite the Holy Spirit in. Write it down. Speak it aloud. And begin to pray circles around these things (be a persistent widow- ask, and keep asking).

3) Surround Yourself With a Winning Team

Don’t try to rebuild alone... it takes much longer and is much more painful.

Just as healing requires community, growth (especially that which comes with deep healing) requires the right support.

Think of it as choosing a "winning team." If you are going to embark on this endeavor, it's crucial that you invest in the things that are going to get you to success.

• Choose people—even a faithful few—who believe for your abundant future when you can’t for yourself

• Seek wise, empathetic counsel: friends who have been with you in your pain, so you can receive their challenges, too

• Join a group or community that "gets it," but doesn’t just orbit and defend painful grief... they move toward rebuilding. [The HOPE Stronghold is my community I pour into, and we welcome you!]

• Invest in therapy, especially in instances of acute distress

• Consider working with a Coach to get measurable results in moving forward [Learn about my Christian widow Coaching here]

The last one - Coaching - changed everything for me (it's why I left 14 years of Nursing to become one!). I felt that I was a victim, and life just kept happening to me. Coaching helped me go from functioning (and stuck there) to confident, abundant and full of purpose!

Coaching isn't just "inspiration." A good Coach can lay out a clear, achievable plan for your rebuilding, and support you along the way through the discouragements and failures, into new thoughts, new beliefs, new feelings, and recreating a life you love again!

I 100% believe in it because it transformed not just my life, but many women I now guide.

Whatever you do, don't give up and don't go widowing alone.

Loving Life Again

The life I live now isn’t the same one I had before loss (how could it be, without him?).

But it is full. It is beautiful. It is mine to shape and live.

And you know what? It didn’t happen by accident. I chose to dream. I created a vision. I surrounded myself with the right support. And I did the holy work of changing my mind, and changing my life.

You can too.

There is more ahead for you, sister. You can rebuild a life you love again.

With you,

Rachel

PS- If that is your desire, Coaching can help you achieve it.

You can set up a consultation here.

You are not forgotten. You are not finished. A new chapter has begun for you.

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