Pathway
to Peace
on
Dealing with Death
written
by
Barbara McWhorter
Soon after I lost my second husband Mitchell, I was
sitting in a support group meeting searching desperately for answers. I knew that God was with me, and I had
already felt the strength of many prayers offered up in my name, but I needed
something…something tangible to hold in my hand and tell me what to do next. I
needed a manual to help me through the process of grieving. I needed wisdom from the father to tell me how
to navigate the difficult pathway loss takes us through… the mirad of
paperwork…how to help my four new step children through the loss of their
father…after they had lost their mother just seven months before.
I
poured out my heart to these women…these women that only 7 months before I had
poured out my despair from a horrible divorce. I spoke once again…cried new
tears of confusion… why would God bless me with a wonderful gift, then take it
away before we had even been married for a month. Oh how I poured out my need to these
wonderful women, and through my tears… I jokingly remarked that God should just
give me a calendar. A calendar filled in with his instructions for the new life
I was being forced to begin…again! I
needed God to explain to me how to let go of the most wonderful gift he had ever
given me. I needed God to give me instructions for what to do in these first
moments of pain.
As
I opened my bible later that night, the only book I knew I might find my
answers, out dropped a small book. A calendar stared me in the face. I was
dumbstruck at the irony of my joke earlier. How could I not believe that God
would give me exactly what I had asked him for? As I searched its pages for some
tidbit of wisdom…some deep insight to my pain…there was only blank page after
blank page. The stark whiteness of the color, the pureness of its unwritten
pages spoke to me so deeply. I was
staring at my calendar, the one God required me to write using his divine word,
my daily prayers, and the wisdom of the many people he would send to speak his
word to me.
You too must
write your own calendar, for each life is different, bearing different pain from
the tragedies and hardships God has allowed us to face. We must first understand
that God created us as individuals; unique in his love. Our amazing God gives each of us a mind to
weld our own choices. He requires us to take this ability to think for ourselves
and use the tools he left us to seek out his will for our life. Our God of free
will requires that we seek out our answers from his holy word and the intimacy
of our direct prayers to the one who loves us the most.
This
path will cause you extra pain, for not only will you grieve for your loss, but
as he reveals his word to you, he will uncover sins you did not know you
harbored in your life. As I searched his
word for the best way to heal my pain…and begin to seek his new purpose in my
life I discovered that my pain from loss was not the only obstacle in my pathway
to peace in this tragedy. Many days I had to ask for his forgiveness as I
realized my lack of wisdom was because of my sin. My sin….no my many sins…justified to myself…
had blocked the answer. Genesis 35:3 says, “And let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I
will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress,
and was with me in the way which I went.”
I
invite you make yourself an altar, and invite God to answer you as he has me.
Disappear daily as much as time will
allow you to search in his word and pray. As you search his word….and pray for his
divine guidance…your distress and pain will begin to melt into sweet loving
memories of the one you love, and are asked to live without. God’s word and Holy Spirit will help the
memories of the one you love to become a new source of strength as the days from
their death grow more distant. Just like
Elisha, who was double blessed in the passing of his great mentor Elijah…in 2 Kings….chapter 2 …we read these
promising words in verse 9….”And
it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask
what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I
pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.”
In my search
for God’s will for me now, one of my tasks is to write. He has called me to write the words of healing
and wisdom… the words of reflection and searching that have helped me day by day
to work through this pain. I am
convinced that God will use the pain from these storms to bring me closer to him….to learn to rest
in his loving arms and heal from the divorce he allowed to end a 30 year
marriage... and the death of my second, most precious husband of only a
month.
God blessed me
quite quickly with an amazing man exactly four months from the day I signed my
divorce papers. Ironically, he had lost
his first wife to cancer only four months before we met. He not only restored my faith in men, but
showed me a most wonderful meaning of love. He was a pure romantic, bringing me
coffee to our bed and walking me to the car every morning, kissing me goodbye at
the car and conversing 2-3 times a day with cheesy e-mails as we worked in
separate towns. We were married only a
short month before God called him home to heaven. I may never have the answer to
the ‘why’ of our short time together…but
this calendar is helping me work through the steps of grief…to come
somehow to accept the death of my new husband and move forward into God’s will
for the future.
I don’t have
all the answers to why God is using such hardships to build my faith, but I
believe I must share the knowledge he gives me from my studies and prayers with
others. It is my prayer that the thirty-one topics of this calendar will help to
guide you in your own search for answers to the pain you are dealing with. As I studied and listened for the words,
scriptures and examples I should use in writing this book, I felt an uplifting
of my spirit that carried me into a peaceful understanding of my pain. It has
allowed me to move forward, and build a stronger relationship with the father.
I still have dark days that I find
myself unable to bear Mitchell’s absence, but I need only to pray and open my
bible for words that bring me quickly back into a sense of joy, faith and praise
that can only be a new gift of God. How wonderful to know that God never allows
us to feel the pain of loss without holding our hand. Another wonderful author,
the amazing king who penned the Psalms in his own distress, wrote, “Thou
hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden
me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great,” in Psalm
18:35.
Slowly, with the help
of his word, and a daily prayer life, I am learning to accept this pain as a way
to a closer walk with the father. He is building me into a new creation,
dependent solely on his wisdom, his mercy and his grace. I cling daily to the words of one other
author, who himself knew much pain. He
wrote, “Therefore
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away;
behold, all things are become new,” in 2 Corinthians
5:17.
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