Gratitude and Grief

Debby sits in a room beautifully decorated for dinner. Her plate, now empty, held fresh, handmade food that had been prepared with love. She looks around the room of about 40 women, some are like sisters and some are relatively new friends. Her heart is full at this holiday scene like so many others. And yet, it’s a room she never wanted to be in and a party she never saw herself co-hosting.

“I suddenly and unexpectedly became a widow on July 25, 2023. It was a tsunami of emotions and it lasted for a long time. For the first year, I was the steel ball in the pinball machine.”

Debby saw a grief counselor, prayed, read devotionals, and poured out her pain to God. “I finally realized,” she said, “I don’t want to feel this way for the rest of my life. I want to reclaim joy. Our joy is found in the Lord, knowing him, and walking daily with him.”

Before her husband’s death, Debby served as a Stephen Minister in her church, South Tulsa Baptist Church. “Our church has well over 120 widows and the deacon body looked after them with an annual lunch, visits, and Mother’s Day cards. But I realized that didn’t feel adequate. So we started discussing the need as Stephen Ministers and found Stand in the Gap for Widows. I started gathering other women in the church who had recently gone through losing their spouse and I asked if we could start meeting and talk about doing meaningful ministry for widows.”

Debby and her team at South Tulsa Baptist became official partners of Stand in the Gap for Widows and used the first item in the Stand in the Gap for Widows Toolkit, a survey, to ask the widows in their church what they needed from their church.

“We all felt a lack of community and comfort,” Debby says. “It’s really hard to walk into church without your spouse. The survey helped us determine how to connect and look out for each other.”

Since starting their ministry to widows (which they call “CEO: Caring for Each Other”) Debby and her leadership team have hosted large dinners with a variety of delicious foods and activities like floral arranging in the spring. Those events connect women with each other and “help us feel less lonely at church.” They always feature a woman’s hospitality touch and are open to any widow, not just members of the church.

In addition, they send Valentine’s Day cards, go out to dinner once a month, and are compiling a list of trusted service providers to share with each other.

“My husband and I were married 45 years. You don’t flip a switch and move on. You have to process grief,” Debby says. “That’s what we are there for—to be a lifeline for women who have gone through tremendous loss. If you don’t connect with these women, it’s going to be devastating to their mental health. Listening to their stories has been so beautiful. We are asking each other, ‘How did life become meaningful to you again?’”

With the support and structure of Stand in the Gap for Widows, Debby is seeing her new ministry grow and meet a need in her community. But the blessing goes both ways; Debby and her team are starting to add to the Stand in the Gap for Widows toolkit.

Based on support she received immediately following her husband’s passing, Debby and her team developed the Rapid Response Team. “The church calls us right away when a member dies. There are 5 of us on the team and one of us will go right away with some kits we have prepared; really practical things like paper towels, paper plates, and plastic cups, all the things you need to have on hand but aren’t able to think about in the moment. If there’s a need for food, our church is able to help with that.”

Stand in the Gap for Widows program staff loved this practical and meaningful support so much, it’s been added to the Toolkit, becoming a resource for every widow program partner.

Debby says, “I’m grateful this ministry is connecting women, and we are all supporting each other, not just socializing, but providing community, compassion, and connection. There is a lot of strength that comes from being together.”