Life changes when you lose a spouse. Everything from money issues to sleep patterns change and so this becomes an important time when the one left behind needs the Lord.

February 17, 2009

Home Alone, Part 2 w/Miriam Neff

Over 800,000 men and women are widowed every year just in the United States. The Bible teaches us to look after widows and those alone, like orphans, but does that really happen?
Welcome to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris sharing the great story that’s all about Jesus on part 2 of a program called “Home Alone” with Miriam Neff. Miriam is a widow. She is a friend of mine. Her late husband was a friend of mine as well. Life changes when you lose a spouse, everything from money issues to sleep patterns change and so this becomes an important time when the one left behind truly needs the Lord. Well, we’re going to be visiting with Miriam about her experience in the next few minutes and Miriam has just released a book called “From One Widow to Another: Conversations on the new you” and a little later on I’ll tell you how you can get a copy of the book and read more about it on our webpage, haventoday.org or get a copy as a thank you for your gift to the ministry when you call 1-800-654-2836. Andrew Peterson opens this Haven Today with a song from his “Carried Along” album, a song leading us to faith, faith to be strong in Jesus.

Song:
Performed by: Andrew Peterson

Welcome back to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris and we are joined in studio in Chicago at WMBI again today by Miriam Neff who has just written a book out of her personal experience, “From One Widow to Another: Conversations on the new you” and Miriam thank you for joining me again today.
MN: good to be with you.
CM: Well, we got to talking yesterday and kind of got cut off because we’ve got to watch a clock around here, so you’re back with us today. One of the things that intrigued me yesterday was that you mentioned there are 103 verses of scripture related to widows and since your husband died who was a friend of mine as well, Bob, who was the president of broadcasting here at Moody Bible Institute for many, many years, you’ve had to learn to do a lot on your own. Out of those 103 verses has the Lord just moved into your life in maybe one of those passages or 2 of those passages just really come alive to you in a profound way for you to minister to others?
MN: Absolutely, absolutely. I had studied scripture but I intentionally went to the 103 passages to study after Bob went to Heaven and I had an incentive because I was invited to Africa and they wanted me to speak to widows there.
CM: And there are many widows there, AIDS and other reasons as well. Yes.
MN: So I studied intently but it grabbed me because I was finding new lessons for Miriam in my preparation. Example: the widow and her pot of oil where she has this one pot of oil and her children are going to be sold into slavery and I began to prepare this lesson because it’s very appropriate for African women whose children are going to be maybe prostitutes or whatever because they don’t have Dad to support them all.
CM: They have to sell them off, right.
MN: So here this prophet tells her to give up what she has in a sense. And in faith she sends her children to get these pots. Can you imagine all the neighbors loaning them a pot and then hearing that this woman was about to lose her kids and then filled these pots and sold them at the market and now she is sustained because she had faith in this prophet of God. And I began to see that God was watching widows to see our faith and it was going to be a witness to neighbors and I began to see this in my own life as my neighbors began to see me still moving forward on my own, trusting God and then I was able to teach that in Africa and it applied there because it goes across culture.
CM: Sure it does. And let’s just remind someone that perhaps didn’t hear our time together – and we’ve posted yesterday’s program on our website as well and also a link to your very valuable website. You can see that in Africa, a developing nation, widows are left with nothing. The children have to be sold into well, just
MN: whatever
Cm: whatever, yes. But really, it’s not easy here is it either, in North America?
MN: It isn’t at all. You should read some of the emails I get at the website of women who feel forgotten and alone and lonely and they want to tell someone the story of how they lost their husband. I’m there to listen and I’m there to encourage them but so many of them just feel totally abandoned. And in many cases that’s true.
CM: It’s true. They’re not imagining this.
MN: No, their friendship network might have been their husband’s work. Their social network might have been couples, at church or you know, common interests of symphony or whatever and so they truly are adrift. So they’re very, very lonely and vulnerable.
CM: So even in a church wives that are still married to husbands still living don’t always reach out that much to a widow?
MN: No, I think they don’t understand us and sometimes maybe they’re fearful of looking at us and thinking, “That could be me.” There are many possible reasons. But what I discovered is I need to cherish the friends I have, the few friends I have rather than spend time grieving or being angry about what I’ve lost.
CM: Well, and you mentioned in our last time together that 75% of the friendship network just goes away. Now have you gained some friends though, from being a widow?
MN: Yes, but not many. But they are unique and wonderful and precious and they are people of great depth. And they are people who I have a new common bond with, maybe because I hike now or it may be because I’m traveling to a unique place. You know, they’re Miriam connections.
Cm: Right and not Bob connections
MN: Right
CM: From your late husband then. How does a widow find her new self?
MN: Well, I’ve said quite a bit about this in my book because frankly this is a big challenge and some widows are so devastated they don’t even address that but they do suffer from not feeling the purpose in life they had before. So I challenge them to look at what skills God built into them already, the things they knew they could do and maybe look at things they’ve done to volunteer or things apart from what they did with their husband because frankly it’s too painful sometimes to do things you did with your husband or to pursue those. So I encourage people to list those, pray about them and then intentionally look for opportunities of things you can do now. And I think I have a list in the book of maybe 50 new suggestions but then I also talk about looking at your faith again and being real with God about what you expected God to provide for you and what he’s given you and to intentionally list your blessings because really we get distorted like Naomi when she became a widow. Her whole perspective was distorted. And I, by the way, I love the book of Ruth
CM: of Ruth, yes.
MN: in a new way. But we have to be careful that our perceptions can be distorted and we can say, “I don’t have anything to offer my culture. I don’t have anything to offer my community or my family.” Oh yes you do. God created you. He knew this was going to happen –
CM: And there are promises. In fact, would you mind sharing, there are promises in the scripture about the new you in a new place in life like being a widow. Do you have any that just pop into your head that just…?
MN: How long can we talk? The “oil of joy for mourning,” or Psalm 139 that says, “I created you. I knew you in your mother’s womb.” Does that mean he knew us because we were married? No, he knows who we are now and he’s wired within us way back then what we need for this new day.
CM: He knows your need even today. Yes.
MN: Right. Or “the springs in the wilderness,” or one of the verses that I like talks about me learning to be able to actually not just run with the foot soldiers but ride with the horsemen in the thickets of Jordan. In other words it’s going to get tougher but will be enabled by God to handle that. And I am living that. Again, not that I chose this life,
CM: right.
MN: But I see feeling a need to do something worthwhile and thinking, “I can’ do that. Bob could have,” or “he could have helped me do that.” No, hello Miriam, you…
CM: Bob is home now. Miriam is still here, yes.
MN: And I’ve said God is my Savior, God is my Lord. OK, well how about living it Miriam?
CM: If somebody has just joined us you’re listening to Miriam Neff, “From One Widow to Another: Conversations on the new you,” our special guest here on Haven /today. Well, you’re creating a new pattern of loving, a new reason to face a new day and choose meaning and relevance for tomorrow. In summary, to find your unique new mission in life how does a widow find her new mission, and you, you’ve found your new mission. What about a widow who’s listening to us right now?
MN: First of all you look around at where you are right now
CM: Where the Lord has placed you.
MN: Right, where you are right now. And Acts first chapter talks about you know, when you have a new job to do first at home, then in Jerusalem and then you look out from there. Look at your community. Look at your church. Look at your family. If within your church you don’t feel comfortable to serve there are communities begging for help: libraries, food pantries, things like that. Maybe you need to look at something new in your community that doesn’t have the pain of memories with your husband. Just go and offer help. Start doing something for someone else. There is some kind of God blessed energy that comes when you give out even when you think that you should be given to and you feel weak. You give out and it strengthens you. So start right there and see what God blesses. See what gives you that, “It’s recess time! I want to go out and play!” You know, what gives you that sense of energy that you want to serve there and from there see what doors open. That doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone’s going to go to Africa or that, you know, I don’t know where God’s going to take you but you begin where you are.
CM: In Iowa, in Arkansas, wherever.
MN: wherever.
CM: God can use you right there. Yes.
MN: And I can tell you, here’s a specific suggestion. One group of widows that are the most lonely and experience the greatest change and tumultuous, you know, things in their life are pastor’s wives because many of them, their lives were so enveloped in the world of their husband as a pastor when he’s gone their no longer “pastor’s wife” all of the social, and sometimes housing was connected with that. They are some of the, maybe you know one. Say, “Can I come over and have a cup of tea with you?” “Can we meet to go for a walk?” or find out, you know, “What would you like?” you know. Reach out to one of those women.
CM: You are a breath of fresh air Miriam and really, I hope, I pray the Lord is using you to convict not just me but many of our listeners right now. Why is it we Christians, we live our lives as if the current set of circumstances we’re in right now will never end? That’s how we live our lives isn’t it? But God comes and changes that.
MN: God talks about seasons, he talks about growth.
CM: Yes, he does.
MN: He talks about, you know, all of these things that say life isn’t static and everyone listening to us knows that. They know that tomorrow has things that they can’t control and they don’t know what’s coming but we can be equipped. We can be studying the Word, we can be reaching out. We can be saying, “You know what God? You’re still God. You haven’t changed.” Bob had made this comment I recently read and I had written it down. He said, “God wasn’t napping when I got ALS.” God wasn’t napping in your present circumstances and people listening with like what you experienced with losing a son and other losses, you know, God’s not shocked by this. He stands ready to help.
CM: Right. It was part of his plan that we can’t totally understand but yet we can trust that is his plan and go with that because his plan always is best in the long run.
MN: And well, I can see good from my loss of Bob which, again, wouldn’t want it, wouldn’t choose it. If you’d asked me ahead of time 6 years ago would I be doing this I would say, “No.” Bob and I were traveling the world. He was healthy. I would say, “No way!” But I tell you, I can see good. I see good in this life today.
CM: Tell me this. This is a little bit far afield from your new book but I can remember in the building we’re sitting in right now being with your husband before he went home to be with the Lord and he tripped on a stairway. And he didn’t have the diagnosis nailed down at that point but you know, I did the typical, “You’re going to get better. They’re going to figure out what it is.” And he looked at me with the strangest look and I realized afterwards he knew already he wasn’t going to get better even though there wasn’t a diagnosis being named. How, how, give me some help Miriam, how can I reach out to someone like your late husband Bob but how can I or our listeners reach out to someone like you who’s widowed? Give me some help in thinking through this process as a believer.
MN: Well here’s the paradox. We all want to make people happy and we want to say good things that mean tomorrow will be better and it’s OK. For people like me now, no thank you, be real. In other words people wanted to say to Bob and I, you know, “We’re praying for you and Bob will be healed,” and Bob and I should smile and be happy.
CM: right. And I’m sure a lot of people had a lot of cures for you too. Yes.
MN: Oh, we were contacted by a nutritionist and all kinds of things. What we wanted was real, real arms to hug us and real people to say, “I care for you given what’s happening right now.” Bob’s statement was, “Today is the best day of the rest of your life.” That’s not what people want to hear. They want to hear, “Tomorrow’s going to be grand! You’re going to be richer. You’ll be faster!”
CM: Life is not a Broadway musical. It’s not Rodgers and Hammerstein, is it yes.
MN: Be real. Which is one of the things he loved about you. You know, you’re a real person. You’re who you are and you were always interested in him personally. But I would say to our listeners, be real. You don’t have to paint a happy face or don’t say, “How is it going?” and expect them to say, “Fine.” One of the widowers that email me on my website says he has his answer he always gives now if they say, you know, “How are you doing?” he says, “Not worth a hoot!” I don’t have the courage to say that but some days I might feel it but…
CM: What, I ask people who are on this program frequently one last question. Let me just throw this out to you. Now that you are a widow, you’ve written this book – we’ll tell people how to get a copy – what does Jesus mean to you now that he didn’t mean to you a year ago, two years ago, three years ago?
MN: He’s so much more present 24/7. And you know, that’s a plus about loneliness. You know if you think your night is empty, you know I talk out loud to Jesus more now than I ever did.
Cm: Good for you.
MN: Walking in the dark, driving down the express way. I may look like an idiot. I really don’t care. He’s more ever present. I’m more desperate just to know that it’s going to be so great to be with him. I mean, I can talk to him now but I mean with him like Bob’s with him now.
CM: Sure, yes, yes.
MN: And there’s a different kind of hope, a different kind of reality of what his sacrifice meant to me.
CM: And there also is the flip side to that too. You know that he is with you more now than you did before when life was normal, whatever normal is, when Bob was alive and you just had your life you were living and your career you were after. I think he gives us his presence even more when we need him.
MN: and you sense it. Not that I, you don’t feel the arms literally but I feel a kind of comfort because I desperately need it. You know, he says he meets our need, well if we have a small need he can give us a small amount of him. I have a large need now so I have a large amount of him and I’m very thankful for that.
CM: Would you pray? We’ve got some widows that just have been listening intently and we’ve got some other people I hope, that have been listening on how to serve widows which the scriptures call us to do. Would you mind leading us in prayer?
MN: Absolutely.
Lord, there are people now with their hearts open to you. Their eyes have been opened a little more and I so thank you for that. I thank you that they want to want to minister and serve and love other people. And I would ask you to show people who care about us a specific thing each one of them can do today, maybe initiate it today and accomplish tomorrow but something specific to reach out, to strengthen the body of believers just by reaching out to a widow. But I would also pray for every orphan and person divorced and persons lost a child or a parent in their grieving that the body of believers would reach out to each other in a real way. The realness of saying, “What do you need today?” And then I would ask that you would come in such a full sense to bless your body, through this growth through suffering that we learn because we learn new things about you. And so just help us to relate to each other and bring honor to you so that others will look and say, “Oh, that’s what God looks like!” when they see us loving each other in this way, in Jesus’ name, amen.
CM: This is Haven Today and the program is called “Home Alone” with Miriam Neff. This is part 2 and if you missed yesterday’s program because perhaps it was a holiday and you weren’t listening to your local Christian radio station, well we’ve put it up on our homepage, haventoday.org under the “Going Deeper” section. We’ve also put up a link to Miriam’s website with resources that would help you or would help someone you know that has recently become a widow or a widower. Well, with that in mind, let me mention we have Miriam’s just released book, “From One Widow to Another: Conversations on the new you”. It’s only been out a few weeks and this is a book perhaps that you or someone you know desperately needs. We have it as a thank you for your gift to the ministry. Just go online at h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org. You can read about the book, make your gift to the ministry, we’ll get a copy to you right away. Or you can call us at 1-800-654-2836, that’s 1-800-654-2836. And if this program that you just heard would be a blessing to someone else you can easily send it on to a friend. Just go to our homepage and there near the “Listen” button you can see how you can easily type in a friend’s email address, send a little note from yourself and the program’s on its way, that’s all you have to do. And if you heard our programs last week about Abraham Lincoln and his faith and you didn’t get in touch with us but you would like a copy of that sermon by a pastor at 4th Presbyterian Church in Washington, “Was Abraham Lincoln Really a Christian?”, we still have that CD available. You can call us at 1-800-65-HAVEN or go online at haventoday.org. We’re asking for your gift of any amount to help us share the great story of Jesus with others. I think you will be pleasantly surprised if you are interested in American history to get a copy of this CD, “Was Abraham Lincoln Really A Christian?” I should also say that we’re a listener supported ministry and so we tell the great story that’s all about Jesus because of your financial gifts. If you’re a fellow believer in Christ Jesus and you’d like to help us tell the great story then I can boldly say, “Would you help us out with your financial support?” You can go online and here’s our internet address to give us your prayer request or to make a gift, we’re haventoday.org, h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org. Please let us know the station you’re listening to as well.
I’m Charles Morris. Thanks for being with me and Miriam Neff. Would you come back again tomorrow when again we’ll be telling the great story? It’s all about Jesus here on Haven Today.