Surviving Great Loss, episode 86

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If you love a prodigal,

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you can discover help and hope for

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your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal,

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and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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Welcome back to a new episode of When You Love a Prodigal.

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I hope you enjoyed listening to some of

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our best episodes over the holidays.

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I pray that today God will speak to you in

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the current place where you are with your prodigal.

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Be sure to capture what God says to you.

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I always think when I catch onto something that I'll remember it later,

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but I rarely do.

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I find it's good if I get a word from God or an understanding that I write it down.

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As you may know, my wonderful husband,

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Steve, died from complications of cancer on October 29.

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I've been pretty much out of pocket since then,

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spending a lot of time with my children and grandchildren.

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When you love a prodigal,

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you often experience loss on some level.

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I know I did during our 15-year wilderness journey with our prodigal.

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But the loss of my partner of 47 years has been the most difficult experience of my life.

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I know it's a long journey and I have much still to learn.

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But I want to share with you a little of my first impressions

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or understanding things from the Lord on this journey.

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I get asked all the time, how are you?

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How am I?

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Mostly okay so far.

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Being busy has helped.

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There were so many things that needed attention as we prepared for memorial service

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and as we took care of things that needed to be taken care of.

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So I didn't have a lot of time to grieve them,

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but it was fairly overwhelming still.

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Being with my kids and grandkids has really helped.

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I spent most of December going from one home to the next for extended stays.

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The love and hugs were fun and healing.

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Grandchildren are great distractions.

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People praying for me has been so important.

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And I have been blessed with the many who have prayed

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and the many who have written or called or commented on social media

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that they were still praying for me.

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This is surely why I am doing as well as I am.

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But waves of sadness do hit.

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Usually unexpectedly, often at night when I'm home alone,

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it could be a picture, a comment, a memory, and tears will come.

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But God has been a faithful comforter.

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Some things have been hard.

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One has been that I'm having to do the things Steve did,

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have to make my own coffee.

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He was famous for making coffee for me every morning

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and putting out the trash.

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Today was trash day.

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And yeah, it's just a lot of things to take care of.

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Oh yeah, and then the biggest one is probably handling finances.

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I haven't really done that after the first two years of our marriage

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when he realized that wasn't probably a good job for me.

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And I've just returned home from all this time with family

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and now I need to face and do something about all of these things.

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Another thing has been cooking for only myself.

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Last night I was tired so I ate cereal.

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I can see how people living alone can choose to eat poorly.

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I hope I get a little better at this.

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But one of the very hardest of all is not having Steve to talk to.

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We talk through everything at dinner each night

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and on Sunday mornings especially.

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But anytime we called each other and asked for input,

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one or the other of us would be working on a talk or an article

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and we would brainstorm with each other.

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But what I want to tell you today is that things that I learned

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on the prodigal journey are serving me so well on this hard journey.

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They're really helping me.

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These practices help me through a prodigal wilderness

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and are now helping me navigate this great loss.

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One of those is to be honest with God.

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I can tell him how I'm doing and what my fears are

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or how angry I am or anything.

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And I learned to be honest with God about my attitudes

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and needs regarding our son.

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And now I'm able to be honest with him on this journey too.

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And I think you'll find the same.

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The hard things you're learning as you endure the prodigal journey you're in

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will serve you well because life will have other challenges.

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And these things have helped me tremendously.

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Probably the one that has helped me the most is to give thanks.

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And how many times have you heard me on this podcast talk about

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give thanks in everything?

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God convinced me during our long wilderness journey with Josh

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that my best response was, thank you, Lord.

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And that response has served me well again.

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Here's what I wrote for Thanksgiving a few days after he left us.

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This Thanksgiving, I have so much to give thanks for.

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There were five of us, my three children, Steve's brother and myself in his ICU room.

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Each of us took a few minutes to thank Steve one more time for all he had meant to us.

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Then we watched him leave.

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His color paled, his eyes shut, his body relaxed.

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God took him.

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We all huddled together.

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All I could pray was, thank you, Lord.

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Thank you for this wonderful man.

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Thank you for the privilege of being family to him.

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For having his love for you and service to you touch our lives in such powerful ways.

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Thank you for ending his suffering and taking him home to glory.

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And since then, entangled with many tears, I have continued to be so grateful.

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Of course, grateful for 47 wonderful years together, for our family, for crew,

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for friends and coworkers around the globe, for partnering with others in the body of Christ,

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and so much more.

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Thank you for my sisters who came to be with me after my children left and returned two weeks later for the memorial service.

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Thank you for my children who came with their spouses and children and our ten grandchildren for the service.

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Spoke so eloquently and tenderly of their dad, of papa, and then stayed for Thanksgiving.

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Thank you for all the different people at crew who helped bring about the beautiful service that accomplished all I had prayed for.

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That Steve was honored, but that God was glorified.

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And people were encouraged to entrust their lives to God, to make their lives count.

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Thank you to Discovery Church for welcoming us and the hundreds of friends who came to the service,

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wrapped loving arms around me and our children, who said words of comfort and care, who promised to keep praying.

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Thanks for the thousands who watched that day online and the many more, I believe more than 6,000,

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who have viewed online since then, making beautiful comments and words of prayer in the chat, as well as on the crew testimonial page,

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and my Facebook and Instagram.

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Thank you to all of you who filled our house with the beauty and fragrance of many flowers,

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who have given gift cards and books and offers to help.

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And oh, the lovely cards and sweet notes, I just I keep on reading them because I haven't made it through them all yet.

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They bring smiles and tears.

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And thank you, Lord, for your response to me every time I cry out, how will I live without him?

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And you always say softly, I will be with you as you begin a new year with your loved wanderer.

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My listeners, may I encourage you to look for the good things you can be thankful for.

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Look hard to find some good.

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Write it down so you can be reminded of it when you need it again.

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Practice thanking God for it.

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It will begin to change your perspective and responses.

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Look for the good works even now that you are experiencing from your prodigal journey.

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Here are a few good things that I have observed in the hard times of this new journey.

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Our family was brought together in tears and in making decisions and in planning the service for Steve and in love for each other.

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My sweet kids cleared out some things.

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We have lived in our house for 31 years.

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Steve didn't like to get rid of things, but our adult children were able to get rid of a lot.

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Now, we've just made a small dent, but still, I'm grateful for the things that are waiting for the Salvation Army even now.

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Steve's graduation to heaven was a gift to him.

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How can I begrudge that?

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His body was growing weaker from cancer and some other situations.

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God was so kind to cut short his suffering and to call him home.

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And as much as I wish he were still here, I'm grateful.

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I can say thank you.

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I can see the good that has come from the fact that he's left.

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My journey without him has just begun.

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I know I will need to keep depending on God, trusting him to give me all I need as I navigate this new aloneness, though, of course, God will always be with me.

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I know this is not the same as your prodigal journey nor of mine, but I hope you will be able to see some ways that God can sustain you,

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give you wisdom and peace, guide you as you trust him with your loved one.

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Take a minute to write down a way that you can see God's provision for you in your prodigal journey,

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something you haven't noticed that you could say thank you for, something that was different or better over the holidays or a new way that you're able to relate

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or a new way that you're able to trust God.

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Take a minute.

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What is God showing you that is a good thing coming out of your prodigal journey that you can give thanks for?

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Now, we're going to be giving away three of Steve's books.

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For anyone who would like a copy of Steve's book, Enjoying Your Walk with God,

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if you will write to the link that's in the show notes, which is judy at judydouglass.com, we will send you one.

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We will also have drawings for two other books of Steve's.

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We will have a drawing for How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun.

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Maybe your prodigal would be interested in that book.

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And we're going to have a book called Achieving Your Potential is his other book.

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So if you would be interested in being in the drawing for one of those books,

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be sure to follow the prompt in the show notes to put your name in the list for that.

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I know this is a little different session than we usually do.

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I'm just grateful that maybe the journey I'm on right now will be a help and encouragement to you as you are on your prodigal journey

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and give you ways to look at God at work, even in the midst of pain and loss and uncertainty.

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And I want to invite you to not miss our next session.

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Next week, I will be chatting with Daryl Smith, a former prodigal who is living a transformed life today.

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He has a powerful story of growing up in poverty in a single home, of an early marriage that failed,

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of drug dealing, of time in prison, and of a transformation as God captured his heart.

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It might remind you of your prodigal. So don't miss it.

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Daryl's a passionate communicator, and I think you'll learn a lot and you'll be touched a lot.

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May your new year be filled with joy and peace and good changes with your prodigal.

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God bless you.