The Lord Wants to Heal You and Help You! Part IV of Widow Walk-Div II
Teachable Woman Podcast
The Lord Wants to Heal You and Help You!
Widow's Walk Series with Rev. Dr. Willette Wright - part 4
Show Notes
I. Introduction: Welcome to the Teachable Woman Podcast, where we dive into discussions that uplift and empower women on their spiritual journeys. In today's episode, hosts Reverend Michele Owes and Rev. Dr. Willette Wright explore the profound topic of navigating widowhood with faith and resilience. Drawing inspiration from biblical narratives, personal experiences, and insights from their own teachings, Rev. Owes and Dr. Wright shed light on the complexities of grief, the temptation to blame God, and the path to healing. They uncover valuable lessons from the story of Ruth and discover practical wisdom for avoiding bitterness and isolation in the midst of loss. Stay tuned as we journey together towards wholeness and restoration.
II. Message of God's Love: Rev. Owes and Dr. Wright delve into the theme of the widow's walk, emphasizing the profound realization that God's love for widows remains steadfast, despite their loss.
III. Navigating Blame and Doubt: The hosts discuss the common struggle of blaming God or feeling distant from faith after the loss of a loved one. They stress the importance of processing emotions in a way that aligns with God's healing process.
IV. Lessons from the Story of Ruth: Dr. Wright shares insights from the biblical story of Ruth, highlighting the dangers of pushing people away and isolating oneself in grief, drawing parallels to the experiences of widows today.
V. Avoiding Bitterness and Isolation: Rev. Owes and Dr. Wright discuss the detrimental effects of bitterness and isolation in the grieving process, urging listeners to seek godly counsel and avoid self-reliance.
VI. The Blessing of Obedience: Reflecting on Naomi's journey in the Book of Ruth, the hosts emphasize the importance of obedience to God's guidance, even in times of grief, and how it can lead to unexpected blessings.
VII. Closing Remarks and Invitation: Rev. Owes concludes the episode with gratitude for listeners and an invitation to a women's retreat, July 25-27, 2024, in Houston, Texas. There will be special segments to support widows. She encourages sharing the podcast with Widowers and others who may have suffered loss and can benefit from the message.
Transcript
God Wants to Heal You
[00:00:00]
Rev. Michele Owes: Welcome back to the Teachable Woman Podcast. We are so excited to have you with us today. I am Reverend Michele Owes. I am with Dr. Willette Wright, and we are Teachers of Good Things. We have been discussing the Widow's Walk and we've learned some tremendous things in the past few podcasts. One of the most important is that God loves us. His love for us did not diminish with the loss of our husbands. We also shared that because we serve in ministry, we cannot believe that we are exempt from God's word. In this next podcast we will discuss that sometimes we may find ourselves in a position where we blame God, or whether we have walked away from the faith [00:01:00] or, we have something in our heart about the decision that God made to bring our loved one home. We may find that we are present but absent.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Thank you.
Rev. Michele Owes: We can be physically still present in the body of Christ, but emotionally gone or spiritually gone. We have this challenge in our lives that we've not yet learned how to navigate the way that God would have us. To your point, we are fulfilled by giving and pouring. We are going to take some time. Dr. Wright shared with us that God brought her to the story of Ruth. There are some things in that story that need our attention. And since God brought her there, we're going to bring some of those things out and talk about maybe things [00:02:00] that we want to avoid doing even though we're hurting. Though we miss our loved ones, and our life has changed, there are still some things that we want to avoid doing to heal the way that God would have us. So, Dr. Wright, can you share some of those things with us from the
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: One of the things I think is important is healing, because that is what needs to take place. As we are navigating this and having to walk in this state it is healing that needs to take place. That's what the Lord wants to do.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: That's why He gives us His word. It is for the process of healing. In the book of Ruth in the first couple verses of the first chapter, Naomi lost her husband and then she lost her sons.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: She did not want to continue with her daughters-in-law. [00:03:00] She told them to get away from me. It is one of the first things that she did. The scriptures are clear with respect to her regard for the Lord and how she responded spiritually. From a natural perspective, she was pushing away her daughter's-in-law. Thank God for Ruth. She had a heart for her mother-in-law which is something so wonderful to me.
Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: I have the best mother-in-law in the world, I think. One of the first things is pushing people away, or it's almost like we're trying to rearrange our lives with respect to people.
Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: The spouse is gone. We cannot do that initially [00:04:00] when people come to us. They want to know how you are doing.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: You may feel like, if one more person asked me how I'm doing! I'm a wreck, you know.
Rev. Michele Owes: Right.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: For the most part Reverend Owes, people mean well. They're doing the best that they can to respond to the situation. The first things that we see Naomi pushing away or rearranging relationships based on her hurt.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Being a widow is a huge hurt but pushing people away or rearranging relationships from people who are trying to help also hurts. There are those who are being nosy, and those who may not be but, the Lord is [00:05:00] an orchestrator.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: As we cry out to Him, He will orchestrate our lives in such a way that He will put people in our paths and around us who are there to help us. That's a part of His relieving us. For him to do that in the earth realm, he uses people. I would do not push people away or try to isolate ourselves around our hurt.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: That is something we want to avoid. When we start that it dovetails you into your feelings, the emotional side of bitterness. When we don't have people and we isolate ourselves, we miss the comfort that people are trying to give us. It is not coming in.
[00:06:00] Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: We are alone with our thoughts and our feelings and angry with God or wondering what in the world the Lord is doing. Then we can develop that level of bitterness. And there's nothing worse than a bitter woman.
Rev. Michele Owes: Oh, my.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Mm hmm.
Rev. Michele Owes: May I add Dr. Wright? Naomi thought, or she presented her case for asking her daughters-in-law to go back to their people as though it was something she was doing for them.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yes. Mm hmm.
Rev. Michele Owes: She wasn't going to have more sons. If they went back to their people, they could find a husband.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yes.
Rev. Michele Owes: She thought about it.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yes. Yes.
Rev. Michele Owes: We will reason with ourselves as to why we don't [00:07:00] want to talk to this person anymore, or why we are not communicating.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yes.
Rev. Michele Owes: We reason with ourselves as well. Everybody's asking me how I'm doing. I'm tired of answering that question. People don't know how to talk to me now because they try to avoid talking about my husband.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Mm-hmm.
Rev. Michele Owes: You can't, he was a part of me. You ignore the fact that he lived and that he died. Now I am supposed to want to talk.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Right.
Rev. Michele Owes: You had a whole conversation and you have not at least acknowledged him.
Rev. Michele Owes: There is no pleasing at a point. If we're not careful, we will reason ourselves into a state of aloneness.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Exactly.
Rev. Michele Owes: God does not want that for us.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Exactly. Yeah, and it is that that then that reasoning then puts us in a position of we're arranging those relationships. The thing about [00:08:00] relationships is that we never know why we have them. We must let the Lord do the work on the inside. We don't know who God will use or how God will use anyone to relieve. He promised that he would. That is what He said he would do for the widow. We don't know how. We do know He has to use a human agent.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Because we don't know, it is important that we not get to the point of rearranging relationships or being so bitter. Isolating ourselves, pushing people out, counseling ourselves out of the hurt that we are feeling leads to that bitterness.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Naomi even wanted to change her name to match her state. We don't want to put ourselves in a position whereby we push people [00:09:00] away and isolate ourselves. We are then focusing on ourselves and emotions to both describe who we are and where we are and at each turn that just separates us.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: It pushes us further and further away from the world. The Lord wants to love us. Getting to that point of bitterness, doing whatever is necessary to fall into a corner of isolation is a festering place for the hurt we're feeling. Then that turns into bitterness.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: It may not be bitterness, but it may be guilt for a [00:10:00] number of things. When my husband died, we had differences about having children and that sort of thing.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: We finally settled on that. Before ministry, I had a plan. It wasn't ministry. My plan didn't involve having children right away. When my husband passed, we were rolling fast and hard in terms of ministry. It was time to settle in and start the baby making. Now I'm older.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: So, it was really necessary for me to get started. At [00:11:00] the time we had just mapped out all we were going to do. Then he passed. It was 10 years of marriage. My big celebrations or whatever, we didn't do any of those things. When he died, one of the first things I thought about was that who kept saying let's wait as far as the children are concerned. The thought that now you are not going to have children, I felt bad. I felt guilty for that pushback, that constant pushback.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: That isolation, being in a place in our minds, we [00:12:00] don't necessarily have to be away from people to be isolated. We should regard or think about the state that we're in. We do not want to be in that place of guilt. One of the things that the Lord wants to help us do is to move beyond those types of feelings.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: There's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. To deal with being in that place, we must make certain that we take the escape that is the word of God. We don't want to develop bitterness or those feelings.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Don't start out with pushing away. Perhaps those [00:13:00] persons the Lord may use to, to relieve us and do what He promised to do for us.
Rev. Michele Owes: I want to also share that, okay. Just one moment. All right.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yes. Mm-Hmm.
Rev. Michele Owes: Okay, excellent. All right. I just wanted to share that Naomi, the mother-in-law, she became so bitter that she wanted her name to be changed. She then accused God of dealing carelessly with her or dealing with her in a mode of punishment.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Mm-Hmm.
Rev. Michele Owes: Like putting her in a corner. And sometimes we can think that God is no longer for us because our spouses are gone. We've lost a loved [00:14:00] one, a child, or a parent, that is not the intention of God. We want to avoid at all cost, accusing God.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Mm-Hmm.
Rev. Michele Owes: He's been very clear in His word that everyone has this appointment with death. For whatever reason that we understood, thought, or hoped this would not affect our lives, it was not God who was dishonest. It was not God who hid anything from us. God doesn't have to check with us in terms of His decision as to when to bring his children home. This bitterness is tied to us not getting what we expected. Not that God didn't deliver on what He said.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Rev. Michele Owes: Okay, good.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Great. Yes. So, avoid that. It starts with what happened when you look at Naomi. What happened immediately was that [00:15:00] she started to take things into her own hands with respect to how she was going to move. This is how I'm going to get done what I need to get done.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: And the one thing that is important, from a natural perspective for any person who is experiencing the loss of a spouse, is that you must have godly counsel. I remember being told don't make any major decisions, don't decide anything where you are right now. I also, before I did anything, would run those things by him or to talk with him or with my father.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Oh, I would have decided on doing a whole lot of [00:16:00] things. So, I think it starts from a natural perspective that you want to make certain avoid being your own counsel, if you will, in everything. So that that cycle then does not get started.
Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: One thing I think that's a blessing and a benefit in looking at Naomi is that she decided to go back to where she learned God, or to go back to original instructions, if you will. I think that's a part. Make certain that you do get some counsel, make certain that you're in a safe place.
[00:17:00] Rev. Michele Owes: And her act of obedience did allow her to be blessed in the end.
Rev. Michele Owes: All right. That will bring our podcast to a close. I want to apologize. I lost Reverend Wright at the end. We had a delay in our recording. She's in one part of the country. I'm in another part of the country. There was a freeze there. If it looked like we were interrupting each other, we do apologize.
Rev. Michele Owes: There was a delay, and we couldn't hear each other talking toward the end, but I do trust that God did everything He wanted to do. We want to thank you for being with us today. I want to thank Dr. Wright for sharing her time with us, her wisdom, and her knowledge of the word of God to help us move to the next state in widowhood.
Rev. Michele Owes: For those of you who know men who may be in this state, please share this podcast with them. We love you. Thank you so much. We hope to see you at our women's retreat. We will be doing a special section [00:18:00] for widows. We hope you will join us. It is July the 25th through the 27th in Houston, TX.
Rev. Michele Owes: Go to our website Teachablewoman.com and you will see all the information that you need. We love you. God bless you. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you for sharing.
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