Why Lord? with Rev. Dr. Willette Wright-The Widow's Walk - Division II

Transcript

Why God? Widow Walk Div II - Part 1 Rev. Dr. Willette Wright

We Are Not Exempt From God’s Word

[00:00:00] Rev. Michele Owes: Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the Teachable Woman's Podcast. I am Reverend Michele Owes and I am teaching you Good Things. Today I have a very special guest with me. I want you to know a little bit about her before I tell you who she is. She has been in ministry for more years than I could count.

Rev. Michele Owes: So we're not going to give you that number. I just want to say that she has a solid witness in the body of Christ. She is currently a chaplain to the Mystics. She has been the administrator and lead elder of her church for over 20 years, oh, 25 years, and oh my Lord, 35 years. I just want to say that.

Rev. Michele Owes: She taught the widow's class, and blessed me in ways [00:01:00] that I couldn't even imagine. I just knew that I needed her class when I became a widow and she was teaching it very shortly after I had become a widow. I was blessed to be a part of it. I want you to get as much from her as I got from her. This is. Reverend Dr. Willett Wright from the Heart Church Ministries. Welcome and thank you for being with us today.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Okay.

Rev. Michele Owes: Excellent. I want you to first share with us when you became a widow.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: I became a widow in 1994 and I had only been married for 10 years. This year I would have celebrated on September 8th, my 40th wedding anniversary. So I have been widowed three times as long as I was married.

Rev. Michele Owes: Bless your heart.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yeah. So,

[00:02:00] Rev. Michele Owes: I have shared with others that I see you as our Coretta Scott King, if you will, of this state and you've had such a tremendous witness. You've been in the body of Christ. You continue to teach. You continue to serve. You continue to love. You continue to make your deposit and are a tremendous witness to us.

Rev. Michele Owes: Tell us what that took over this many years.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Absolutely, not easy. The road has been one that has had a lot of challenges both mentally, emotionally emotionally, mentally spiritually as well. The questions to God, you know, my husband was only 36 years old when he died. Before my husband passed, he had a doctor's visit a few [00:03:00] weeks prior. Have an issue, a heart issue. But the doctor's visit a few weeks prior was like a miraculous, you know, testimony. His cardiologist said, Oh my goodness, his heart had changed to a point that she was just so happy about how he was doing. And so we were thinking that this is great, great news, you know, that sort of thing.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: So just a few weeks later for him to be gone. He was headed to the men's retreat and feeling good. One of the things that I did the day that they were leaving, because he and Reverend Branson, Pastor Branson were riding together. At that time, Pastor Branson was not a pastor. He was one of the elders on staff.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right. Okay. Yes. Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: I asked Rev. Branson if he would make sure he [00:04:00] doesn't play basketball because he probably shouldn't. Reverend Branson assured me, okay, I got him. But can you imagine? And, you know, that was a devastating day. Because again, with the good report, we were thanking God for that.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright:

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: I was thanking God for all that the years, these past 30 years of being a widow. I have had those questions for the Lord. I have, um. There have been difficult times. Initially, you mentioned the widow's class. For years, I was asked, by our founding pastor, do you want to do a class? Do you want to share, you know, and I felt like, no, because, because I just, I just don't.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: There were times and many times, I think, I thank [00:05:00] God that I had a great husband who loved God,

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: He was not afraid to die. He was looking forward to retirement.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: So I thank God for that. I thank God.

Rev. Michele Owes: Understood.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: I thank God for my church because my church surrounded me. I would say to anyone who loses a husband or who has lost a husband, that it's so important that, You put yourself where you allow yourself to be in a place in a church family.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: The Bible is clear, the church has a responsibility to widows. And so I

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: being in that setting, that context is what helped me, has helped me through these 30 years. Having a good husband and being in a good church family. Even before that. having an excellent family. I come from a family where there are seven of us. I have siblings and aunts and uncles and [00:06:00] cousins who were, who have been just surrounders if you will during that time.

Rev. Michele Owes: What a blessing.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: So yeah, what it looks like on the outside is not necessarily the indication of everything.

Rev. Michele Owes: Oh, I understand

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: Because we can look well on the outside and be hurting on the inside. So, would you mind sharing with us some of those questions that you had for God? Because I am sure that there are many members of the audience or people who will be listening to this podcast who will have the same questions. We know that God brought you through to the other side, to the side of productivity, to the side of trusting again, to the side of knowing that God didn't do anything to punish you, to the side of knowing that His love for you did not diminish because your husband went home to be with Him.

Rev. Michele Owes: But tell us some of those questions.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: I think the very first question came early on. After [00:07:00] my husband passed I was still trying to get adjusted to just life as usual. Every night I spent forcing myself to lie down each night. There was a chair beside the bed and I would sit there.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes, yes, yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: My biggest question was why, I mean, why? If there was this great doctor's report, he's 36 years old, he's a preacher, he has served, he's been saved since he was like, 10 years old, you know, baptized in the Holy Spirit at 11. All of those things. That is why the question. I'll never forget that night. One night I was sitting on that chair and asking that question once again, and the Lord had me go to the book of Ruth I didn't necessarily want to go to the proof but I did.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

[00:08:00] Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: The Lord just reminded me in, in reading that it happened then, it happened now to you, and it's going to happen again.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: You're, you're not in a place whereby you are exempt from this kind of thing happening, He had proved it through His word. He provided the way of escape and I have to take the way of escape and the way of escape is through His word. To navigate the waters that were going to come because the borders were going to continue to be rough, I had to focus on His word.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: And know there's nothing about me that makes me or would cause me to be exempt from His word.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: You think, we're in church. We were serving.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: We're not sinning.

[00:09:00] Rev. Michele Owes: right?

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: You're

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Is this supposed to happen? Yeah

Rev. Michele Owes: Right. Right. Not to your servants, Lord. Not to your servants, right?

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Absolutely not!

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, you know, Hebrews does tell us that every man has an appointment and we don't get to change that appointment. And it's so interesting because we do have those thoughts that we're in your vineyard. We are co-laboring with you in the Gospel. Lord, we have set aside everything. We have forsaken all to take up our cross and follow you.

Rev. Michele Owes: And so why is it just one of us on this journey now? There were two of us on this journey and now there's one of us on this journey. And so the question that you asked, why, and the answer that God gave you could sound a little offensive,

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: And it was.

Rev. Michele Owes: Just know, there's nothing special there.

[00:10:00] Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yes. Because one of the things I said at that time was like, how could he choose Jesus over me? I mean,

Rev. Michele Owes: Right,

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: How could you want to just, at this age and stage, it's one thing if you were old and you know, that sort of thing.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right, right. Live your life. I get you. I get you.

Rev. Michele Owes: Well, listen, my husband died at 65 and I still thought he was young and that was, that was a lot, a lot older than 36 years old. Yes. I understand completely.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: We're in that place. You feel as if it just shouldn't happen to you, it just should not.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: You think I've, I've tried to do everything, you know, you, I, you hear yourself, I've done everything you asked me to do.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right, right, right, right.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: YOugo down a rabbit hole of beginning to think about,

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: that that you had, that I aspired to do before I got married.

[00:11:00] Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: You know, I had, I had a plan and, and ministry was definitely not in the plan. Okay. No.

Rev. Michele Owes: And I can say the same for myself. And so we can see that as a big sacrifice. So we've made this big sacrifice Lord to teach the gospel to live for you. And yet.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Yes.

Rev. Michele Owes: Oh, but if we go back to Hebrews 9:23, it says that every man, and we can say every woman is appointed once to die and then judgment.

Rev. Michele Owes: And we've known this. These are scriptures that we've learned in our Christian walk, but somehow without knowing it due to our love for God and our service to Him, we felt somewhat exempt.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Exactly.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right? We've done lots of funerals. We presided over funerals. We've done the homegoing messages. We've lost a lot of loved [00:12:00] ones, but we felt as though not us.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Not this. No. No.

Rev. Michele Owes: Wow.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: That is why that question for me was huge in that night. It didn't mean that I stopped asking why. That night jolted me because it caused me to begin to process according to God’s word.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: And I think that's part of the process over these 30 years has been more than anything growing in my relationship with the Lord because that showed me, you know, here's what you think.

Rev. Michele Owes: Amen.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: And, here's what you're, you're expecting. But this aspect of sacrificial living, like when Paul said, I counted all his but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Being in ministry, you're serving people and you're constantly sharing with them, you know, believe God, trust the word of [00:13:00] God. So that night it was, so preacher, what do you believe?

Rev. Michele Owes: Yeah.

Rev. Michele Owes: Right. I think becoming a widow was to this date, the greatest test of my Christianity. It didn't matter that you were in ministry for 25 years of serving, or how long you were in it and how long you were in it to win it for the Lord. It was the jolt you referred to.

Rev. Michele Owes: It was the shake-up. It was the how much do you really believe what you've been teaching and espousing for me? How much do you trust me truly as your Lord? If this could sever a relationship with me, did we have one?

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Exactly.

Rev. Michele Owes: Did we really have one?

[00:14:00] Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: To what extent are you willing to walk this out, to become the person that I want you to be? Marriage is yes, one flesh. And now there is, the walking this out. This has happened.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: Now walk it out with the Lord, at least for me. You still have questions and that sort of thing. But then there is looking at, you were not exempt from this. And so with that, what's in there? Do you know what's on the road ahead? You don't know what this walk is going to be without your husband. Cause I used to think in terms of things that my husband used to share [00:15:00] with me. And even in working in ministry and thinking about getting to the point of retiring.

Rev. Dr. Willette Wright: He used to say when we retire, we're going to be on the beaches of the world. And I'm like, Lord, what? Where are the beaches of the world? How is all that going to happen? So then, there is that walking it out. To what extent are you willing? That is what we're learning now, even in our church. We are doing the inside work. Having a mind to work and doing the inside work. That night was like the beginning of a huge construction process on the inside.

Rev. Michele Owes: Yes. Yes. I understand. I understand. I remember thinking that and just saying to myself, you were with the Lord before you met [00:16:00] your husband. He was with you and carried you through all of it; the good, the bad, the ugly, the never mentioned again. He was with you through the marriage and kept you in the marriage.

Rev. Michele Owes: I didn't start off being a great wife. I didn't know how. He taught me through His word. I certainly didn't start off being a great partner in ministry because I had no idea about ministry. I was still confused as to when to stand and when to sit. There were just things that I was catapulted into that I had to become a quick study. I knew He would carry me through the end.

Rev. Michele Owes: But the question was, is the pain going to be than the trust? And that was it. Will you allow this pain to define you? Because I never had that kind of pain. I'd lost loved ones before, but that kind of pain, I couldn't, [00:17:00] I've never been able to identify that before. And so you're right.

Rev. Michele Owes: I do want those who are listening to this podcast to hear the beautiful things that you shared with us in the widow's class. We're not going to do the whole widow's class on the podcast because we need you to meet us at our retreat in July. Reverend Dr. Willette O'Wright is going to be with us and she will work with the breakout segments and groups for the widows. So please do join us, but she's going to come back and share with us in just a few moments. We have met our time for our first podcast, but she's going to be right back with us. So stay tuned. All right. God bless you. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us. Thank you for listening to us.

Rev. Michele Owes: Dr. Wright, Reverend Wright, my sister in Christ Jesus. Thank you so much. And we will be back.