​For those of you that wanna know what widowhood is like John Schneider sums it up pretty well, I’m gonna put a watch warning on this as for I could not even watch the whole video clip without weeping and sobbing. So you have been warned my friends, and for those of you that are in this very same boat of crashing waves and emotions know that you are not alone, a community of us surround you and we are here for you, don’t be hesitant to reach out to the ones who are in this circle because we probably understand more than most.


Blessings to you this Week!
Triple Legacy

     You haven’t heard from me in a while, and its with a heavy heart I struggle to wrestle from.  We have lost so many people in the family this last year that the Holidays felt very empty, and I’m just now able to kinda return back to so sort of normal what ever that really is I’m not so sure anymore.  One day at time I move forward.  This little quote I came across kinda sums it up.

     Another post off FB that I got permission to share is this…..

​I love this. It's the most accurate one I've read thus far.
I borrowed this from a friend - it’s the most accurate description of widowhood that I’ve read:


Widowhood is more than missing your spouse’s presence. It is adjusting to an alternate life. It is growing around a permanent amputation. For some, it is long time friends saying “I’ll always be there for you,” and then they also disappear from your life. 


Widowhood is going to bed for the thousandth time, and still, the loneliness never feels normal. The empty bed a constant reminder. The night no longer brings intimacy and comfort, but the loudness of silence and the void of connection.


Widowhood is walking around the same house you have lived in for years and it no longer feeling like home. Because “home” incorporated a person. And they’re not there. Homesickness fills your heart and the knowledge that it will never return haunts you.


Widowhood is seeing all your dreams and plans you shared as a couple crumble around you. The painful process of searching for new dreams that include only you amount to climbing Mount Everest. And every small victory of creating new dreams for yourself includes a new shade of grief that their death propelled you to this path.


Widowhood is second guessing everything you thought you knew about yourself. Your life had molded together with another’s and without them you have to relearn all your likes, hobbies, fears, goals. The renaissance of a new person makes you proud and heartbroken simultaneously.


Widowhood is being a stranger in your own life. The unnerving feeling of watching yourself from outside your body, going through the motions of what was your life, but being detached from all of it. You don’t recognize yourself. Your previous life feels but a vapor long gone, like a mist of a dream. You begin to wonder if it happened at all.


Widowhood is the irony of knowing if that one person was here to be your support, you would have the strength to grieve that one person. The thought twists and confuses you. If only they were here to hold you and talk to you, you’d have the tenacity to tackle this unwanted life. To tackle the arduous task of moving on without them.


Widowhood is missing the one person who could truly understand what is in your heart to share. The funny joke, the embarrassing incident, the fear compelling you or the frustration tempting you. To anyone else, you would have to explain, and that is too much effort, so you keep it to yourself. And the loneliness grows inside you.


Widowhood is struggling with identity. Who are you if not their spouse? What do you want to do if not the things you planned together? What brand do you want to buy if not the one you two shared for all those years? What is your purpose if the job of investing into your marriage is taken away? Who is my closest companion when my other half isn’t here?


Widowhood is feeling restless because you lost your identity, partner, lover, friend, travel companion, co-parent, security, and life. And you are drifting with an unknown destination.


Widowhood is living in a constant state of missing the most intimate relationship. No hand to hold. No body next to you. No partner to share your burden.


Widowhood is being alone in a crowd of people. Feeling sad even while you’re happy. Feeling guilty while you live. It is looking back while moving forward. It is being hungry but nothing sounding good. It is every special event turning bittersweet.


Yes. It is much more than simply missing their presence. It is becoming a new person, whether you want to or not. It is fighting every emotion mankind can feel at the very same moment and trying to function in life at the same time.


Widowhood is frailty. Widowhood is strength. Widowhood is darkness. Widowhood is rebirth.


Widowhood…..is life changing."

​    I Pray that all is well with my fellow widowers after this Holiday season.  Also know that we are not alone, you are not alone I will walk with you down this Desert Road.  There is a song about this I will leave a link for it, as well as this link sent by a friend, people I’m Blessed to be surrounded by.  This podcast here from a man who could not find any resources for widowers.  Take a listen and know that many of us are in the same boat therefore we are not alone friends.  If after listening to the podcast you believe you may want a copy of his book let me know I’ll get you a copy in support of walking with you.  Be Blessed my Friends


Triple Legacy
Leading a Legacy of Love for the Broken


​Click links below

​As I read in my late wife’s favorite devotional, I read a short mention about how ships are never tested till put through a storm.  It got me thinking how true this is.  


     A ship that sails in brisk calm waters is not tested.  The sails may fill with the light wind, but are not stressed to their capacity.   The construction of the ship is not flexed or stressed the seams are tight.  It’s when the seas are rough and the waves come crashing over the bow is the ship put under stress and tested to its fullest.  When the winds are blowing causing the seas to erupt with fury are the sails put under extreme stress and tested to what they can handle.  This analogy goes along with our faith.  When life is calm and all is we our faith is not stressed or tested we just float along through life without a care in the world and at most times feel happy and blessed, but when the winds come and the waves develop is when our faith come under stress….  


     A verse comes to mind.  Matthew 8:23-27


Look at verse 23 — Then He got in the boat and his disciples followed Him.  
Notice the disciples did not get into the boat first.  JESUS DID!


    Next a storm came suddenly on the lake.  The waves swept over the boat.  Jesus was sleeping and the disciples wake Him in fear that they are going to drown,  They ask Him to save them!


    In verse 26 — He replies, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then He got up rebuked the winds and the waves,and it was completely calm.


    Verse 27 — The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him!”


    Their faith was being tested the boat was being tested!
Their fear of drowning prompted them to seek His help.


    God puts us in places we would never enter.  If I had a boat or a ship and I saw the waters were well questionable in the conditions of being too rough or white capping waves.  I would not take the boat out into those waters, but it is when He puts us out into those waters do we seek Him more?  
    Our faith is tested in these circumstances, do we abandon God or do we hold on evermore tighter than when we were just cruising the smooth open seas.  Ponder on that as I write the continuation.  




What storms does God have you in right Now
How can we pray for you?
How can we walk beside you?


Leave a Comment or click the more tab and leave a Prayer Request

     
​    What’s hard about being thrown into the widowers path is that you must walk by faith and not by sight, you no longer have a physical partner by your side.  You have God.  What makes this challenging is that the situations you once fit in are no longer.  You are no longer a couple so marriage retreats are out, date nights no longer exist,  those couple functions you would attend together are  also no longer.  This is a difficult road to walk, a lot of what once was is non existent and  this list could go on and on.  If you are a widow or a widower you no longer fit in spaces that were once comfortable and inviting, you now may feel like a third wheel a piece is missing and cannot be returned to make it whole.  You come to find you only have one perspective not two, ideas and thoughts have no place to go when your spouse is not there to hear them. No need to further improve and strengthen your marriage, its not there.  You had your chance to love them to the fullest, and now those times have come to a crashing end.  Social situations now become awkward and unfamiliar.  These are just parts of walking down the road of being a widow or a widower.  God meets you here and guides you along the way if you let Him.  The whys and what ifs pop up randomly at the most in opportune times to cause your mind to go into an uncontrollable stir at times.  Questions of why did God bring me here.  Well some of those questions as of late He has answered me.  One of the question I had asked Him was, “I see a need for a widowers ministry, who’s gonna do that?”
He replied “You”.  I was shocked I certainly thought not me any one but me.  So I went on with my days and pondered the idea, and in those days of pondering I was contacted by Joy in the Mourning about this very topic.  As the days progressed God spoke to me again. “You keep asking why she’s not here, well how can you possibly start a widowers ministry if she was still here” Boom there it was an answer to a question I had no answers for, but He did.  Her legacy leads to another chapter in Gods story.  My late wife/soulmate and best friend lifted up and encouraged the very person who started Joy in the Mourning, and now to carry on what she helped to start.  We want to come along side the widowers in our community to bring some support, healing and just a place to walk beside others and be present with others on the same journey.


    How can we pray for you?  Do you have any needs?  How can we come beside you to support and encourage you. 

Goto the more tab and click prayers
Leave your prayer requests, and or needs and or contact info if you would like to meet up
at the very least I want to be able to specifically  pray for you and you journey.

Hello Readers and Friends,

     I feel I need to be brutally honest I've been working on this piece for about a week, and I have just come to realize that all this sharing is emotionally draining.  Its has taken me a bit to get up the energy to finish this piece.  Happy Reading Friends.

     Last couple of days I have been skimming writings of My Late Best Friend.  Some published some not.  Many are completed and many are just mere random thoughts she jotted down so they were not forgotten and maybe turned into a masterpiece later, but as I read them they are all masterpieces to me. Her voice can be heard clear as though she was sitting next to me reading them aloud.  I came across one such piece of work that she publish almost to the day 7 years ago.  It was called Changing the condition of my heart,  when I read this it made me realize how far we had come as a couple, but some of those struggles mentioned in that piece still were true till the day the Lord took her home.  Marriage is hard it takes work,  we were working on mentoring other couples so that maybe their struggles could be softened by bringing forth our experiences and struggles that often married life brings.  Especially when it seems at times you are two ships in the night passing, trying not to create waves so that one may not be disturbed of sleep or awoken abruptly as both have schedules to keep.  To find that balance of courtship and to be attentive for one another as kids and work bring along a whole other group of needs that require our full regard.  Married life Christian or not, is not always going to be pretty flower gardens and rainbows.  Life is messy and hard it takes commitment, it takes being able to compromise.  It takes one to over look our partners flaws the things that may completely annoy us, because those battles may just not be worth waging.  I did learn through 24 years worth of marriage how to disarm My Best Friend.  That was merely just through a hug.  I believe I've written about this before, I'm repeating this so that for you that have forgotten or have not read that piece yet.  You just maybe able to deter a battle that does not need to be had by a mere hug.  A hug can change the condition of our heart very quickly, it can change the condition of your partners heart as well.  Her writing resonated with me that we need to look at each other as God looks at us through our brokenness, or our bad day, or our built up emotions that we must keep in check.  But it's  what we do when the emotions boil over and we want to react instead of keep them at bay. Sometimes it would be good for us to be furtive in our actions showing one we love them unconditionally just as God loves us.  We are human we mess up never perfect. In fact as 

     All have turned away;
all alike have become corrupt.
There is no one who does good,
not even one. Psalm 14:3

     According to scripture not one of us is good, not one.  

  In our marriages we must realize this together and change our hearts towards one another.


Therefore, let us no longer judge one another. Instead decide never to put a stumbling block or pitfall in the way of your brother or sister.  Romans 14:13
     
     Why would we put stumbling blocks in front of our spouses, because our hearts look inward towards our feelings.  Look outward and cherish the one God has partnered you with.  Im so grateful My Best Friend and my faith in God inspired me to write this, because I may not have her here anymore, but we can still proclaim what it was to struggle and fight for our marriage by changing our hearts.  May you change your heart towards your spouse today if needed.  I hope someone benefits from reading this today.  May we love like Jesus more everyday because He loved us first.


Blessings
​Triple Legacy

 Hello Friends!
​
          Well that's what my Best Friend and Life Partner would say!  Now that she has gone to be with our Lord and savior, I now have new waters to navigate without the best co-pilot I could have ever asked for.  Now I'm flying solo or so I thought but the Lord has reviled to me that I have Him.  I may not have a help mate any more, but I have Him.  I lost my one rock the one I could always lean on.  Now He's the rock I could always lean on and will lean on till He takes me home.  We have to remember just because we are christians and follow the Lord does not mean we will not have hardships and life changing events are going to happen to us. These events will shape us and grow us as long as we do not become angry and bitter. I do not know how people go through events like this with out knowing the Lord.  I will tell you this if I didn't know the Lord I would not be in a very good place right now.  Now I do question from time to time why He took my Best Friend home, but at the same time I have joy in trusting Him because His ways are better than our ways and He knows best.  I have faith knowing that He is in control. I pray that who ever is reading this has the same faith when life brings its challenges.  The very same faith that is to prepare us for the return of Jesus is the very same faith and preparedness we have for when the life throws us curve balls.  When our normal becomes not so normal.  We let our roots grow deep in Him, so we can we can be rooted to what He has in store for our lives.  This is a small brief summary of where God has taken me so far there will be plenty more post to come.  So stay tuned my friends and we will share these new journeys together.

Blessings
​Triple Legacy