Lemons on Friday: Trusting God Through My Greatest HeartbreakSample

Who Am I Now?

We all have the human tendency to ask questions like “How long will my heart feel broken?” or “When will I be done grieving?” and “Who am I now?” We hate waiting. We long to get to a place of healing when we are hurting. And often along the way, we struggle to understand who we are in light of the changes we have grieved.

Grief is messy, and healing is in no way instant. Time is crucial to our healing. As I walked through each day, each holiday and celebration, God met me, and through the love of those around me, he began to fill up my empty places. With each of the passing years, I’ve learned how to hold the hurt and remember that time is on my side. I will heal by facing and embracing each new day without Ben as it comes. 

For the first several months, I learned so much about suffering and faith and the constant fight of living in a broken world. I’d lost huge parts of my life that I would never get back. What I hadn’t yet faced was how much of myself I’d also lost in the crossfire. I was still the same Mattie, of course, but I felt so utterly different.

I began to see I had invested much of my identity in what I did and the person I did things for. And now that person and those responsibilities were gone. I began to ask the hard question Who am I now? I hated the word widow. I did not want it to be part of who I was and how people saw me. What’s completely divine was how God, just two months before Ben’s accident, had called me to co-found an organization whose proceeds support orphans, victims of human trafficking, and widows. 

Clearly, this wasn’t a coincidence. Before anything had happened to Ben, the Lord had placed me in a position to walk out widowhood in real time, in front of all our company’s supporters, followers, and community. He gave me a platform and a voice to speak of real hurt, real struggle, and real hope before women of all ages who’d lost their spouses, and I did, to the best of my brokenhearted ability.

I’m still working through the label of widow with the Lord, and I still want it to be untrue. I want to be seen as more than a young widow. Being a widow will always be part of my story, but the Lord has reminded me that it won’t always be the biggest part of who I am. I could and would be just Mattie again; it just might take me a little while to find her. 

It’s good to grapple with who we are and be honest about the parts that hurt—the things we’ve lost or feel like we’re missing out on. Bring your losses and scars and stolen dreams to the Lord, and he will show up to soothe and repair the deepest wounds of your soul. 

Who I am looks different than it did before Ben’s death, but I’m learning to keep the label of whose I am above all the others. We are each first and foremost children of God, chosen, beloved, adopted, and given an everlasting name. It’s that name, and that name alone, that can never be lost.

Respond

How does your grief tend to define who you are?

What labels or parts of your identity are you struggling to bring to the Lord for healing? What is holding you back from addressing and surrendering these?

How has God met you in your grief and given you a glimpse of hope for the future?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you that you understand my grief and pain. Thank you that you have a future for me that includes healing and hope. Help me to honestly face my fears, bring my hurts to you, and allow you to define who I am as your child above all else. Amen.