stages of life on Widows

Our God is a righteous Judge who presides over all the earth. He defends the weak and the fatherless. He upholds the cause of the poor and the oppressed. He rescues the weak and the needy and delivers...

Leader: Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, People: whose hope is in the Lord their God, Leader: who made heaven and earth, People: the sea, and all that is in them, Leader: who ...

Leader: How good it is to sing praises to our God! People: Great are You, Lord and mighty in power. You understand everything about each one of us. You heal the brokenhearted and bind up our wounds....

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe ...

A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of their ...

God—our Father ... our Savior ... our Counselor and Friend: Thank you for daring to meet us at the most unlikely places, and in the most unexpected times of our lives. Thank you for redeeming our pain...

Leader: Sing to God, sing praises to his name; People: Lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him! Leader: Father of the fatherless and protector of...

We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the we...

Watch, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep [tonight], and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ, rest your weary ones. Bless your dying one...

Sam died and left $50,000 in his will for an elaborate funeral. As the last attenders left, Sam’s wife, Rose, turned to her oldest friend, Sadie, and said, “Well, I’m sure Sam would be pleased.” “I’...

Here lies a poor woman who always was tired, For she lived in a place where help wasn’t hired. Her last words on earth were, Dear friends I am going Where washing ain’t done nor sweeping nor sewing, A...

I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?

If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?

O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude...”

Those who grieve find comfort in weeping and in arousing their sorrow until the body is too tired to bear the inner emotions.

A good friend of mine lost her child recently. Unspeakable, seismic sadness. When she called, I listened in stunned silence as she told me what had happened. My mind was racing, trying to comprehend t...

Arwen to Aragorn: "I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone."

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.

Was ever grief like mine?

Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, That sees into the bottom of my grief?

We cannot know the inheritance of God without identifying with the poor in spirit, without the poverty that says, “I am naked and poor and wretched and I need a Savior or I’ll die. I’m desperate for y...

For one drop calls another down, till we are drowned in seas of grief.

A very old man lay dying in his bed. In death’s doorway, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookie wafting up the stairs. He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himsel...

Grief dares us to love once more.

For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?

After the adrenalin rush of the death and funeral, bereaved people often feel deserted and overwhelmed with loneliness.

As we feel the pain of our own losses, our grieving hearts open our inner eye to a world in which losses are suffered far beyond our own little world of family, friends, and colleagues. It is the worl...