Photo by Pavel Danilyuk
Jamie Pulos-Fry’s Widow’s cry is a book for widow ministries that shows how society can encourage and empower widows. While widowhood is a highly distressing event in women’s lives, this doesn’t mean they have to experience it alone.
Loss is a harrowing experience. But losing someone to whom you’ve promised to spend the rest of your life and share all the remaining love you have is an entirely different kind of anguish. For too many women, this has become a pivotal part of their lives. It’s an experience they never anticipated nor wished to happen, but unfortunately, it fell out.
It’s tough losing a husband; the only person you trusted to be with and help you throughout the ups and downs of life. Beyond the heartache of losing their love, women are submitted to this massive fear of providing for their families alone. They’re left anxious about how they can afford to send their children to school and provide food on their table while taking care of themselves.
Society’s Role to Help Them Get Through
Once women experience being a widow, grieving and coping can be extremely difficult. To other women, overcoming this loss can even be a boulder that’s nearly impossible to remove. In some circumstances, coping isn’t something they have to deal with by themselves. Sometimes, they may need society’s help to boost their morale too.
A Widow’s Cry is a book for widow ministries. Author Jamie Pulos-Fry wrote this to help people understand what widows need for encouragement when visitors visit them or organize events for them. The book includes how the Bible views widows, reflecting how this image has transformed over time. It also narrates what modern society can do for them to encourage them to brave through life and the endless challenges it gives with their current situation.
Widows Club or Ministries
The transition period from having a happy married life to widowhood would be considered a distressing event in any woman’s life. While mourning and healing from the loss, they’re shoved to reconfigure their lives from having a partner to losing one and fending for themselves.
Going through this experience alone can be extremely disheartening.
A big part of helping widows is providing them with support and a shoulder to lean on during this sorrow. Society can’t stretch its shoulders to offer comfort to every widow. But they can encourage the community to coordinate and organize communities for these women.
They can help each other cope with the loss by forming a small community of their own. Nobody would know the pain they’re experiencing better than other women going through the same loss.
Criticism and Stigma
Personally, helping every single widow in the community will be difficult for society to handle. But what it can do to improve their situation is to counter stigmatization.
Widowhood is hugely stigmatized in some regions of the world. It’s seen as a source of shame despite its cause being something inevitable and uncontrollable by women themselves. Some cultures even associate widowhood with witchcraft, perceiving it as a curse for women.
The loss is already a burden, and the stigma thrown at them doesn’t help. These misconceptions and shame can ostracize and abuse widows, leading them to fewer economic resources and growth opportunities.
Death is something they can’t control or stop, but society can help alleviate widows’ pain by assisting them to avoid being the center of criticism and humiliation. This can be done by collaborating with widow’s clubs and ministries and introducing them as an essential part of the community.
Home Visits
Widowhood can make even the strongest woman highly vulnerable. Hence, it’s essential to check in on them once in a while to ensure their safety and how they’re coping. This event comes with many challenges beyond providing for their children alone. Society can offer general support with mundane things like medical assistance, shopping, or even help to care for their children.
Financial Support and Discussion
Financial capacity becomes massive trouble for widows. If they don’t have savings allotted for future use, widows may need to look for new or more sources of income to support their family alone.
Society now values women similarly to how they value men. They’re achieving new heights of financial capacity, as men do. However, widowhood increases women’s economic vulnerability more than ever. With the struggle of juggling their source of income and taking care of their children, it’s challenging to keep ends meet as widows.
