Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Starcare's a weekly program that delves into the
issues that impact you and your family. This program is
a public affairs feature of this radio station. Now here's
your host, Michael Leach.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Nothing fully prepares you for the unexpected tragedy of losing
a spouse. It alters your life forever. Yet in the
depths of sorrow, some individuals can transform their pain to
encourage others, so says my guest today. Her name is
Rachel Faulkner Brown, and she is here to do just that,
to encourage others and to share her story. Rachel, thank
you for joining me today and welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Thank you. I'm so honored to be here. Such a gift.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Absolutely, you have written a resource entitled widows Might What
motivated you to pen that resource?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Well, I work with thousands of widows every day and
trying to help them, you know, stretching back my hand
to say, hold mine, You're gonna make it. Your best
days are ahead, because widows just don't believe that. And
I think for me, I didn't have a resource. There
are lots of resources, but it was you know, people
dealing with other kinds of losses, And I think I
(01:07):
wanted something totally dedicated to the widow for a year
where they could see and hear other widow's voices in
their pain, and that they had mined the pain and
come out with treasure. Because there's such revelation in the
dark places. I would say, more than on the mountain.
And me and my two hundred closest widow friends to
(01:29):
write with me, and it's just a beautiful compilation of
their treasures in the dark for these amazing widows behind us,
and many of them will never meet.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So you have your own story marrying right out of college,
losing your first husband to a brain aneurism, and then
you remarried, and then you lost your second husband to
an Air Force plane accident. Howe did you manage your
own losses while raising two children?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Well, one day at a time. I will tell you
there were many days where I didn't I feel like
I was managing it at all. It was managing me,
I will be really honest. But my mom the day
that Bleair died, she said, honey, if you can just
take a shower every day and wash off what has
happened in that day and wash off some of the
grief and cry in the shower. She was like, you
(02:16):
are going to be so much better prepared for that day,
and she was right, And I mean, it's some of
the best advice I've ever been given. And I did that,
and honestly, like nobody was talking about self care eighteen
years ago, you know, but today we you know, we
are and honestly, like I still believe God speaks to
me in the shower more than he does anywhere else.
(02:37):
Driving cars and showering, I can hear the voice of
God so clearly. And you know, my mom was so right.
And I think for me, the way that I didn't
manage it well is what has become my life message
because I want to help people avoid the pitfalls that
I fell into, which was, you know, I didn't go
to therapy. I kind of woke up okay, okay every
(03:00):
day and I didn't struggle with depression, but I was
still very broken and I just felt like I just
needed to grint it out, and so I didn't go
to therapy. And so I'm such an advocate for therapy
and cognitive behavioral therapy and counseling and all the things
that go with that, and I just had to do
that later because I didn't do it in a timely manner.
(03:20):
If you don't heal, you'll have to go back and
heal the parts of you that didn't get healed. And
that's what I had to do. I had to repeat history.
And so I'm like, don't do what I did. Do
what I'm telling you now, because hindsight truly is twenty twenty.
And so I feel like I'm giving these widows behind me,
you know, the gift of hindsight.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
So the one thing that you did have in your
favor was your Christian faith. I see all the time.
I don't know how people live without Jesus in the
world today, right, And I guess you felt like you
really had to exemplify that. But how did it go
in your effort to really try to be that quote
unquote perfect Christian, which none of us can really be.
How did that impact you?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Well, let's just I was emotionally a bankrupt person because
my parents, amazingly, you know, took me to church and
gave me the foundation of Jesus and the truth of
the Cross and the truth of the Gospel. But what
I didn't have is I really didn't have an emotional
vocabulary so I was just a strong, gritty, resilient person,
(04:20):
but I really did not know how to embrace my feelings.
And you know, there is some really good parts of that,
and there's some really dangerous parts of that. And I
think for me trying to parent to little kids, you know,
without waving the banner of hope for Jesus and you know,
speaking scripture over them. You know, he wants us to
be heal hole and delivered in our emotions, in our
(04:43):
spiritual walk, in our body. And I did not realize that.
I didn't even know that was like a thing. I thought, Okay,
we'll just speak scripture over our lives and declear things.
And the reality is is He's like, I want to
heal you from the inside out. And that doesn't just
mean using my word as a band aid. And that's
kind of what I did. But you've got to feel
(05:03):
it to heal it. And so I sat in therapy
for two years, eleven years after my first husband passed away.
I'd never been to a therapist and learned how to
feel again, learned you know, just what emotion words meant,
and you know, really trying to sit in that space
to acknowledge them. Not let them lead, but to acknowledge
them and work with them because they are indicators. They're indicators,
(05:27):
and I did not realize that. I just thought I
need to squash them down just to keep going. And
Jesus is like, no, I came to give you wholeness
in your emotions and in your mind and in your body,
in all parts of you, and I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Why do you believe that it's important for us to
be reminded that God mentions caring for widows in the Bible.
Why is that important?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, well, you know, I think the reality is that
we don't wear name tags that say I'm a widow,
and so you know when you look at me, if
you saw me at church, or you saw another widow
at church, she'd look like anybody else and a lot
of times you wouldn't notice that her husband was there.
But that is why community is so important, and knowing
(06:09):
who the widows are in your community, in your church,
in your life groups, whatever you're doing, and whatever your
community looks like, but identifying them and really paying attention.
I think the Lord was so gracious to add over
thirteen widows mentioned in scripture, and He's like I'm going
to highlight them because you will forget them. Three to
six months after a widow loses her husband, she loses
(06:32):
all her support because people move on. I mean they
move on to Monday after the funeral. I mean I
had my husband's funerals on Friday, and on Monday, everybody
was doing the same thing they were doing before, and
my life was totally different, never to be the same.
And the reality is is it's the Lord's grace and
mercy to remind you that pure, true religion, true spirituality,
(06:54):
James One twenty seven says in the Passion translation, true
spirituality is to take of the widows and orphans in
their time of need, and there is a lot of need.
I think he was just gracious, is the mercy of
God to remind us. Of course, in biblical times, like
witness would die, they had no money, they had no
way to support themselves. I mean, it was really beast
(07:15):
or famine for them. And at the end of the day,
it's not like that anymore. But the needs are still there,
and He's just like, I want you to not forget.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
In thinking about some of the people that I know
that have lost spouses, it just appears sometimes that after
experiencing the loss, they've been very intentional about staying busy
and just you know, saying no, I'm good. And so
sometimes we don't know, I think, how to really help.
Why is it important to take time as a widow
(07:45):
for yourself and what should widows be focusing on during
those times?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, well, you're so right. Business is a drug, I mean,
and it is an escape mechanism, honestly. You know, I
think about people who run marathons. A lot of times
they're training for something that's that's incredibly difficult, but they're
also they're running, you know, and so many times I
think a lot of people are running from something. They're
not running to something. Maybe sometimes, but I think at
(08:12):
the end of the day, widows a lot of times
their life was hard before their husband died, Their marriage
was hard before their husband died. They had shame. That
was certainly my story. I mean, I was abused as
a young girl, and I was running from it for
twenty five years. I'd never told anyone I was carrying
a secret. And you know, after doing forty retreats and
(08:33):
you know, four conferences and meeting thousands of widows, that
is one hundred percent of the case. So many times
they are carrying around balls and chains of shame that
they do not know how to get rid of. And
the easiest coping strategy without you know, becoming an alcoholic
is busyness, and it's an epidemic. And I think stillness,
(08:55):
be still and know that I'm God. Well, in the stillness,
you will hear the voice of God wooing you to
a new place. But I will tell you healing is messy,
and a lot of times people just don't want to
get messy, and so they do stay busy. But I
think the reality is is that if widows can not
despise their pain and really sit in it and go,
(09:18):
what is it that I want to get from this?
Because we cannot as a nation, and as a nation
of widows, we can't afford to waste this pain. Like
God is inviting us into a bigger story, and he
really is opening the door to a bigger life if
we'll walk through it. But that requires a messy journey.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
And so in addition to becoming busy in your work,
you see that many widows rush through their period of
singleness or just the grieving process in general. What do
you think is driving that well.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
I mean, I'm going to be really honest, at the
end of the day, two are better than one. I
mean they just just is. I mean, you know, one
can pull a thousand and two can pull ten thousand.
You know, we long to be known, and that does
not stop because your husband dies. Unfortunately, even if you
had an amazing marriage and a lot of times you're
more motivated to find you know, companionship and love. And
(10:11):
I always say to the widow's go after your own
healing and look to your right, you know, theoretically look
over and see who's going after their healing too, because
that is the person that you want to be with,
right You don't want to be with the person who's
way behind, who's never been to therapy, who's resistant to therapy,
who you know, thinks they've got it all together and
you know, just don't want to heal, or you know
(10:33):
they aren't a generous person with their life, Like, that's
not the person that you want to be with. And
I rushed, you know, I rushed into companionship myself. I
mean there is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stories
of us doing that and regretting it, honestly, But I
think at the end of the day, when you can
really invest in yourself, it's such a unique opportunity to
(10:54):
just be in charge of you. I mean, you know,
and if you're raising kids, yes, you're in charge of
your children, but it is a unique situation. You're in
charge of your finances, you're in charge of your health,
you're in charge of your self care, you're in charge
of your therapy. You will never get that time back,
and so I'm like, just dig in and take what
you can from this painful thing because you won't be
(11:17):
here again. You know, every day, you will never live
this day again, and so what can I take from
this day and what can I learn from this season?
That is my encouragement to people. Don't rush into another relationship.
A lot of times people are trauma bonded or were
trauma bonded with their husband, and so they have unhealthy
coping skills and they have codependency. And I was like,
(11:39):
learn those things about yourself and widowhood so that you
can avoid that pitfall the second time. And you know,
we see it happening. But a lot of times when
they come to us and they encounter Jesus and they
let go of their secret, they let go of their shame.
God reveals a whole other life to them that they
did not know what that was possible.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Tell us more about your ministry Never Alone Widows. Wow,
how do you all help other widows?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Well, we just believe that widows are some of the
most powerful people on the planet. They have an amazing
story that people want to hear, and they also have
an opportunity, you know, to testify to the goodness of
God even when it's hard and people are looking for
that right, I mean, people are looking for hope. And
(12:22):
what we do at Never Alone Widows is we take
widows in desperation and we bring them into a destiny
through the healing power of Jesus. Our secret sauce, if
we had one, would be prayer and the impactfulness of
praying for widows and using a specific kind of prayer
called a manual prayer, where we connect the brain back
(12:44):
to joy through a powerful positive memory. And it sounds
so simple and you know, almost too good to be true,
But when you are in trauma, your circuits are dim
and you have a hard time experiencing true joy. And
so we just reconnect those circuits through these exercises, and
then we offer resources. You know, we have a video
series called how to Widow Well that anybody can access
(13:07):
and the whole country and the whole world, and you know,
we just want them to widow well, do this well,
and here's twenty videos to help you do that. We
have local groups, We have retreats that widows can apply
to go on. And then we have a conference for
any age widow, whether you're twenty two or ninety two,
and we've had you know, the age range has been
unbelievable at these conferences. But they all have the same story.
(13:30):
They're all widowed and you feel immediately known. It doesn't
matter what your background is or where you come from.
When you're a widow, you are connected to that sister
and it's powerful.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So how can they reach out to contact and Never
Alone Widows.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, so our website is www dot Never Alone Widows
dot com and then we're very active on Instagram at
Never Alone Widows. But the website you can find all
the local groups we have, you know, where you can
join the chapter and mail that leader of that chapter
and get engaged. We have an online chapter if you're
not in a city where we have availability for you
(14:08):
to meet, you know, in person, but it's so exciting.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
So that's never alone widows dot com, Never alone widows
dot com. Rachel Faulkner Brown, thank you so much for
sharing your story and for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Absolutely such a gift. Thank you for having me, and.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Thank you for listening. Won't you join me again? I'm
your host, Michael Legion. I am praying for you and
praying that the rest of your day is wonderful.