Episode 7 - Penny Watkins - God Has a Generous Grading Scale

 Join us for a heartfelt and inspiring conversation with Sis Penny Watkins as she shares the many spiritual encounters she has experienced since becoming a widow. With authenticity, honesty, and unwavering faith, Sis Watkins opens up about walking through grief, discovering God's presence in the midst of struggle, and finding the peace that truly passes all understanding.

Her testimony is a powerful reminder that God is faithful in every season and continues to meet us in our deepest moments of need. This encouraging episode is filled with hope, comfort, and inspiration for anyone seeking to draw closer to God through life's challenges.

You won't want to miss this uplifting conversation. 

Thank you for listening to The Business of Widows! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider following and leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it really helps! Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at @thebusinessofwidows for updates and behind-the-scenes content.

This episode was hosted and edited by Abigail Peterson.

See you next time!"

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the Business of Widows, real stories of grief, grace, and God's goodness. I'm your host, Abigail Peterson, and this is a special space for those who are walking through the unimaginable. Here we share honest, unfiltered conversations with widows and widowers who have lived through deep loss, yet have encountered God's presence in the middle of their pain. Each episode reminds you that your grief is real, your story matters, and you are not alone. So take a deep breath, come as you are, and join us as we explore heartbreak, healing, holy moments, and the unexpected goodness of God one story at a time. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Business of Widows podcast. We have a very special guest today. I am so honored to have Sister Penny Watkins from Ohio. Thank you, Sister Watkins, for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Welcome. I appreciate you asking me, inviting me.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

You are another guest that other people have recommended and said you've got to have Sister Penny Watkins on. One of my good friends, Sister Jamie Herndon of the Unshamed of Le U podcast. She shared that you have been on her podcast and what a wonderful guest you were, and what wonderful words of wisdom you shared with her audience. So I'm just so grateful that you agreed to come on today and bless us with what with all of your wisdom and your life experience. So I'm gonna start off by asking you to introduce yourself, your late spouse, and share your love story, whatever you would like to share with us. Please, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Okay, as you said, I'm Penny Watkins, and I go to Bradley and Tiffany Smith Church in Dayton, Ohio. And Tiffany is my only child. I've written and published four books. I've traveled and uh spoken at churches and ladies' conferences for 35 years. I do premarital counseling here as well as other kinds of counseling at our church. Once a month, uh I cook for men and women who are in drug rehab. I have four grandchildren, Jordan, Drew, Lindsay, and Carson Smith. And I have two great-granddaughters, Amora and Viviana. Uh my husband and I met at Texas Bible College and we were married for 37 years. Carlton was a pastor. He was a pastor's pastor, which is preachers who called him pastor and looked to him for wisdom and advice. Uh he was the presbyter of our section where we pastor and where we pastored in Dangerfield, Texas. And he was a loving, kind, and caring husband, father, and friend. Um Carleton told me every day that he loved me. He was a great husband. And he used to say, Penny, I wish I had the money to give you anything that you wanted. And I would tell him, I have a God and a husband that I uh that I love and who loves me. Uh we own a house that I love. I drive a good car and I have a gas card to put gas in that car. And I have an American Express card so I can buy a new dress or a hamburger once in a while. So I'd tell him, baby, I have everything I want. Um, not long before he passed away, I was recovering from a bad case of flu and was still recuperating in bed. And Valentine's Day was coming up, and I wondered how I could make it a little more special for him. I had a uh I remembered a leather-bound book with 160 uh blank pages in it. So I got it out and I wrote, Happy Valentine's Day, Carlton. Here are 160 reasons why I love you. Now I realized after his death that I had written that book for myself. Uh he appreciated it. But uh at my fingertips now are tons of little things that I'm sure I would have forgotten uh through the years. And and I wrote one reason why I loved him on every page. Uh for about every reason uh why I said I loved him, I also drew pictures. So some of the some of the reasons are serious and others are cute and funny. Um I've got a couple that I've I'll I'll read. Reason 14, you bring me diet cokes without me even asking you. And I love that about you. And I drew a bottle of caffeine-free Diet Coke at the end at the bottom of the page. Uh, reason 37, you keep me focused spiritually on what's really important. Uh, reason number eight uh or 98, and this would be the last one that I mentioned. You always pray for me when I travel and speak. I rely on that. And you always call me to ask me how it went. Uh and I'd like to add here that after he died, I'd pick up my cell phone to call him and tell him how it went, and then I would remember that he wasn't there anymore and I would cry. Uh Carlton was on the Texas District Board, and he was in Lufkin, Texas at board meetings when he called me to tell me that he was very short of breath. He said his friends on the board were trying to get him to go to the hospital to be checked out. And so he told me he was going to drive to Longfield, Texas, which was much closer to home, and to the hospital to see what they say. Um, after test, they told him he was having a silent heart attack. That means that you don't feel pain, but you just have this shortness of breath. They put in a stint and they sent him home the next day. About 10 nights later, we were out to eat with our pastor and pastor's wife, Tommy Kraft and Diane from Jackson, Mississippi. And uh he was uh Brother Kraft was scheduled to preach in our section, and and so we had a wonderful, wonderful visit with him. And when we came home that night, I told him I was going to bed, and he was kicked back in his recliner. In his left hand, he had an orange popsicle. And in his right on the arm of the chair, he had his laptop computer. And that's the last time I saw him alive. And I said, baby, I'm going to bed. See you in the morning. Um, the next morning I got up and glanced at him as I walked out of the bedroom, but he had a sleep apnea mask on, and so there wasn't much to see. So I um he usually got up before me, but he was still recovering from the heart attack that he had had two weeks before. So I went into the kitchen, made coffee, and uh did some work on my computer. And about an hour and a half later, I thought, he sh he should have been up. And as soon as I walked into the bedroom, I noticed something I hadn't before. His arm had fallen off and was hanging down, um, and his hand was black. And I just stood there and uh I was looking at him and and I um there was a little sunlight coming through the blinds, and I thought I saw him breathe, because I thought, oh God, is he dead? And then I thought I saw him breathe, and then I thought he wasn't. And um I I knew I needed to go over and put my hands on his chest to see if he was breathing, but I didn't want to, because what if he wasn't? Uh, what if he was dead, my whole life would change. I I didn't, I just didn't think I could take it. And as long as I stood there, he might be still be alive. And finally, I took the longest five steps I ever took to his bedside, and I put both hands on his chest and I knew he was gone. Uh, he probably passed away somewhere around three or four o'clock in the morning. Um, you know, when you went out to eat the night before and had a great time, I I just wasn't expecting it. Um I went into hysterics and my first words were, baby, wake up. We're not through with the new church. We had just built a new building. And um, and I guess we had uh walked it, talked it, ate it, breathed it, and I guess that's the first thing that came to my mind is Yes, you know, uh about the about the church. Um my husband had ordered the peas, but they hadn't arrived yet, and and uh but the paint was on the wall, the flooring was all down, and and um so I I'm trying to make sense of this. He he's he's gone. And um, so excuse me, I uh I went into the kitchen. I thought I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go into the kitchen. And uh the kitchen was clean, but I thought I'll straighten up, wipe off the cabinets or something, and he's gonna come walking in. I I was in shock. And so I got a you know, a deal, and I was kind of wiping around, and I would stop and listen, but I didn't hear him. I'd do it again, I'd stop and listen, and and he he didn't come in. And I took my hand and I slapped the cabinet and I said, God, I can't accept this. I cannot accept this. And I heard this audibly. It was like the song It Is Well with my soul started playing. I was sitting there hearing that song, and I didn't put it on. And I said, Okay, God, I I can, I will accept this. And so again, my husband had ordered the pews, but they hadn't arrived. So we rented folding chairs and we had his funeral in the new church building. Sadly, the first service in the new church was the pastor's funeral. Wow. Um so for the past four decades, I had spoken at local churches and and conferences in several states, but primarily my speaking was in the South. I had spoken uh four times in North Little Rock, Arkansas, uh, when Brother Joel Holmes was the pastor. I think he's bishop now. But the time that I remember most is I was scheduled to speak for uh Brother and Sister Holmes' ladies on a Friday night, but had no idea that my husband would die in his sleep two weeks to the day I was supposed to speak. I was an emotional mess. I was moving to Ohio, a state I hadn't called home in 38 years. I was leaving my church family in Texas and my husband's body in Jackson, Mississippi. And that said, I had planned to cancel that speaking engagement in North Little Rock, but Brother Kraft, my pastor, said, Penny, if you cancel now, you're gonna keep canceling. So go and speak, and the Lord will be with you. So if I go to North Little Rock, I had a couple of my close friends with me, and and the ladies in North Little Rock were so sweet. While I was speaking, text was going out to my daughter in Ohio, and they said, Oh, your mom is doing so great, and and uh, but I'm pretty sure it was sad and pathetic. Um, I had to look and sound like a zombie because I was in indescribable emotional pain. But God helped me, he helped me to get through it without falling apart. And so more about Carlton, he loved God, and I used to tease him. I said, I I called him Cardi. That was my my nickname. And I'd say, I think God's a little partial to you. And he uh Carlton had great faith. Uh he had spiritual gifts that I wish I would have. In fact, after he passed away, I said, God, uh, Carlton's not here anymore. Would you give me this particular gift? But he never did. And so, because he could pray with people at at the altar, and then God would start speaking to him and and God would give him a word, and I thought, oh, that'd be so cool to be able to do that. But uh anyway, um, I always felt safe uh with him as my husband and my spiritual protector. Uh when he died, I felt exposed to the spirit world. Now that may sound strange to a lot of people, but it seems that we were always made aware of the spirit world, especially in Dangerfield, because we were surrounded by witches.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Um wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Uh not long before he died, uh, we uh my husband came to church one Sunday morning. There was a note written for red, I guess, uh written in red, I guess that was for blood. And and this note said, We're gonna burn your church down. Well, he went in. Uh, those were the days that you had voice machines, and so he turned that on, and there were several voice machines, and I mean voice uh recordings, and they kept coming in even after that. Um, and they you know threatened to kill him. Um you know, they they said they was going to burn down the church, they were going to saturate his family with his blood, they were even gonna kill our dog, and they laughed and said, You didn't know we knew that much about you, but uh, we've been watching you, and Mr. Watkins, we will get you. There's only room in Dangerfield for one minister, and that is the minister of darkness. And uh so anyway, because they kept threatening to burn down the church, my husband and trustees were worried that if the in if they did burn down the church and the um, you know, and they knew that we knew that was a possibility, they might they in turns might not want to pay. So they called in the police chief, who they all knew. And uh once the police chief heard all of these recordings and he said, you know, if there'd only been one, two, three, even three death threats, I wouldn't do anything, but there's so many, he said, I'm gonna have to call in the Texas Rangers. So he did, and my husband was under the pot uh care of the protect uh excuse me, of the Texas Rangers for a while. And when I say that Satan, after he died, Satan pulled out the stops trying to destroy me. Uh, especially in those first 24 months uh after Carlton's death. Uh the devil tried to get me interested in a warly man. Uh, he tried resist, he tried to take my sanity. And the list goes on. It was the middle of the night, and I was bombarded this particular night with filthy thoughts. I kept rebuking and rebuking, and nothing was happening. And they just kept pouring into my mind stuff I knew was not coming for me. And finally I said, Jesus, do something, stop these thoughts. And he opened my spiritual eyes, and on the ceiling was a bat. Uh, its body was thick, it was probably four foot wide and six foot long. I mean, it when I say it was a bat, it was. And um, standing on the floor near the bat, uh, all I can say is I call him the lion man because he was probably six foot eight. He had the body of a man, and he was wearing something like a one-piece beige-fitted jumpsuit with no seams, no zippers. But he had a face like a lion, and he had this huge mane around his neck. And I heard the bat ask the lion, are you having any success destroying her? And very deliberately and slowly the lion turned his head and he looked me right in the eyes. Um it was like looking into hell itself. I can still see his dead, piercing, soulless eyes looking right into my face. Uh since then, on a few occasions, I have felt that they were still around.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

So, Sister Watkins, what do you remember about the early days of your grief?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Well, about um two weeks after Carlton died, Tiffany was staying with me. Again, she's my only child, and um something woke me up in the middle of the night, and at the foot of my bed was a black demon holding a black, had a he had a black cape folded over his arm. And he took that cape and he put it over my feet, then he spread it over my torso, and then with both hands he crammed it over my face, and it was like all of the air sucked out. I couldn't breathe, I was suffocating, and finally I was able to say, Jesus, and when I did, uh he was gone. And Tiffany sat up and she said, Mother, what's what's wrong? And and I didn't want to upset her. And so I said, I I guess it was a dream, but it was not. It wasn't a dream. So I went into the um den where I cried for a long time, and it's like uh it's like that demon followed me in there and said, This is your new life. How do you like it so far? And a week later, I was in the same den one night, and I was crying. There was a lot of tears in those days, and and uh the den lights were low and the carport light was on, and um I had vertical blinds, but they were made of thin fabric. Uh, and with that carport light being on, I saw a figure out there, and we were being robbed. My husband's uh there was a a little shed out um connected to the carport, and and there was someone out there robbing, robbing his shed. My mother-in-law lived in another state, and I was talking to her, and she said, Penny, why didn't you look out and see who it was and stop him? And I said, Ruby, I was I am so hurt by Carlton's death that I knew if I looked out, I would know who he was. I would know his name, and I believe it was somebody that was supposed to love my husband. And I said, because of my hurt, I said, I just did not feel like I could take another hurt. My uh mother-in-law, I mean my mom had a nervous breakdown when I was 15 years old. And this is a little later, and and uh my two brothers and my sister, who were all older than me, had moved on. Even my dad moved out. But where could I go? I was 15, and and uh I was there from beginning to end uh through her nervous breakdown. And dad called home one day and I told him, I said, Dad, something is wrong with mom. I said, she keeps asking who I am. Um she keeps asking my name. So he came home and and he uh took her to the hospital. Uh one day, several months after Carlton died, I was so tired and I was I was still very um just in deep grief uh about Carlton's death. Uh and at this point I had moved to Ohio. Um I had no family in Texas and they needed to vote in another pastor, and so I moved back to Ohio, and I stood and I was looking out the window onto the street. And I felt myself wanting to give in to a nervous breakdown. I thought, I can't imagine being knocked out for about six weeks and not having to even think about all of this. And all I had to do was let go. I was that close. And um, God let me know if that's what you want. I'll let you have a breakdown. But first, there's something I want to show you. And um the next thing you know, I was in a vision. I was 15 again, and mom had come home from the mental hospital, uh, where she had had like, I don't know, five or six shock treatments on her brain. And what that does is it it blocks out memories. And uh, so when she came home, mom and I would be talking, and and I'd go, Mom, do you remember this? Do you remember that experience? And she didn't remember anything. Even years later, mom still had um had blocks of memory that never came back. And when God brought me out of that vision, I told him, I said, God, I don't want a nervous breakdown. I uh please don't let me have one because I have beautiful memories of mine and Carlton's 37 years together that I don't want to forget. Yes. Um not long after Carlton died, I was talking to a friend on the phone when she asked me how I was doing. And I told her, I said, I'm I sit in darkness. I said, I can't see the hand in front of my face. After I got off the phone, now I was still in Dangerfield when when this happened. After I got off the phone, I walked into the kitchen and picked up a promise out of my promise box. And it said, When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me. And I I laughed and I said, God, you heard what I said about the darkness. And so several months later, now I'm in Ohio, and I uh I was in worship service on a Sunday night at the church, and and uh and um I suddenly I was telling the Lord, I said, God, I I love you, and no matter what, I will live for you. Just give me your strength and and I will. I'll I'll I'll live the rest of my life for you. And and suddenly, now this is gonna sound like boy, she has a lot of visions. I don't. Uh I I've had very few, and two of them was in the early months of Carlton dying. Uh, but suddenly I'm in another vision, and I was in pitch blackness. Now I battled claustrophobia for years, and although I couldn't see anything, I knew I was in a closed-in space. And and so I reached out my uh both arms and I could feel roughness like rocks, and I thought, oh God, I'm in a cave. That's not a place a claustrophobic wants to be. And so anyway, um I I would take a few steps, I fell in a hole, I got up, I'm trying to hold on to the wall and walking. I was walking on rock shards, falling into crevices on the cave floor, when a light from way down came on. And it turned out that I was in a tunnel, and I was seeing, I guess, the light at the end of the tunnel. But by the time it got it reached me, it was very dim. And then the light went out. And I knew in real life, if I kept stumbling my way forward, I would eventually emerge from the darkness.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

So anyway, one evening, um, it was uh it was a Sunday, and I was fixing my hair and I was getting ready for church, but I had been crying, and because there was one and two-inch hairs all over the sink. I don't cut my hair, but it was breaking off like crazy. And then there were some long strands in the sink, too. And my hair was breaking off because of stress. And on the way to church, I um I started experiencing these brain glitches. I didn't know, I thought, what is wrong with my brain? And I couldn't think clearly. It was an effort to think. And during worship service, I was gonna I was gonna clap my hands to one of the courses, and my hands kept missing each other. And I thought, what is going on? And I leaned over and I told my sister, I said, I'm gonna go up and and lay down on Bradley's couch. And so Vicki was the secretary of the church, my sister, and so she took the offering and and she'd always take it up and put it in the safe. And so she came in to check on me, took my blood pressure, it was sky high, it had always been low. I'd never had high blood pressure. And um, but I let me back up. On the way to his office, I felt this thing, it started at my shoulders and it like whooshed down my arm and out my fingers. And when it did, my arm was dead. It wasn't numb, it was dead. I could have taken a butcher knife and cut my arm off and not felt nothing. And and when I was walking, it was swinging lifelessly on on uh off my shoulder. And so when Vicky took my blood pressure, she asked me, she said, What hospital do you want to go to? And I told her it didn't last. So she took me to the hospital and I was having I was having a TIA, which is basically a stroke, but but the symptoms clear up in 24 hours or less. If you keep those symptoms for in 24 hours, they declare it a full-fledged stroke. But when your arm is dead on the side of your, I mean, and you there's no control, you can't. Um yeah, I mean, so people who have TIAs, they have stroke the same s symptoms as people who with a full full-fledged stroke. So anyway, thank God. When I got to the hospital about an hour and a half or so, my feeling my right arm started coming back. Um, I don't know. I guess God blocked me from worrying about what if I have to live like this? I'm right-handed. I write books. Um, but it's like God blocked that. It didn't even come to mind. And so thank the Lord, it um my feelings started coming back in in my arm. And at this point, uh, my whole right side was my arm was gone, and probably 40 or 50 percent of my right leg. And um so, and then to in time that started coming back. So I had two doctors come in. They can't they didn't come in together, but they came in separately. I guess they didn't see this very often. But each one of them that came in said, What has happened to you? Um, we have done blood tests and they're showing that your system has crashed and stress is the likely call cause. So I told them a little bit, you know, about my husband dying. And um what I did mention is my my home had gone into foreclosure. Um the uh back in in 2009, uh when the economy crashed and and all of these banks and stuff, well, people in small towns, they're not gonna turn loose of their money. And no matter what I did, no matter how much I came down on the house, I couldn't sell it. And um so anyway, I I told them and they said, you know, well, that that would do it. Eleven weeks later, I was back in acute care in the hospital with another TIA. Um and but I uh something good did come out of this when uh Carlton died in October, and the next month was November, and Tiffany called me and she said, Mother, she said, uh, why don't you fly to Dayton and go to uh we're gonna spend Thanksgiving in Pigeon Fort. And she said, We'd like for you to go. And I said, Okay. Uh I said, I'll come. So I drove to Dallas, to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, and when I went through security, I looked to my right, and there was an older gentleman, I would say probably 80 years old, in good shape. He had a kind smile. He was standing there and he was waiting on me, and he had both hands stretched out toward me. And now I think I must have been born with a suspicious trick up my back because normally I would have never done what I did. But I went over to him, I put my uh carry-on down, and I took both hands, his hands in mine. And he uh he was tall and well dressed in slacks and a neat long-sleeve shirt, and he stooped down and he looked me in the eyes and he said, How are you doing? I knew by the way he asked, he knew my husband had died.

unknown 32:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I just knew. And but when you're talking, I've had a couple of experiences, and when you're talking to a heavenly being, it's like it it's not on your radar right then. Um and I told him I was doing okay, and he was still holding my hands, and uh his face was about 12 inches from mine, and he he said with a combination of intensity and warmth, you know, if you need me at all, all you have to do is call on me and I'll be there. And I said, Yes, I know. And he said, I must go now. And he turned and he walked a few steps away, and my gate was in the opposite direction, and I turned to take a few steps, but I had a feeling about him. So I stopped and I turned around to watch him until he was out of sight, but he was not there. He was turning to go and he was gone in three or four seconds, just gone. Now, Carlton and I flew out of DFW airport for over 25 years, and usually in the daytime, the corridors are just packed with people. But no one was around. There was no one in the corridor, and and and so uh my encourager had not vanished into a crowd of people, he just simply vanished. And from that point, I always knew, no matter how bad it had gotten, uh, God was watching me. I felt his eyes on me. I always knew that his eyes were on me. And I was and I still am safe in God's hands.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Yes, that is so beautiful, Sister Watkins. What a what an immense amount of encounters that you've had. And I I mean, I'm just in awe listening to you, you know, as somebody who's gone through something, you know, the tragic passing of your husband and finding him. And as you were talking, some of that same desperation that you had, I know that I have felt, and I know that others, you know, especially widows and widowers that are listening, they have probably experienced those same type of desperate feelings. But to hear somebody else share it and to be reminded that even in that darkness, that God shows up. God shows up is just it's just a reminder to keep holding on that you are that we are safe in his care. We are safe in his care. And I'm just, again, I'm I'm in awe of your of your testimony. And I personally haven't experienced you know spiritual being encounters, but along my walk has been that consistent presence of God that has let me know, as you said, I'm gonna be here. I'm I'm gonna carry you through this. And it's it's just a it's a comfort to hear others, which is has been my point in having this podcast, is everybody doesn't have the same experience. Everybody doesn't have, doesn't um go through grief in the same way that the next person does, but to be able to identify and say, yes, I felt that, and God also showed up for me. God maybe didn't show up in that exact way, but he has showed up for me, and that is it's it's just a confirmation to me that God is in control. I just want to ask you a final question, and that is what um what are some final thoughts that you can share with or what advice would you give to a new widow? You know, I'm I'm exactly 18 months out from my husband's passing. My husband passed away um December 28th, 2024. He was 45, I was 44. And so I would consider myself a newer widow. I'm not a brand new widow, um, but I'm a newer widow. And I really do respect and honor the words of those widows as yourself who are further along down the road. And for instance, um, Sister Jamie Prado, I had talked with her uh a couple months ago, and she shared that year two was very difficult for her. And you know, talked about what she has experienced, and and I'm in year two, and I'm experiencing, you know, other difficulties, et cetera. So, what would be some advice that you could share with newer widows?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Well, be kind and patient with yourself. One evening, months after I had moved to Ohio, I got a call from a great woman of God. She's now deceased, but God gave her several spiritual gifts, and one of them was discernment. And as we talked, I told her some of the things that I had gone through. And a few of those things did not make me look very spiritual, I can tell you. And finally she said, Sister Penny, as you were talking, I kept hearing four words over and over. She passed the test. She passed the test. And she said, God says you have passed the test. Now, if people who were not widows or widowers were to grade my behavior in that first year or two after Carlton died, I'm sure, and I would have done this same thing. They would have given me a D or maybe an F. And the truth is, I'm sure I deserved it. You wanted to die. You should have been stronger than that. You got angry and threw an instruction manual across the room, pretty immature, and I did. I right after he died, I went to Sam's and I bought a printer. And I I was trying to put the ink cartridge in. Carlton always did stuff like that. I tore the computer up. I couldn't even take it back. I'm the one that tore it up. And I threw that instruction manual across the room and I said, God, you took my husband, and and you're gonna have to teach me how to do this stuff that he always did. And uh, so yeah, so they would have said, You got angry and threw a instruction manual across the room. That is so immature. Uh, you wanted to have a nervous breakdown to escape grief, shame on you. So I would tell my sisters in widowhood that God does not use the same grading scale on us that we use on ourselves. We're pretty tough on ourselves. He is patient and kind, and he understands human frailties. If anyone understands humanity, God does. He created us. I would have said I flunked the course, but God said, Penny, you pass the test. You're in. Proverbs 1525 says, He will establish the border of the widow. God's care and concern for widows are evident throughout scripture. And he establishes boundaries to protect and provide for the widow. To establish means to make firm, to grow, and multiply. So his care is not just at the beginning of your widowhood, it continues throughout your widowhood, however long that may be. So God holds a special place in his heart for widows. So be kind and patient with yourself because you are loved by a God with a generous grading scale.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

I I'm sorry, because I'm getting emotional. Because what you just shared was the realness and the humanity of trying to be a godly woman, but also a widow. And when you s when you shared what your what your friend shared, she passed the test.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

And I can resonate with that because I feel like I failed the test.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

But he is patient and he is kind and he understands human frailty. And to hear to hear you share that again, that's why I that's why I wanted to do this podcast. Because you don't know what you're gonna do when you're confronted with something you didn't ask to be confronted with. And there is no guidebook that says this is how you act or this is how you respond when you become a widow. And you look, and for myself, I look around and and I put that grading scale on myself and I think, well, I failed the test, you know, I've said things that I shouldn't have said. I've you know, maybe had actions that I shouldn't have done. And I'm short with the people that are in my life that I love and but God is has a different grading scale. Thank you, thank you, Jesus, that He does. But it's not the same grading scale. So I I'm just so thankful that you shared that. I was writing it down as you were as you were sharing it, because these are words that I need to live by. These are words that I need spoken into my life because I need to be reminded that God's grading scale is different. So thank you. Thank you, Sister Watkins. What a blessing you have been. I'm so grateful that you joined us today. Is there anything final, any final words that you um or any final thoughts or words that you can share as we end our podcast today?

SPEAKER_00 43:48

It's it's a journey. It is a journey. I've always heard that it takes three years to really grieve, and um, and it took me three years. It it really did. And that and uh I mean one time I was I was putting something in the garbage disposal and this shows you how I mean what a I don't know what the word is but I put the stuff in the garbage disposal pushed it all the way down and turned the dis disposal on. When I brought my hands up skin was just hanging on the ends of my fingers because that that uh the garbage disposal just chewed my fingers up. I didn't even have the wherewithal to pull my finger my hand out before I turned the disposal on. And so there's just so many, so many things but but at the end of I remember toward the end in fact it was 1,000 days I later later looked at it I thought this on the thousandth day this happened I had been praying for peace. I said God if you ever want me to have peace again you're gonna have to give it to me and on that three year mark I went out and sat on my porch and when I uh on the patio and when I got out there I could feel um uh when I I remember being pregnant with Tiffany and and and the baby turned I could feel something in my stomach actually turn and it's like I gave birth to peace. When I walked in my apartment I was a different person and uh I it's from that day on I had peace but for those first three years I did not and so that's why I say again be kind to yourself be patient because we're in the hands of a God who loves us so much and he has a very generous grading scale so I'm I'm like you I am so thankful for that because I needed it I need it yes what a what an amazing story and what an amazing example you are to me and to others that are listening today.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

So thank you Sister Watkins for joining me today. Thank you for allowing you know us the listeners to just get a small glimpse into what your life has been like since your husband passed away. Again I'm just I'm just truly grateful for the wisdom and the words of encouragement and that yes God has a generous grading scale and he is kind and compassionate so we will end today with those words and I look forward to staying in contact with you and for you continuing to share all of these little um little gems of wisdom. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the business of widows if today's conversation brought you comfort clarity or hope I invite you to subscribe leave a review and share this episode with another widow or widower who might need it. Remember you are loved you are seen and you don't have to walk this road alone. Join me next time as we continue sharing real stories of grief, grace and God's goodness because healing is holy and hope is still alive