Single Again

On tonight's episode of the Singles Oasis Podcast, Host, Mary Bowen and special guest, Dr. Sharon Elliott, discuss Single Again. Mary and Sharon will share tips on what not to say to grieving widows and ways you can help widows during their season of grief. They will also share candid advice on how single widows can protect themselves from catfishing schemes and romance scams. 

Thank you for tuning in! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Good evening and welcome to the singles oasis. I am your host, Mary Bowen. The Singles Oasis is a refuge and gathering place for singles. At the Singles Oasis, singles will receive biblical wisdom and wise counsel with their help, which will help them in their walk with Christ. I'm a little tongue-tied, so bear with me tonight. Where there is no counsel, people fall, but in the multitude of counselors, there is safety. And that comes from Proverbs 11 and 14. So I want to welcome all of our first-time viewers and listeners. For my online viewers, if you're watching for the first time, please let us know in the chat. Let us know where you're tuning in from. If you're retuning, if you are a returning visitor or viewer, whatever we want to call you tonight, thank you for turning. Thank you for tuning into the podcast. As you see, we are unfiltered tonight. So laugh with us, okay? Just laugh with us. We are just going with the flow, and that is okay. But nonetheless, we do ask that you share this podcast with your friends and your family. So I am so excited for my special guest tonight. None other than Dr. Sharon Elliott. I met Dr. Sharon at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference last month, and she has been such a blessing to me. She has been such a blessing to a lot of people that she met at this conference. She has a wealth of experience when it comes to publishing, but she also has her own ministry as well. So let me take a few moments to share a little bit more about our special guest speaker today. So Dr. Sharon says this from obscurity in Compton, California, to preaching from sacred pulpits to commanding main stages teaching others on how to understand the Bible or write their books. Dr. Sharon Norris Elliott encourages us to live significantly. This inspiring message has driven Dr. Sharon to become an award-winning and Amazon best-selling author, editor, agent, engaging speaker, and licensed minister. Doc, you wear many hats. You got so many different hats. Bless God. She is a graduate of, is it Viola? Viola. Yes. Viola University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies and a Minor in Bible. And HSBN International School of Ministry in association with Gateway International Bible Institute, where she has a Doctor of Theology. Dr. Sharon is the author of 20 books and a member of several prestigious organizations. She serves as a board member of the WCCW, which is the West Coast Christian Writers Conference and AWSA ALSA, which is the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, and she is a Christian broadcaster hosting her life that matters show, Reaching the World, on HSBN.tv. Having expertly reinvented herself after retiring from her beloved 35-year teaching career, most of that time, having been spent teaching teenagers and English and journalism classes, Dr. Sheeran is even busier now operating as founder and CEO of the successful Authorize Me Literary Firm, which can be found on www.authorizeme.net, offering book development, personal consulting, coaching, excuse me, writing, masterclasses, and of course the literary agency. She considers her clients to be a part of her AMLA Authorized Me Literary Agency family and encourages them to support each other as their books launch from a wide variety of traditional publishing houses. She represents Christian and positive message titles, both fiction and nonfiction for adults and children in many genres, so no horror, X-rated material, please. She lives in Southern California and serves on the pastoral staff at her home church, Christ Second Baptist Church of Long Beach. She enjoys traveling, visiting her children, being Nana to her amazing three grandchildren. So, Dr. Sharon, I know I've shared quite a bit about you. Okay, show's over. Is there anything else in particular you would like to tell the audience about you?

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Oh, you got it. I think I think I crammed everything into those few, those few paragraphs. I never got to be a cheerleader in high school. I am still bitter about that. I just want to put that out there. Uh but now I still get to cheerlead all of my clients. And um that yeah, I'm having I'm having a ball. I'm having a ball.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

That's beautiful, and that's beautiful.

unknown 5:19

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Thank you for being a cheerleader for all of your clients, and thank you for all for all you do. Before we dive into our segment, for our viewers that are watching live, just know that we will take some questions on air. And this is actually part one of this segment, which I forgot to announce at the beginning of the episode. So this episode is single again, and this is actually part one. So we're going to do at least two segments. There may be a third, just depending on how much uh material we get through and how we're led by the Holy Spirit. So again, we want to thank you all for tuning into our single again segment. And speaking of which, we wanted to dedicate a special uh segment or segments to single widows. You know, oftentimes single widows are an afterthought in the church, especially some of our older widows, you know, after the funeral, you know, the phone calls and the visits from people, they're not nearly as frequent. And sometimes there are questions that even I have, you know, so what do widows do when time passes? So what do they do when they're sitting, you know, by themselves in an empty home, especially if they're empty nesters and their kids are grown, and now you have an empty house, which is very odd, something they're not used to. What do widows do when they're retired? So let's say they're not working, you know, what does that look like, you know, when their spouse is no longer with them? Now, Dr. Sharon, I don't know about you, but I've seen more single widows on my timeline this season. And I know of a few widows in my family, you know, my aunt is a widow. I think this is going to be her uh yeah, second, second year as a second year as a widow.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

God bless her.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

And we're gonna talk about, I know, and it's it's it's been it's been a journey for her. Yes. I'm gonna reference just a few scriptures. I'm not gonna go into too too much detail because I definitely want to start our conversation, but there are scriptures that pertain to widows, and I'm only listing, you know, a couple of scriptures because there's definitely more. If I would have had more time, I would have done at least a word study to find more, but I'm including at least five different scripture references pertaining to widows. So in 2 Kings, God cared very much for widows, and He does, He does, and I think one that we're most familiar with is 2 Kings chapter 4, you know, verses 1 through 7, where this is the widow that was in much debt, and her sons were about to be sold into slavery. Yes, and you know, she runs into the man of God, Elijah, and he's like, She's like, I have nothing to offer you, I got nothing. They're getting ready to like send my kids off. That's right. I can't pay these debts. And he said, Well, what do you got? She said, All I got is one guar, I only got one jar of oil, just one. That's it. Give me that, give me that. He said, Give me that. And he gave her instructions, and God multiplied that that jar of oil. He turned that jar of oil into many, and she was able to pay off her debts and to lift. And what I love the most about this story is we see an example of God's provision and how he will sustain widows in their time of need. So we definitely want to encourage widows, especially during this time, especially when you're used to a dual income, and now that dual income is just one single thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

So before you move on, can I that is one of my favorite passages? Yes. Um, it was already um, because I am the mom of two sons, and so I completely identified with this boy mom, right? Um, and then I'm I'm her right right now, um, as far as being a widow with these two boys, right? But her two boys were with her, right? Mine are um adults, you know, out on their own. But several things. Oh my, this this is a sermon, easy sermon. Now I'm a Baptist preacher, but so you're about to let me lose. Uh this woman, what did God tell her to do? First of all, God told her to look at what she had, and um widows, you have quite a bit that can be used in the kingdom, okay. Used for the kingdom. Notice it was not the the man of God did not tell her to use the oil itself for herself. What she had, she had to pour out, okay. And um, and her sons were to go and collect all those jars, right? And not a few. The the King James says, I love the King James language, right? And collect not a few. Okay, so what she had, she was able to pour to not a few. Yes, okay, and then she sold it. So so she monetized what it was that she had, yes, and because we still do need money.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Oh, tell it, tell it, especially the way how things are now, how expensive things are, especially you create a higher price of utilities, uh, gas, food.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

That's right, and like you said, um there were two incomes, and now it's one, right? In my case, I was still working, my husband was retired. So when I retired and brought the business, I was doing the business as my side hustle, right? Brought the business as the full time job on my part. We had three incomes, right? We had his, mine, and the business, but now we don't have his, but the house still needs to be maintained, right? Um, the food, you would think it should be cut in half, but throw in our um economy, and I'm spending as about as much for food for one as we used to spend for two. Exactly. Okay, with less checks coming in, or fewer checks coming in, right? Um, so this story, getting back to the Bible story, right? God said, But I've given you what to use to bless not a few, not any, and to bring in income, yes, and it was income enough to pay her debts and to live on, yes, to pay her debts and to live on. So that is a uh oh, the last thing is she didn't run away from the church. She ran to the man of God, she ran to the church, she ran to the people of God when she had the issues, right? Not out into the wherever, right? Or doing what the next trend is, or you know, or what have you, right? Right. Um, and she received help from the church, right? Which brings it a whole nother subject about how the church needs to have ministries toward widows, and and many don't. But you see, right, her her her grief um was still a part of her natural what what happened naturally, right, and she still handled it by going to the man of God, by going to the church, right? So so many, so many pieces of wisdom from that one story.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah, it is, and that's one of the things I I like about, you know, I like about that story because you know, even as I was just you know putting a brief summary together, you know, for our outline, like you said, this is a message in itself. It's actually quite a few, you know, messages. And like I said, I wish I would have had more time to really study this because you know, we we could preach on this, we could really, really preach on this because this this minute ministered to me, and I'm not a widow, right? But it's a reminder of how not only how God how good God is, but his provision and the obedience, being obedient that part as well. Look at what God did just by through this woman's obedience and her faith, because you know that was a sacrifice, that's all she has left.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

That's it, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

So I'm gonna go through these other scriptures real real quick, and then Doc, we're gonna we're gonna get into the we're gonna get into some of the meat. We're gonna get into some of the meat of our segment. So Psalm 68 and 5, God is the father of the fatherless, and a judge and protector of the widows is God in his holy inhabit inhabitation, which comes from the amplified version of the Bible. We have Psalm 146 and 9, where the Lord protects and preserves the strangers in temporary residences, he upholds the fatherless and the widows and sets them upright. But the way of the wicked he makes crooked, he turns upside down and brings to ruin. That's also from the Amplified. Uh, we have 1 Timothy 5 and 3. Honor widows that are widows indeed. So always treat with great consideration and give aid to those who are truly widows. So those that are solitary and without support. I really like the amplified version, how they speak to 1 Timothy 5 and 3. And then also we have James chapter 1, verse 27. This is the one that really stuck in my spirit as I was preparing for this segment. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yes, amen.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Okay, doc. Let's start some of these questions, Doc.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

So you mentioned that you were you were married. How long were you married, doc?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Um, James and I were married 21 years. Um, and um then he left here on May 16th, 2023. So it's been three years now, and uh he left me for a better man. Oh my goodness, he loved him some Jesus, and um I know he's having a ball. Oh, he knows he's up there with it. I know he is having a ball, but me on the other hand, that's a different story.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Let's get let's get into that, yeah. So go ahead. I was sorry about that. As I was thinking, because I was thinking about, you know, because this was actually a little bit harder for me to prepare for, just because this is not a this is not a place that I'm in, you know, in terms of you know empathy in terms of understanding grief and commit if you want to use the word commiserating, I don't necessarily want to use that, but just in terms of being empathetic in terms of the grief. That that part I can understand, but I cannot understand, or at least when you know how people will say to you, I can relate to you, or I understand. I just I don't want to come, I don't want to use like those empty, empty words.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

It's not something and please don't say that um to a widow unless you have lost a spouse, men or women. Um it's different. Um, you know, I've lost my parents, I've never lost a child, so I can't I can't say I know how you feel on that. So just just because you have had loss, um you don't know what you don't know what it's like, and we don't mind talking. Most of us, we don't mind talking about it, you know. Um, but yeah, don't don't say to anyone that you understand unless you have had that type of grief, you know, that you're there for for us, that you, you know, that you pray for us, that you care for us, that you love us, all of those things. Okay, we did. But there's a very special thing that's different about a marriage. If we especially if we believe what the Bible says about marriage, you become one with this person, so it is not just a separation, it is a tearing off, like of a limb. Okay, when I used to teach um sex ed in school, um, I taught in Christian schools my whole life, and so I had, and I taught teenagers, so the girls and the boys, we would separate number one, right, for this topic, and I would have them to glue two pieces of paper together. Just glue two pieces of paper, and then we'd set those to the side and have our discussion. Of course, the glue was drying and setting, and then we would go back either that day or the next day, or maybe several days down the road, and I said, Okay, get your papers and separate them. Okay, you never come away with two pieces of paper, ever. You know, they're they're ripped, and that's that's the grief of the loss of a spouse. Okay. There's just parts that are that are torn away. Okay, and and those parts um need healing. And they can be. They can be healed, but they need healing. But the first thing they need is um acknowledgement. Um and and um I have it's been three years for me, but I'm still at the at the um I am nobody's person. You know, now don't say to me, well, you know you have Jesus. I know I have Jesus. Okay, but why did you get married? You had Jesus and you got married. That part, that part, and so the the obvious. The physical, um, the emotional parts, you know, all of those things don't exist from anyone on the planet. Okay, and that's huge. That's huge. Um, it came up when I had to go to a dental specialist, I had to fill out all that paperwork, and you get to the emergency number. You know, and okay, you could you might have a sister or brother or grown children. It's not the same. It's just not the same. Um, so dealing with that is uh a huge part of understanding that that's how it is. And then being able to have the wisdom to not fill those parts with things that God wouldn't want you to fill them with. You know, what whatever your emptiness is, and I've made some mistakes, you know, and widows, widows are preyed upon, okay. P-R-E-Y, right, are preyed upon and vulnerable, and don't think that you are not. Okay. And there, there I had to learn through mistakes that I never would have imagined I would have made a false choice or a false step. Not as long as I've been in the word, you know, but you know, grief is sneaky and it hits you, and sometimes you don't even realize that you're being sucked in because it's those empty spots. So recognizing that you are going to have some empty spots up front, right, is a to be forewarned, is you know, is to be forearmed situation. Right. Realize that that can happen, and somebody will try it. Okay. Now I'm not saying you should walk around paranoid, you should just walk around wise. Yeah. And realize that that it's there. It's sort of like knowing that there are um bombs planted. If you know that that field has bombs planted, you are either going to avoid the field, or you're going to be very, very careful as you enter it. That's all I'm saying. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

So with that in mind, before we go into, you know, kind of describing what that first year of you know of being a widow and what the grief looked like, I actually want to go back to what you said because you said widows for some for some people, they may, especially if they have nefarious uh plans or schemes. They target widows. What are some ways widows are targeted, and what are some ways widows can protect themselves?

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Okay, you're targeted financially. Okay. People figure your husband left you a whole bunch of money, and um you, you know, because of your nurturing, you know, and all that, especially if you had to care for, you know, a a husband who was sick or whatever, that nurturing, we we start out with that as little kids, little girls anyway, right? We had our dolls and and the whole thing. Now there's nobody to lavish that onto. And so that nurturing can um you can see yourself um being targeted for money, all right? Um, and you're thinking you're helping. Okay. Stop. Stop. That is the first sign that you're about to be taken advantage of, right? No one should be coming to you for money. You're at a place where you need to be cared for, not that you need to be caring for other people. Okay, so as the minute they ask for a dollar, you're done. Okay, run, forest, run. Okay. Um, then you're targeted for um uh the Playboys, you know, who are ready to lavish affection onto you because you're missing it. Okay, stop, you know, have look, have a police officer friend run his, you know, ID. Um get your brothers, nephews, you know, people involved. Okay. Um, do not keep this man a secret. Oh, that's good. Okay. If he wants to be around you, oh, he's gonna go to church with you, and you're gonna go to church with him, and you're gonna be seen in public in the daylight.

unknown 28:17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Anyone who's coming to your house after 8 p.m., that is called a booty call. You better tell it like it is, you better tell it like it is. Okay, because it's the truth, it's the truth, and so um they should they should want to be seen in public with you. Um, so and then you know, so that's kind of connected with that whole emotional, you know, the they fall in love with you really fast. And like you don't even know me. You know, I could be a mess. Okay, so uh um, so those those are easy, you know, easy ones. Um, and you're and like I said, you're targeted. You're targeted. If it's only online, it's probably catfish.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Or what do you call those? You said catfish. Those rope, some of them call them what is it, romance schemes. I'm trying to remember.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

I thought the I know catfishing is the like the popular term um when the person who you are talking to, you could be you could even have exchanged numbers and now you're talking to them on the phone. That person may not be, and probably is not who they're presenting themselves to be. Okay. Um, and ask some pertinent questions. Um, you know, several people tried to catfish me, and I learned to ask them to wherever they say they're from, go get a current newspaper at the 7-Eleven and hold it up beside you so that I can see the date and the place that you say that you're from. And this needs to be done like the same day that I'm asking. So if you're not gonna have time to send for it, you know, or what have you. Um, because yeah, a person who is not in that place at that time, they're lying to you. That is not who they are, where they're from.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Oh see, you don't you done taught me something here. I'm gonna tell you that newspaper ID because for for young for some of our younger viewers, we can usually tell when we're being catfished based upon whether it's incorrect grammar or the type of language you. Sometimes it's it's pictures because there's an option with Google where if they if they have a profile picture or if they send you a picture, whether it's on a dating website or wherever, you know, you can copy that image and compare it to uh, you can Google it and see what results Google brings you. And usually that's one way to identify that. Plus, you know, sometimes if you do a little research, if someone else's accountant has been cloned, not necessarily hacked, we want to use the right term, but cloned, because sometimes folks will set up cloned accounts to scam people for money, especially maybe some of our widows that are you know a bit older, because it happens to both men and women, not just women. Okay. That's another way that you know we can intercept that. But I never would have thought of the newspaper ID. And I think partially just because not everyone reads the physical print newspapers, everyone's so quick to read stuff online, but yeah, having that tangible item in their hand, yes, that's one way to weed that out. Do you have any other tips to maybe weed out uh some of these these folks that are fraudulent?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Well, that's that that's like one of the big ones to me. Um, if the person is they're loving you and all that, but they don't want to see you, they don't want to meet you somewhere, they're not they're not in town. I mean, they're not even that's a lie, right? Because when when a relationship um is flourishing and growing, you want to meet in person, right? You know, um, and then if it does go to the place where you want to meet in person, you choose a public place. You go to Starbucks for the first time you meet. They do not come to your house, do not give an address of where you live. Uh oh, but I want to send you some flowers, really. No, no, okay, that's all right, no. Um those kinds of things, you know, are are dead giveaways. Dead giveaways.

unknown 33:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

That you are not the person. Now I met James, I met my husband through a dating service, but it was a live service back in the day. You literally had to go into the place and register, you know. So they had actually met these people, you know, they had vetted the gentleman and you know, all of that. So it's different now. It's just these, it's just pictures. Um, and you, yeah, don't go for it. Oh, oh, oh. Um, there's a way to check if the number, if the phone number is coming from the right place.

unknown 34:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Or not. Yeah. But somebody located a number for me. She actually had the app on her phone. And I gave her the phone number, and it was a fake number, and the number was coming from overseas somewhere. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

See, doc, you're giving me some ideas for a book here for for singles. No, seriously, because these are some things that we need to know because back in the day, you know, back in the day, we didn't have um, you know, the social media applications. You know, back in the day, it was more old school where you had to meet people in person, or yes, you use a dating service, or even back in the day when newspapers were more popular, there was you had your classifies and there was a date section dating section as well. Um, right. That was the thing in the 90s, was like, you know, if you you wanted to find somebody, you know, you could go to the newspaper and look at the ads and see who all was available. You know, the man would have a you know, a brief description. This is before, you know, all the match, and and and I can't even think of what you got, hinge, bumble, because there's so many different, so many different dating, you know, apps out here. But yes, we definitely have to be more careful when it comes to dating. Yes, you do need to do background checks, and there's a way to do like yes, if you have friends in law enforcement, of course, but there's a way to there's other ways to do that because you need to know because people use aliases all the time. All the time there are ways where you can check to see if someone has uh, at least if they say they're from this area, you know, go look them up on go look them up on the state's department of corrections, make sure you know they're not on probation or parole, or you know, if they have a past, because you need to kind of you need to investigate and know what's going on. Like we can't walk into these situations naively. We we can't do that. This is a different, we live in a different world now.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Yes, we do, yes, we do. Um yeah, someone uh someone I knew had two um judgments, you know, against them from uh restraining orders. What it's like what okay, no, uh you know, so um yeah, and if somebody does not want to do these things, that's that's a problem because they know they live in the world, you know. Any anybody, you can look my background up. I don't have anything to hide.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

I mean, the easiest thing that we can do, no, no, I'm serious. When we encounter somebody new, whether you're a wing, excuse me, a widow or someone that you know that is single and in dating or wherever, no matter you know what your status is, start with Google, Google somebody and see what comes up because here's the thing uh if they're involved in some type of scandal or controversy, it will be all over the internet. Because again, you probably need to know what you're going into, but do you even have the grace for that?

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Right, and watch out for people who are who have no social media footprint. Why you don't know who they are, you don't know who they are, they and more than likely if they have none at all, there's something being hidden.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Even even if, and I know some people that are not, let's just say hypothetically, I know some people that are not on Facebook and they're on there for like personal reasons, just because you know there's not much value, but they have a LinkedIn page. Because I'm gonna say, for folks that are professional, most of your professionals are gonna at least have a minimum of a LinkedIn page, but now you have to be careful with some of those because you need to question the integrity of what's on the f on the profile and whether that profile is real, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

All of that, all of that, yeah, all of that.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah, I've got some good ideas, I've got some good idea. You're giving me some good ideas and also some some future questions, you know, as well. So let's jump around, let's jump around a little bit. Okay. So I actually want to skip to the loneliness part. Okay. And the reason why I want to to go to that, because again, I know I I know at least, like I said, quite a few widows, and the the widows that are, you know, just recently lost their husband, I can definitely tell that they're still trying to process everything because Father's Day just passed, and and some of those holidays and special occasions are vivid reminders. So, my first question to you is you know, when you became a widow, were you lonely? And if so, how did you deal with that?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Uh, yes, I was. Um, and I the first thing was I started write, I journal, and I highly recommend journaling. Okay. Um, write your feelings down, and I would write, um I I did Facebook posts um every month. So he died on the 16th. So every 16th for a year, I would put up a Facebook post. I didn't do it the day before, the day after. It had to be that day. Okay. And several one of the main reasons was people all over the place were asking me, How are you doing? How are you doing? There's no way for me to keep up, you know, with everybody right. So I said, okay. So every month I just opened up, you know, Facebook and I just typed. This is this is what is happening, you know, right now. And I tried to be as honest as possible. Before I get back to that, the other side of journaling, I suggest you talk to God in your journal. And the reason why I write my journal to God is that forces me to be brutally honest. I know I can't lie to God, right? Right, and I get that down, but uh a lot of these Facebook posts were were like that. This is how I'm feeling now. And um after about three months, I started getting um reaction, and that widows were reading it, you know, and they were commenting, this is really helping me, you know, you are saying things I was not able to voice, you know, or what have you. And so I was building another community um that I didn't even know, you know, I was really building. And just like that oil from that woman from the jar that we talked about at the beginning, at the top of the show, um, it began to go further than I even thought. So one pastor's wife told me, I took your um your latest uh piece, and she said, your latest devotion, huh? I didn't okay, and I shared it with our couples ministry, and it saved several marriages. So these people were saying, Oh, you know, like I don't want to be without you, you know, we don't have to be fighting over the toilet seat being up or down, you know, or whatever. Um, and so those pieces were the form were the bottom line of my book. It my devotional after him. Wow, a devotional for at right at first it was for first year, it's a first year devotional journal, but we're changing that cover because it's not just for the first year, okay. Okay, and and so um I am busy, and so that fills a lot of my time, but at first, really at first, I did a lot of sitting and doing nothing, which is not me at all. I I just I veged, I watched a lot of TV, you know. Um, and I just had to breathe for a minute because I have been a caretaker. Many widows, you know, have been caretakers, and that takes a lot out of you. Um, now you don't have him to care for. Um, so what Do you do with your hands? And for a minute, I think you need to just think. You need to just sit. It that does not need to be a place you live.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

But it does need to be a place you go through. Right? Like that valley of the shadow of death. You go through it. Right. When you're there, keep walking.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

As it's there.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Right. And a valley only exists because there are peaks to come.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Oh, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Right. So just keep walking. You'll find yourself on an upward, you know, traject trajectory soon. Sooner than you possibly probably think. And then in those in those um in those entries, I began to think about other people, you know, as well. You know, for I I well, I thought about myself that first year, definitely. But when I started putting it together for the book, um, each entry seemed to have a theme to it, right? And so one of the things uh that you encounter in that in those first weeks um is that you have to do everything he did for the for the home.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

So you're talking about like the yard maintenance, taking the trains out, like all that things that he he would ordinarily. Right. So you got more stuff on your plate, too?

SPEAKER_00 45:58

You got more stuff on your plate and stuff you don't want to do. I hate taking those huge trash cans out and bringing them back. Number one, especially the ones with the the grass and stuff there, it is super heavy. They're heavy. Yep, they are heavy, they're on wheels, yeah, but it's super heavy. Um, he did all of that, you know. He took care uh, well, we had a gardener, but he would even take care of the flower beds and things like that, you know. And I have to look at, oh, wait, there's grass through growing in the flower beds. And oh, okay. Let me let me tell the gardener that this is your job now, you know. Um, so all of that, another big, huge thing I learned. And ladies, please, those of you who are not widows yet, I don't care how young or old you are in your marriage, every bill needs to have both names on them. Even if you don't pay the bills, it needs to be, you know, Sharon and James Elliott, you know. And that wasn't the case for for me. And I never thought about it because I didn't have to worry about the bills. My husband paid the bills, you know, it was great. I didn't have to worry about the house. He took care of that, you know, the house, the property taxes, uh, you know, everything. And that that was that was his job, and that's what he did. And he did it, he loved it. Okay. So the minute, well, the month before he left, he said, bring me the iPad so I can show you how I pay the bills. Now, I have paid bills before. Okay, right. So this is not like I had not done it or I did not know it had to be done. It was just that I didn't have to do it.

unknown 48:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

So 21 years out, you know, like okay, it's just that he had started paying them online, you know, and the whole night. So I had to get get all the secret numbers, right? All the passwords, all of that. You should have all of that, even if it's written down, you need to have all of that, and so then when it became my job, um, it was fine until something went wrong in the account. And then, of course, I had the passwords and everything, but my name not on the bill caused some consternation. Let's just say consternation. They would talk to me because I had the secret words and stuff, okay. But you know, you had to go through that and then go through the changes. Um, and the lonely loneliness comes back around and smacks you at just for different things. You know, you're gonna pass by the restaurant you first ate at. It's like pow. Okay, you're going to um, you know, uh sit in the movie theater or something.

unknown 49:40

Pow.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

You know, the last smack like that was um I did my own trust. So we wrapped up the trust with all of his, you know, him, and then I have a trust of my own now, right? Well, putting the house in the trust, the smack was I had to take his name off of the house.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

I was like, oh it's it's and and that's I think that was one of the reasons why I had posed, you know, I posed the question, you know, in the outline, and we can actually go to that because I know we're we're we're we're we're flowing, we're definitely flowing, but I had we were gonna save this for segment two, but how about this will be the last question for this segment? Is so those holidays and those anniversaries and those special occasions, all that to how do you cope on those days when they're vivid reminders that your spouse is no longer here on earth?

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Yeah, you got you you need to be proactive, ladies. Okay, and and Mary, you've met me, so you know I'm I'm gonna take the bulls by the horns. Okay, but it did sneak up on me. It wasn't that I didn't know I was alone for the first Christmas. So remember, he died in May. So Christmas, his birthday was the 23rd of December and then Christmas. Okay, so I'll obviously, it was like, obviously, I know he's not gonna be here for Christmas, but I had never in my life awakened on Christmas morning by myself. Now I moved out of my parents' house into uh marriage with my first husband. Okay, we divorced, but I had the boys. I married James, the boys grew up and went off to school, but Christmas morning it was him and me. So we we at least had that gift, that one gift. We would exchange that one gift, and then you know, we'd be with the family, you know, whatever, go over somebody's house. And but all of them woke up Christmas morning at their house with each other. I was waking up at my house with no one, so I shared that with someone you mentioned that I'm a member of ASA, Advanced Writers and Speakers Association. Uh, we meet once a month, you know, in groups. And I shared that um in November with the ladies, as you know. So again, like we were talking earlier, think uh, you know, you think about things in advance and kind of deal with them in advance, and so I mentioned to them I am going to be alone on Christmas morning. Now I have fixed it for the rest of Christmas because I had everybody over here. There you go. There you go. But we're gonna have Christmas dinner at I call it um at Elliott Manor, right? So Christmas dinner at Elliott Manor, but still they were waking up at their houses, right, with each other, and then they'd be over here, and then they'd bring whatever gifts they have for me, right, over here. But I would be those ladies sent me presents, they sent me wrapped presents, and so I still woke up by myself on Christmas morning. But my other girlfriend who lives here, because these ladies live all over the country, my other girlfriend who lived here, she made me put up a tree, put up my tree, and we decorated it together. So now I had a tree with nothing under it. But I had a tree. Those ladies sent me gifts that I had presents, like maybe five, five, six, seven wrapped presents under my tree to open on Christmas morning. That's the kind of thing you need to be thinking about to help your widowed ladies, you know. If possible, don't be at home. You know, I have a son and a uh his my daughter-in-law, my grandkids live in New Orleans. So last Christmas I went to New Orleans, and so I woke up with all of that, you know, on Christmas morning. So you you do you if you need to put things in place for yourself and don't be shy about it, you know. My first birthday after he left, so that was the first Christmas. Then my birthday's in January. So my first birthday after he left, because we always we went out to dinner, you know, that whole thing, he was gonna celebrate my birthday. I invited my girlfriends from all over the country. Many of you guys can come to California, if especially if you're in the east coast, it's cold, it's nice and warm out here in California. Come on, for January. Don't rub it in now, don't rub it in. And several, I mean, several ladies, it was at least three that I could think of off the top of my head, probably four, who flew out here to spend my birthday with me. Wow, and I had I had a whole weekend of activities, you know, planned. We did a whole girlfriend thing, you know. Um, and my birthday is just three weeks after Christmas, wow, you know, but they came. And my girlfriend's here, you know, and stuff, they came. So you gotta put things in place. Um, because I didn't have any intention of sitting in here by myself feeling bad. Because that's what I would have done. I've been sitting in here feeling bad. Hmm.

unknown 56:40

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

So plan it for yourself, and that's a great idea because I think that just in with in grief, but in particular grief, you know, involving a spouse, there is this tendency, and it's a it's part of our humanity. There's a tendency to just want to withdraw and become more of a recluse. And this is more, this is a time more than ever where it is so important to not only fellowship, but to have that community and have your tribe, have your core tribe, especially a tribe that knows when something is not right or when you're struggling, and to have that tribe just come sit with you. Like sometimes when when you when you're going through something like that, you don't necessarily need somebody, you know, telling me you need to do this, this, this, and this. Just come sit with me and then allow the opportunity for that other person to just begin to pour out because then they'll start talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

Exactly. And I love to talk about James Elliott. Don't get me started, right? I like to and and and it's the it's the fond memories now, but I even have a chapter in the book that talks about um that talks about if you didn't have a great relationship with your husband, you know, what what do you do about that? What do you say about that? How do you process that? You know, and I talked about that in the book because unfortunately, not everybody has, you know, a great relationship. Um, but that still needs to be processed because you're still one with that man, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

Yeah, hold on a second, Doc. I had a tech issue here. Okay, all right. What happened to my camera? Yeah, I said all of a sudden she disappeared. I'm gonna keep talking. Right. We we good though. We we are good though. I don't know what happened to my camera, so I don't get back to that scene.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

And there is a line. There you go. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 59:54

Now, can you hear me now, Doc?

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

Okay, we're gonna you we're gonna have to use this other camera for the moment. I don't know what happened, but that's okay. Oh my goodness. So Doc, we have talked, we didn't even get through everything that we wanted to talk about, but there's just so there's just so many like just gems that you've dropped tonight in terms of what to look out for in terms of widows and just knowing that people are going to target you in terms of vulnerability, just some things that you can do to help identify, you know, some of those schemes. You talked about the importance of putting some things in place, especially on those for those holidays and those anniversaries and those special occasions. You know, again, just highlighting the importance of having a community, highlighting the importance of having a tribe, and then just um again, the journaling. I really like the journaling and how you actually turned your journaling, though those monthly entries that you put on Facebook, how you actually turn that into a devotion. Like that is just so, so encouraging. And we just never know how God will use us through those various seasons. So, this is what we are going to do, everyone. So, before we conclude the segment, just know that this is part one. So, we are coming back, and I'll make sure I get this date right because I was having an issue getting our dates right when we setting the calendar. So, we're coming back on July 8th at 7 p.m. to do part two. And I have a feeling that we'll probably do a part three as well, but we're definitely doing a part two because we have so much material and so many more topics that we want to discover, discuss because this is such a big topic. And widows, we want to make sure that uh we are addressing your needs, and we definitely want to not only continue our conversation specifically for you, but we also want to make sure that we're speaking to some of our ministry leaders in churches because just like there is a whole segment of a singles population that has needs, this is another this is within that same segment in which the church needs to uh be a resource for us as well. We can't limit the church, can't limit those resources to just the young adults, the children, your your umbrella women's and men's ministries, or even your mother's ministries, um or or anything of that sort. We singles, that's one of the reasons why the singles oasis was created. Singles, this is for us, and we want to make sure that we're touching all of you, not just one core group of you, but all of you. And Dr. Sharon, I am so grateful for not only the wisdom that you've imparted during this segment. But just thank you for your candidness and thank you so much for sharing your heart and being willing to share your experience as a widow. I definitely look forward to the part two of this segment. And before we conclude this segment, uh, where can people find your your devotional? Tell me what the name of that devotional is. Where can they find it, and where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Well, after him. Um, a widow's it's going to be a widow's devotional journal. Right now, you'll probably find it as a widow's first year devotional journal. Um, it's of course on Amazon. It is published by Abundance Books. So you can go to Abundance Books and get the book from directly from the publisher as well. And you can get it even if it's not on the shelf in in any bookstore. Um, they can order it um for you. Uh, you can find me at authorize me.net or life that matters.net. Now at the taping of this program, the website is being redone. All right. So you're not gonna, it doesn't look pretty. You can email me at authorize menow at gmail.com, authorizemeow at gmail.com or authorize me literary firm at gmail.com. Perfect. Um yeah, you can find me. I do um I do speak at um I preach. I'm an ordained minister, so I preach. Um, I teach at women's conferences, at widows' conferences, um, but it doesn't have to be a widow's conference. I am a conference junkie, okay? Conference and retreats. I love them. You know, so you can you can get me. Um let's talk, you know, and have have message will travel. So yes, so that is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

And what I'll do for the next segment, just because I didn't have time, I'll make sure towards the end of the next segment, I'm gonna put a banner or either a ticker that will scroll down at the bottom with your contact information and ours. And then everyone, uh again, we are live streaming right now on YouTube and Facebook, so these will be available once we include the segment. I will make sure that I uh recirculate this on my professional page, Mary Bowen. But follow me there for updates about the singles oasis, updates about our segments, and also keep in mind that the singles oasis is now on Apple Podcasts. We've we're on Spotify, we're on iHeartRadio. Wherever you stream your podcast, you can find episodes of the Singles Oasis, both this episode, tomorrow's episode, and then we're also uploading some of our prior episodes from season one because I am so excited about season two. We have so many exciting episodes planned for this year. Uh, before I conclude and before we go off of air, I just very quickly just want to say a quick prayer for any of our widows that are tuning in right now. So, Father, in the name of Jesus, we just thank you. I pray that you just touch each and every widow right now that is listening either to the live podcast or is listening to the replay. I pray that you touch their hearts. I pray that your Holy Spirit comforts them in the name of Jesus. God, I pray that you just bottle up each and every tear. God, I pray where there's there's where it feels like there's emptiness, where there are longings. God, I not only pray that you you satisfy those longings, but let this be a time in which uh widows will draw even nearer and closer to you, Father. I pray that, Father, whatever they are lacking or whatever they're needing, Father God, I pray that you provide and you meet that need in the name of Jesus. Let them not have any worries about their finances or their health or even about tomorrow, because God, you have their lives in your hands, Father, that you are sovereign. God, that this doesn't come as a surprise, Father, but God, you know what you are doing. So, Father, I pray that you just bless every single widow that has watched or listened to this podcast stream. God, I pray that you bless their homes and you bless their families. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. So again, we want to thank you all for tuning in. We're gonna sign off now, but also join us tomorrow for navigating singleness in 2026 while you're still single. That is part two of last week's discussion with uh Marlo Hope. So we're we're gonna help our singles that are dealing with that question, dealing with these tough questions about why are you still single? Why aren't you married? Are you using a data nap? What's wrong with you? What's going on? Just some of those personal questions that can cause the discomfort. Uh, we're gonna get to those questions tomorrow. So if you're looking for some guidance on how to respond to those questions in love without clapping back, tune in tomorrow at 7 p.m. Because uh we're talking about it live. And then again, join me and Dr. Sharon on uh, what is it, Wednesday, July 8th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time for part two of our discussion single again, specifically dedicated to our widow. So thank you all for tuning in. We appreciate you. God bless you, and we love you with the love of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

Bye bye.