THE OIL OF JOY – RECEIVE IT AS YOU WALK OUT OF WIDOWHOOD!
June is a month in which international widows’ day is acknowledged and it reviews the support widows are getting or not getting around the world. One common trend is that it repeats annually various statistics on widow neglect, poverty, lack of status, pure gloom, and doom. I appreciate it is an opportunity for charities and other organisations who support widows to gain further financial support and legislative status.
However, as a Thriving widow I am celebrating this month on the resilience of widows. I am writing today about the of oil of Joy, promised to those grieving. In God’s word grief has been exchanged for our mourning.
The world tends to depict the widow as one who must be pitied, handed things to, lacking provision, denigrated without hope. As one whose life has no hope because of her ‘temporary’ demise.
I am here to state otherwise. If anything, a widow who can consciously embraces the oil of Joy is able to reject such labels and replace it with a heart filled with Joy. This becomes manifest in how she can successfully manoeuvre her grief and path to recovery.
The task of this new existence becomes easier when we recognise that we have the power to govern our thoughts. Owning your spiritual sense and not accepting thoughts of discouragement or despair. Nothing takes away your knowledge of God and feelings of spiritual Joy. It starts with you.
The oil of Joy is expressed visibly in a deep and genuine hearty laughter, that ripples into the hearts of others around you. This is the amazing gift God gives the widow to navigate all he has foreseen that might beset the widow in such circumstances. It transcends all things seen or experienced in the physical.
Joy is an expression of God’s goodness. It involves more. It is deep-rooted, inspired happiness. The word of God states ‘the Joy of the lord is your strength’.
Joy is a gift I received most instantly as I willed myself not to be defeated by loss. I will give 3 indicators of this:
1.Being able to laugh so deeply and sincerely in the most challenging of circumstances.
2. You constantly search for a greater light and pathway through the darkness and heaviness of potential doom and gloom.
3. Fervently influencing positively people’s perception of pain and staying stuck within it.
I have heard various experiences of widows in different cultures, and I always see in every thread the underlying ‘grace’ of God.
Despite the huge economic and social disparities, a widow has unrelenting resilience, even when they are unaware. Each day she rises as a spiritual warrior and leader of her home to provide, maintain, build, and push through, in a world that if you allow it, knocks, and stigmatises you.
International widows Day on the 23rd of June should showcase the unwavering zeal of widows’ successes despite all the odds thrown at us.
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