What happens when grief feels like crawling through hot lava? When the weight of loss makes it hard to breathe, let alone believe? In this deeply moving episode of The Widowhood, Dr. Maurice Ball joins us to share his raw and powerful journey of hope after heartbreak, anger at God, and the long road toward healing after the death of his father. Together, we unpack the messy mosaic of grief—how it shatters us, how we begin to pick up the pieces, and how, over time, we learn to separate pain from life. Whether you’re deep in your own grief or walking beside someone who is, this conversation is a beacon of hope, truth, and community. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others.  Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World. — Watch the episode here   Listen to the podcast here   Hope After Heartbreak: Grief, God, And The Long Road Back With Dr. Maurice Ball Hello, Widowhood. Our guest, Pastor Maurice Ball, is going to drop some gems for you. The conversation is about how we handle when we’re mad at God in our grief, how we handle different statements that people make when we’re grieving, and his personal journey of crawling through hot lava after the passing of his dad. Let’s get into this conversation now.      Hello, Maurice. Welcome to the Widowhood. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. I get to hang out with my friend. When you hear, “Welcome to the widowhood,” what is in your mind? What was the message that came across? Since I’m not a widower, when I hear that, I think it’s a platform that is designed in place for people who are experiencing that. In that journey, so many times people don’t feel that they have anybody with whom they can connect or walk with. A lot of people feel like they are on that journey by themselves. This is a spot where a community of people can grow and help each other through the pain and the suffering of losing a loved one. You nailed it because a lot of times, people think it’s only about the widow or widower. I’m from Chicago, and the word hood is family to me. When my husband passed, my children lost their father. When my husband passed, his siblings lost a brother. My siblings lost a brother-in-law, and throughout our community. That hood’s idea is for that widow and widower not to be alone, for that hood to say, “I have a part in this loss also.” When we lose a loved one, we’re usually seeing it from the vantage point of our loss. There are other people who have lost them in a different way. All I saw was that I lost my dad. I didn’t think about my grandparents losing a child or my sibling, my uncles and aunties losing a sibling, or anything like that. It was when I lost my dad. It makes sense. I love the word play. If you’re from the hood, hood people take care of hood people. I love the play on words. Speaking of the passing of your dad, was there any type of community conversation where you’re in your pain as the son that you felt like you saw the exposure of everyone else’s pain outside of the service, the day-to-day? The Struggles Of Grief At that point, I didn’t care about anybody else. This is before I got in a relationship with Christ, so my choice of words was very colorful when it came to everybody else. I didn’t pay any attention to the effects of his passing on anybody except me. Because I was so young, I was still 19 or 20, I didn’t know anything outside of him. When that glass shattered, it shattered everywhere, and trying to pick up those pieces was very difficult. I didn’t have time to check on anybody. I won’t check on my sisters. I won’t check on my uncles and aunties. I was trying to survive. That’s what I was trying to do. I think you came on my podcast, and you said that I’m crawling through hot lava. When I look at that analogy, it works for me because all I was doing was crawling through hot lava, trying to make it to the next minute. It is. When you say the glass exploded, amazing description. What was some of the glass? What did that explosion look like? My dad was a single parent in the ’80s. Everything that I learned, I learned from him. When that glass shattered, you’re talking about pieces of responsibility that I didn’t have. I had to step up for the accountability that I have now. I got to be accountable for how this funeral and all this other stuff is going to go for and be responsible to make sure that all his affairs were taken care of, the date, those things. I had zero emotional intelligence. I was trying to go through all these pieces and said, “I think I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m frustrated, and I’m depressed.” Trying to put the pieces back together, I picked up everything instead of going through, saying, “I don’t need that anger piece right now,” or “I don’t need the lack of focus right now.” I went through and put the pieces back together, and it looked like it was a mosaic, but it didn’t form a picture. It was all together. Over time, I had to go back through and surgically remove all those pieces that I realized I didn’t need, which had me in the middle of depression, contemplating suicide. That was a very difficult