Have you ever felt like your world has been reduced to rubble? Like the very foundation beneath you has crumbled, leaving you lost and wondering if there’s anything left to build upon? Our guest today, Rachel Powell, knows that feeling intimately. After the profound loss of her husband, she found herself navigating the bewildering landscape of life after widowhood. But what she discovered in the depths of her pain was not an ending, but a new beginning. Join us as Rachel bravely shares her journey through unimaginable grief, the surprising pivot points that led her from despair to hope, and the powerful realization that even when life looks irrevocably broken, your story isn’t over yet. Get ready for an honest and deeply moving conversation about finding strength in the ruins, rediscovering joy amidst sorrow, and the unexpected foundations that can emerge when everything else falls away. This is an episode you won’t want to miss. 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 Your Story Isn’t Over: Life After Widowhood With Rachel Powell Our guest Rachel Powell is going to come to you with some amazing information. Her ability to navigate her personal grief after the suicide of her husband, Andre and four children. Having to manage it all and then dating and some other things, managing the mismanagement of church, her faith and grief. Let’s get into this conversation.     Rachel, welcome to the show. I’m blessed to be here. Thanks so much for having me, Tina. Blessed to be in the show. When you hear that, what does that mean in your heart saying that? Widowhood: Calling, Not Curse A while back, I had heard this statement that was hard to swallow. You may have heard it or even said it yourself before but widowhood, not being a curse but a calling. That’s a hard idea when you’re in a lot of pain but in these years of suffering, I have found there’s so much grief, that’s so valid, the pain and the losses. That’s a very real part that we need to hold space for. There’s this pivot point for me in my hopelessness and despair and being suicidal myself. There was a pivot point of what the Lord kept giving me was acceptance with joy and not that death isn’t bad because it is. It’s not like there’s a silver lining and everything because that’s not what I’m saying either but that I can embrace this season and my life that I still have to live and have been able to find such a deeper hope and even joy. Not because I don’t still miss my person but because when everything blows up and you’re in the rubble. When you can move that rubble away, you find the foundation underneath it and they’re still was a deeper hope and a deeper joy. They’re still a new me that I had to find who I was without him and rebuilding a beautiful life. There’s so much still there. That’s what I mean by that. It’s a battle and it is such a rough calling but it is a calling. I’m blessed to still be here and still be alive that I didn’t give up and take my own life and quit or quit living while I was still living. Life can be good again. It’s never the same good but it’s good again. That’s what I mean by that. Thank you for sharing that. The idea of the rabble and finding a foundation and rebuilding. What was the foundation that you found? Finding Foundation In Christ It was a long way digging down. Christ is my is my foundation. Even within that, my biggest pain and the most unbearable season of my life when I didn’t think I could or wanted to live anymore. I didn’t want this life I had been handed. I had questions for God and anger at him. It was very raw and very real relational digging. I just covered more of who He was. It wasn’t just like the saying of like, “He’s there. He was there. He’s been there.” He has but it’s in a much deeper and more meaningful way. That rock bottom or Christ still was that solid foundation upon which I could rebuild my life. As I said, having this turning point where I accepted and not enjoyed. I was not happy about but where I was now and I still had life ahead. Walking with the Lord in that was the foundation. Even as I’ve gone through in widowhood and remarried into blending a family with its own challenges and struggles. I thought that, in a way, being remarried or exiting widowhood. I’m always on Andre’s widow but the box that you that you mark as being married again was going to change something and I found that it didn’t. It was still this same God that had walked so deeply and intimately with me through all of this pain that I still needed in all of the struggles to come. Even though I knew you’re never looking for a replacement or you can’t replace your person. It’s never going to be the same. I still found going through it experientially that I had an idea that I was going to regain something I had lost. It was going to go back to something that it was before. It’s going to go back to normal. It never does. It never did because Andre is still gone. I’ve still been through what I’ve been through and it’s changed me. Since He is