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.

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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 that foundation, I have him in a deeper way to continue to walk through the beauties and the struggles of the things I have in life ahead, including remarriage, blending and whatever else he may have.

 

Thank you. I want to circle back to a couple of things you said because I find them to be a popular conversation. The fact that I’ve partnered and now my grief is solved. If someone’s thinking that, what would you share with them?

Repartnering & Grief

This is a rough one, especially because I’d say our stories are so different. What I’m about to share comes from my experience, my story, my person, and my personal. I know of many other widows that have a different story. I would say I subscribe to that idea and I’m not saying it’s not good to have boundaries to have an idea of what you want in another person. All of these things are important but I am like an enneagram four. I’m a very deep feeler. I’m familiar with melancholy. I dive into the deep end of grief like very empathetic. I can meet people there because I can go there.

What can also happen in our grief is that we become very self-focused, very myopic because we’re in so much pain. You’re looking at your own wounds and trying to survive and that’s very valid. When you’re bleeding out, the focus is, how do I get pressure on this wound, take care of me and take care of my kids? I’m in survival. It is necessary in a way and in another ways, it can become we build walls around our grief like we’re defensive about it because other people don’t get it and people say stupid things.

For all of the reasons, I started to be like, “I have this thing that,” me and my grief. I have this entitlement to my grief journey. Again, there’s a validity to what you need but there’s this line that we can cross at least that I did where it was all about me. In my mind, re-partnering, dating again, or marrying someone, I had this in the back of my mind that like, “I’ve been through all of this horrible awful stuff. Whoever’s going to come along has just got to be perfect in a sense. He’s going to make my grief easier. He’s going to come along and be healing. This is what I need and what I’m feeling and my pain because I’ve been through all this stuff so you better get with the program and help me out. You’re going to come into this journey with like, in a sense, me in charge. You’re there to come alongside for me.”

When I was dating and have remarried, it was a very humbling thing. That I’ve been through tremendous loss. My first husband in the last year of his life declined in his mental health. We never had formal diagnosis but he became someone completely different behind closed doors than he had ever been. There’s abuse there. There’s real trauma and real need that I have. There’s trust things, needs, empathy and kindness and all of that. It’s very valid. It was humbling for me to realize that I married a man like another human being who also had trauma and needs and opinions.

It wasn’t just going to be my way or the highway or else it wasn’t a partnership and a deep marriage. Even in my grief, learning that Mike couldn’t walk and can’t walk through everything with me exactly when I want him to the way that I want him to either, because he has his own things. Counseling together as a couple was critical and helpful for that as well. For me, to let go of something I struggle with a lot of areas which is that it needs to look a certain way. Grief doesn’t go away. I have continued to grieve Andre and it’s almost in a sense gotten more complicated.

I do have support and love. There are so many beautiful things about it. It’s not to say it’s all negative but now I navigate that with another person who has his own thoughts, feelings, and limitations about that. For some people, it seems like or maybe for a time like they found this perfect person who completes them and makes everything easier and is safe. We all know in human relationships even from our first marriage that we’re all limited and broken.

It’s a journey and it has been for me to learn how to navigate grief with another person. The craziness of living in this tension of having these moments where I still miss Andre. I’m like, “What happened again? Does this happen? My whole life before and having this new person and being grateful for that.” It’s a crazy. Widowhood is something else.

It is very complicated. I had no clue of the continual way of the onion of this journey. It feel like just when you get there, a new onion is growing and getting bigger. It’s like this does not stop. You mentioned something about your faith in the foundation. How has your face been different than religion for you in this regard?

Experiential Vs. Theological Faith

There’s a couple parts to that. One is I would say through unbearable pain and suffering. It has become so much more experiential to me than the illogical. I’m very academic. I always have been. Our church that we had been to is very theologically. The focus, the pastors and things like engineers, people have their mind. It’s very important. Having sound doctrine, knowing the words, and standing on the promises. All of that is very valid and very important but it was very heavy that way.

I remember someone getting up on stage one time and it was like an epiphany thing that they were putting before the church because this person had a very real moment where the heart connected to the head. It was like, “All these things that I know but here’s how I experienced it and I had this life changing moment,” because I wasn’t a routine. We can get so far down the line of calling our emotions bad and our intuitions about you can’t trust any of that. You have the promises.

We cut ourselves off from our humanity. That was a big part of my healing to know humanness does not equal sinfulness. Somewhere along the line, I had picked that up. The word talks about sinfulness, flesh, deceitful, desires, and all of these things. Somewhere along the way, I got acquainted with all your emotions. You can’t trust emotions and you don’t think it . It’s all about what the word says and it’s like, biologically, we’re wired in certain ways and you feel something before you even come up with a thought, speaking about neurobiology.

When we’re in the habit of cutting these things off from one another, it hinders our experiential relationship with God because he’s always been about knowing stuff. That’s a completely different part of our brain than when we’re living in survival, living in pain and in this place of need. Those parts of the brain aren’t talking. Telling people things and trying to get them to talk themselves out of something that they’re living in pain and living in fear doesn’t work and people feel very alone.

That was part of my journey. It was embracing my human-ness knowing Jesus was fully human and wasn’t sinful. There’s a lot to our humanity and the way we’ve been wired that is beautiful. Embracing those things allowed me and pain and suffering drove me to needing to know him. Not just in my thoughts but having relationship with him. Not just talking to him or praying to him or journaling to him, but having the boldness to the best of my ability to hear from him back. I journaled to Him and I pause often these days. I’m asking Holy Spirit to help me in writing back what He is saying to me.

It’s a two-way conversation and I have limitations but it shouldn’t keep us from that openness to knowing God in that way. That was a piece of it. For me, it was getting out of just shaking my finger at myself and shame, which is the devil’s playground. There’s no connection with God there and grace for where I fail miserably. In widowhood, I made some of the biggest mistakes and I could so easily go to guilt and shame because I’m very perfectionistic. Knowing His love for me in this horrible time when I didn’t want to live anymore, when I was trying to survive and all the things that people don’t get about. That can be like, His grace is deeper still. That drives me to him.

That was a piece of it for me. I’d say the other piece of on my face through widowhood had to do with the spiritual abuse and manipulation that I experienced before and after my husband passed away that needed to cause a complete shift in my world view, and in my heart, and in my life because it colored so much of what I understood, of how I pleased God, and how I was connected with God. That was a very frightening and confusing time like for instance when my husband was declining and there’s a abuse going on.

The church leadership was telling me that I needed to submit to my husband. You needed to submit and you need to submit and all these things were going on. I was in the process of seeking healing groups out and betrayal groups. I had my own counselor, thank the Lord. Again, connecting to Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit can talk to me.

Having the confidence about that experiential relationship with God that I was already going, “This isn’t right. I can have some boundaries. This isn’t okay.” Even though it was very much looked down on and omit opposition both from my husband, who at the time again not himself. He was very angry and even from these people who knew the extent of some of these things going on that not only didn’t report or protect but that told me to remain in it.

I was already gaining of a voice and confidence in the Holy Spirit, which was how I was able to start drawing boundaries even when I had all of that pressure. If anyone has had that experience of spiritual abuse and manipulation, which someone is using your relationship with God as a way of keeping you in a place where you can be controlled. It’s a threat to your loss of relationship with God and to your character. That was another thing. I was a feminist. I was not submissive. I was bad and there was concerns about my character.

I led worship for the last time three days before Andre passed away and I was never allowed to go back. It was like, “Why? It’s because my husband chose this. Why am I now disqualified?” The things that have been brought up was like, “It’s about your character.” I’m like, “What happened with my character between when my husband died and when he didn’t?” They didn’t like that I was starting to say no to things that they were telling me that I needed to be okay with.

That can be such a battalion in your faith, especially when that’s your people. Those were my people for many years. Those are the people that you do community with, you live life with, and celebrate holidays with. You’re there for each other’s kids and they are the first ones when you have kids. You sit in these pews and you believe that they have character and the word is being interpreted correctly. You’re a sound doctrine and this is the right way. It’s like stitching a quilt. You’re just stitched in.

My husband now has asked me, “Why didn’t you guys leave that church before?” I’m like, “It wasn’t an option because I thought it was wrong.” When people were telling you that that’s wrong and they’re your authorities. It was already a very confusing time when I started to step out of that. That piece can be very disorienting in general let alone when you add in grief and loss into the mix. I’m a huge proponent particularly for women but for both because the result of that was devastating to my husband that I lost I believe as I as I looked at this and looked at the things that he was journaling and writing about too.

He was losing position and status. He was trying so hard to keep me compliant because he was losing his friends, status, and respect. It’s devastating to both men and women, but that part of our relationship with God and in our grief that is been so strong that I’m such an advocate for now is trusting and seeking the holy spirit that we can hear His voice and can guide us. Anyone that uses that against you is not a safe person. I had people say, “You’re going to use the God card. God’s telling you to do this. You can use the God card.” It’s like a way of throwing it in your face when you said that the Lord is leading me.

They’re like, “I’m your authority. This is what I’ve said. It’s over. There’s no room for the holy spirit to lead the people in his church,” but that’s the grassroots of the body. Every person can bring their gifts, hear from the Lord, and we can contribute together. That might be a long answer to your question but that’s been huge for me both in my widowhood and started before and continues to be a pillar of rebuilding my life after.

I would just ask one other thing if I may. Oftentimes, people turn away from the church or their faith because the way people show up but you seem to have leaned into your relationship. How would someone navigate that? How do I realize this church experience is not for me but this relationship God is critical and vital and 100% necessary? How do I cultivate?

Navigating Church & Personal Faith

That is so important. Pain can be so disorienting. When we’re in a lot of suffering, we can question God, our faith and his existence. If and when other people fail us or make it harder or any other things, then you want to pull away even more. For me, leaning into my relationship with God was the truest source of comfort and companionship. All of the things that I needed when you’re hurting and you’re alone. It can be found there. Again, related to spiritual manipulation. Anyone who makes you feel like you’re doing something wrong for changing churches is not coming from an understanding of the freedom we have in Christ. Even though there can be this general allowance.

I know from the background of where I came from, it was like it’s a betrayal. There’s a loyalty to the local church and the leadership that is this unspoken thing. When you are not you are not going along with the loyalty, you are a problem. There’s freedom. People go through grief and they need a change. You don’t even have to have a whole bunch of spiritual reasons. For some people, I know they went into that same church and the same building and the same place where they put their child in Sunday school. That’s devastating where they sat in the same pew with.

It just creates more suffering. What is cathartic and healing for a person? Don’t we to mourn with those who mourn and suffer when another part suffers. We support one another in what we need. Maybe it’s a change of churches, even if it’s where you’ve been a long time or people say this or that. Again, that confidence. The Holy Spirit can lead you to where you need to be and to find what I call the faithful few. There’s a faithful few.

They might be there from the beginning and might come in later but there’s not many people who can empathetically companion you and your grief, get it and be there for you all along the way. There’s usually a few or you can find a few. They’re so important to find. If that means attending a different church or attending online for a time. I believe that the body of Christ is so important because He loves the church so much, even though I had these devastating experiences. First and foremost, the shepherd is the one to shame you.

I have continued to have to process that. There are times with my current Pastor who’s been amazing and so supportive and nothing like that. I still am like, “He probably assumes my motives are wrong and I’m trying to make it about me.” All these things that I got from these other people or they don’t believe what I’m saying. There are things to heal but it didn’t change my need for the body and it didn’t change that I wanted to be a blessing to the body if I was no longer allowed. I wasn’t giving that in that place. It was a journey to go to another place because right after Andre had passed away, we went into the COVID pandemic.

I had like widowhood and these four kids then that pandemic hit. Churches were closed down for a time. We were wearing masks and I got these kids who are grieving and having their own behaviors. The little one was two and I’m supposed to be having them sit in these different places with masks. We visited these different churches. I did not give up. I didn’t relent on that pursuit to find another body because I knew that we needed it. We needed the body and the support. I knew I had things to give and to bring even though I was told I couldn’t or it wasn’t needed in that way.

Holy Spirit led me even though it was rough to find a body that was safe and not perfect any more than I am. It was such a gift to me and my family and worth the battle for my own face to stay connected to the vine and keep believing that local community was important. Those relationships have become, again, some of my closest people and dear friends.

I’ve been able to minister to people who’ve been widowed after me there. They welcome to me into worship with open arms and don’t have named and confirmed. They don’t see in me the accusations that have come from another church body. It doesn’t have to be the way that you’ve always known it to be. It could be something so much different and beautiful. It’s worth the battle to find it.

Thank you for sharing that. I want to circle back to something you mentioned, your children. Navigating their pain and grief in yours together. How did that look for you?

Grief With Children

It looked like a mess. I had a camper in my house. You could probably have some viral reels out of what that looks like.

How did you navigate that?

One day at a time. Asking the Lord for wisdom and again, Holy Spirit to lead me to the right counselors for my kids. That was important to me. I wasn’t counseling before him but we all went into counseling and at least for a time. There were some kids that go to older and old enough to say, “I don’t think I need this.” That was fine, but before then finding support for them, to navigate that and staying connected to those faithful few who could come alongside to pray for my kids because we had needs for a long time.

We had a lot of spiritual warfare for a long time. It’s that question that’s still ongoing to this day because as you mentioned, we go through these layers such as this endless process and is for them too. It changes and so I have to ask holy spirit to lead me still. What do they need right now? With my little one, we were talking about some of her anger that she’s had. Sometimes, the way it comes out at her at my husband now, her stepdad and another sibling. Thankfully, she’s intuitive enough to know not all kids have language. Not all of my kids have language to get to that but talking through it with her. She was able to say, “Sometimes, I am just so sad and mad that daddy died. It feels so big inside me that I don’t know how to get it out and it comes out on other people.”

I’m like, “That right there is beautiful because that’s the place where we can start from.” Life with kids and grief with kids is just like that. You’re like, “Lord, what do they need? What does this one need in this moment? This one maybe needs some more intensive counting. That one needs to find a connection with another godly man, get out and go fishing, throw a ball and be outdoors, and work with his hands.” Again, trusting that holy spirit can lead you as you seek him and ask him for each of your kids. Trying to be an open place for them to come and to ask questions.

It was always important for me to give honest answers when my husband passed by suicide. I had some people close to me right from the beginning. They were like, “You’re not going to tell them how he died, right? I don’t think you should tell them.” I’m like, “I’m not even going to start this off with not telling the truth because I know down the road, they’re going to know. The probably going to find out from someone other than me and that won’t be good. It’s going to hurt our trust and it’s going to be a whole thing for them to deal with them, too.”

How do I do this in an age-appropriate way that’s honest with them? Grief specialists can be wonderful resources. I did talk with a child grief specialist about that too and I had that conversation with my kids because how do you explain that to a kid? What does it mean that daddy died by suicide? What is that mean? They were little enough. I was just like, “Daddy did something to make his body not be alive anymore.” It’s still like, “I don’t get that.” It’s honest and clear. Often, how they process when they’re littlest to go off and play. You’re like, “Did you hear what I just said?”

I found it’ll come up later, too. There was times and another year later even, then they circled back to like, “What is that mean?” I’m like, “What do you mean you don’t know? It was such a big deal like when we talked about it.” To them, in their little brains and little minds, like us, we forget stuff. It was all a fog. It was like, “Let’s open this up for conversation. Where are you with that?” It’s just been an ongoing journey and I’m not sure that I’ve done it right.

I still go to the Lord. Even recently, I’m like, “Have I not showed enough videos or pictures of him or have I overemphasized it in these ways?” There’s so much grace there. All I can do is go to holy spirit and say, “What do you what do you want me to do? Maybe I loved it all up until this point. I don’t know. What can I do now to be there for them? What are they need?” The holy spirit can give you supernatural insight into what your kids need that no one else will know.

Thank you for sharing that. As you were sharing, I was thinking, “We get three whole days for bereavement and children go back to school.” What are some things that you observe in your children trying to navigate school or trying to have this idea of normalcy that could help other people with grieving children?

Do you mean in supporting them or just what it looks like when they have to get back into those real life thing?

Both.

A couple of my kids gave very different pictures. It’s going to depend on the child. One talked about it a lot and was little and. All of their play involved that over and over. “Here’s the mommy and daddy and a baby and the daddy dies. Here’s a family and the dad dies.” It was just like she needed to play that out over and over and do that in play therapy until we could make some progress and until that little baby or that one that she was identifying with in her play from a distance could participate in beating the bad guys or have some sense of Hope and life and purpose. It wasn’t just the cycle of the death.

Another one never cried like, “I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it. I’m good.” I’m like, “I know you’re not fine. How do I help you when you’re so little?” “You’re not.” It’s being open to these moments. I have been so blessed that those two younger ones have been able to be in a Christian school for a time and those teachers have been sensitive to that. Even in these different moments and the different dynamics with our family and blending. Several of my kids, I raise my nieces and nephew biologically but they’re mine. I can consider them mine and love them as mine.

Even in that, they had lost this before this loss. I made an effort to always meet their teachers and explained to people who were important around them and what they’re going through so that they knew. I feel like that was a helpful way of setting up my kids because jokes that can be made or things that can be said, it’s like, you’re not going to have anyone to show empathy or be sensitive to that if they don’t know what’s going on in that kid’s life. I was like, “This is what’s up.” They sit there with the eyes getting big and I’ll be like, “This is where we’re at and this is what they’ve been through. Are you ready for this? Grab a cup of coffee.”

That way for other people to be able and not that anyone did it perfectly like I didn’t, but to have a sensitivity to that and to catch those moments, hopefully, so that when the kids did bring up something about it. In school, they had an exercise something about my dad who died or when you don’t have, and then it’s like, “Let’s talk about this as a class or let’s have, what is that mean to you,” or even if it’s just the teacher giving them a hug one to one.

Kids are so different but they’re carrying a lot. As we all go, it can be so lonely if we just hold it inside and feel like with my kids, they’re the only ones without a dad. Look at all these families. There’s a mommy and daddy. I only have my mommy and then there’s opportunities that I’ve tried to emphasize that to my kids to be there for other people. One of my kids, their mom tragically died a couple years ago and I happened to walk up. I was going to pick my kiddo up. She was talking with this boy and she says, “I know what that’s like. My daddy died, too. I’m so sorry.”

Even that, I don’t know how much all of that how deep feeler at that age but at least to that boy, it was like, “I’m not even alone in this class with having lost a parent.” Everybody is in all put together and with all this stuff if we are willing to show our brokenness a little bit. Even be honest with that in our process with our kids, then they can be on us with their stories as they go forward and that touches the other people around them.

Thank you so much. When I look at this sign Hope Speaker, what are you wanting people to hear or think when they see that for you?

The Birth Of “Hope Speaker”

Hope Speaker was born because I know the depths of hopelessness and not just like, “This suck. I got screwed over. I don’t like this life. I’m very sad,” or even depressed about it. For me, I have attempted twice as I said. I literally would not be here and I can’t answer questions as to why did he pass and why didn’t you allow me to. I know what it’s like to be in a place where you are in such unbearable pain. You just feel like you cannot keep going. I’ve heard it described like people who have jumped from a burning building. It’s horrible and horrific.

Nobody would ever think and woke up that morning going, “I’m going to leap from 30 floors.” You never. Yet, when you are burning alive, you will do anything to get out of pain. That becomes something that you would never do just something that you think about doing but would never do. We entertain and then it becomes a real option or possibility to becoming the only way out. Having been there, the Lord gave me a vision of this in one of my darkest places. It was not one of the times that I attempted but I was circumstantially, if something had been different that night, I was laying out about 3:00 in the morning and I wasn’t sure whether I was going to go home or not.

I was struggling and the Lord gave me this vision. Again, I wasn’t in a place of thinking anything about my future. Also, I was thinking I want this to be done like I can’t and don’t want to live without him. I’m in so much pain. All of this other stuff was going on which I hadn’t yet processed and healed from as far as my closest people in community in the church. The Lord gave me in that dark like middle of the night at the place where my husband died. I’m barefoot. I’m laying on the rocks and it’s 3:00 in the morning. I don’t know if I’m going home and the Lord gave me this vision that I was standing on a stage. I don’t know how to describe it.

I knew I was speaking hope. That was so clear. When I looked out to the audience and the people I was speaking to, they were all in their dark place of about being done, so to speak. They were in this place where I was and He said, “You have to keep going. You have to show them how.” I didn’t know what all that meant but that night, it got me up off the rocks and I walked home. It is been over these years of battling the hopelessness. I was diagnosed with complicated grief and I struggled so hard to the acceptance with joy that He walked me through and his nearness and the confidence that I had that he wasn’t part of all of these other things that had happened to me.

His love for me and my deep relationship with him and confidence that I can hear from him and keep going and rebuilding. Hope Speaker was born from that vision and from knowing that it is so valuable. We have so many valuable resources. We have counselors and all this. I take advantage of all of those. I’m a huge advocate for all those things and in the work that I do, with life coaching and the membership that we’re about to launch and all the people in the connections and the speaking I do and the writing and the things.

I that I have that vision and that calling that people need what I’ve walked through. It’s not just about the letters after your name. There are people looking for help because I’ve lived through what they’re living through and I’ve done what they want to do, which is go from being in this place of believing my life is over. I have nothing left to live for. I don’t know how to rebuild, do this, move forward, and how can anything ever be good again to just having by his grace so much abundance. We have so much abundance, hope, life, joy and peace.

That’s what I’m about, is boldly sharing hope and helping people who are struggling, particularly widows and people who have been spiritually abused and those who have lost someone by suicide or struggled themselves because I can intimately dig into those things. In general, helping people to rebuild beautiful lives and find hope and that new identity to tap into that abundance from the Lord. That’s the only way I can explain how the things that I’ve been through and how low and how dark to being where I am. That’s the work of the holy spirit right there and he calls us to just keep spreading it.

Thank you. We shared briefly about you being married. Dating as a widow, finish that statement.

Dating as a widow is crazy. I’m was trying to think of something profound to say.

It can be a one-liner. Finish that thought.

Resistance To Remarriage

It’s a wild thing. When my husband passed away, my first suicide attempt, I had written a note to God. I was very mad at God. I basically told him, “I clearly loved Andre more than you do. If you think that I’m just going to get over this and go on with my life, then other people can do that when I piece out. Screw you.” that was just like an all raw. I was like, “He is so important to me and I love him so deeply. I’m not going to cooperate with this whole, “Everything’s just going to move forward thing.” I’m coming because I’m done.”

Even though the last year was so hard and crazy making like with all of the things that happened in this other person. We hold place in grief for both. I’ve had to hold place and grief for both because I get memories and I know who Andre was in the spirit and who he was like his whole life. He’s an amazing person and I see pictures in a video and I grieve. I see these other reminders of how he was and remember what happened and the awful things that he said and did. It’s like I’m grieving this whole other person, so there’s both their butt.

Overall, he was my person. I loved him very deeply. In one sense, I didn’t I didn’t think about moving forward with somebody else because I was like, “I’m tapping out now.” Through this battle of choosing to live and choosing acceptance with joy, hope, and rebuilding and all the things we’re talking about. I came to a place of knowing. I wanted to be married again one day. I began to circle that in prayer about having this other person but my life was so I say, it’s crazy because the whole time, my life was crazy afterward. I got these four kids and you have all these stuffs going on. There are so many losses, things to navigate, changes and needs.

I didn’t see how I was going to overlap someone naturally. For sure it can happen with other people but I don’t know. One would work and unless he shows up at the grocery store when I happened to be there. I am so busy taking care of kids and doing all this stuff. I don’t know what that would even look like. Years down the road, I had this in prayer. I shared this at the windows panel and it’s funny. I was considering dating online. I had looked at some Christian ones and done a free trial thing. I found out fast I did not like this whole dating app online thing. It was like a joke.

I was like, “This is like a game or a joke. I don’t like this at all,” and yet, I felt that that might be a way forward. I remember having this moment with God and I was thinking of signing up for eHarmony. I’m literally in between all of these things. I had some kids with stuff going on that I would have to take him out of school for appointments and mental health things. It was a busy time. I was talking with the Lord about this and I also carried this weight of I have to be good enough to do this again. You get like, “I’m so broken. We have all these things and who would want like all of this lies? I want to make sure that I have a healed my stuff.”

I’ve been doing weekly counseling for like what four years at this point or something. I’m like, “I’m still too broken. I’m not good enough or whatever. When I have to be ready, I want your blessing. I want your direction.” I was sitting here on my floor, so I lifted this thing up about the eHarmony thing. I was like, “Would you just show me if and when this is right or the right time?” It was like one of those clear times. He was like, “Now.” I was like, “Let me try this again. Lord, I was if and when this time.” I got to go get a kitten like 40 minutes and he’s like, “Now. You’re fine now. You’re free. Go ahead. I’m nudging you now.” I was like, “I’m busy now.”

I’ll be like, “Later tell me that.”

Meeting Her Second Husband Online

I felt this prompting and I like set up this account. I had it for like a couple of months and it was so hard. It’s such a hard thing. I can empathize with people having these struggles. I didn’t have much time. I would run with these four kids all day long and not even every day. Sometimes, I would remember to check in on this thing at night time. I go to the thing and you’d have all these messages from these guys. I’d like look at their profile and if they were not like real clear about loving the Lord, I’d be like no.

I copy and paste this message of like, “Thanks for your interest. I don’t think we’re good fit. Bye.” I put my phone down and go to bed. I’m like, “This is so stupid. I hate this. This is crazy.” I was like ready to be done. I was like, “I’m going to be done with this.” That was when I just cast a wide net. I don’t know what to say other than, “You have settings in there about how far that you’re willing to look regionally.” I was like continental United States. I was like, “Lord because I don’t need all. I just need the right one.”

Everybody reading, I’m not telling you to do this, by the way. The Holy Spirit can lead you. I met Mike. Mike was living in Missouri and I’m in Colorado and it didn’t make things easy. There’s a lot of implications down the road from toggling that switch from this many miles within me to the continental United States of which he’s a few states away because it’s had implications down the road about what that looked like to get to know each other, to be married, and what our family looks like and the trips that we go back and forth to now.

It had very real implications but it was meant. It was a gift. Mike ended up coming out here. We got to know each other over a couple of years. He would come and stay with someone from our church for like a week or two out of the month. He committed and invested. He would come and be with me when the kids got up in the morning and helped them get ready for school. Taking kids and running around. The little one was still little and taking time, energy, and investment.

 

In ways, I feel like the distance was a gift slowing things down that could have moved faster otherwise but it also presented other dynamics. How did his daughter feel about that who was older? I traveled there with the kids several times but it was a lot harder for me with four kids to go out that way. What that meant and what that meant for her feelings when she came here after he married. That’s been a great even to see that.

The change from being upset about that to feeling in her words like this is where she was supposed to be. There’s been so many graces and gifts but it’s been crazy. All of that from the time like now. What do you mean now? Are you kidding me? The whole dating app thing and him coming from Missouri and all that. It’s been crazy. It’s been a blessing but it’s been something else.

Rachel, with everything you’ve experienced and all the knowledge, and you got to talk to yourself the day Andre left this world? What would you tell her?

Message To Her Past Self: Hope In Loss

I remember that day. I remember being on the floor with all the tissues. I would look up and see the clock had moved like five minutes. It was like the most excruciating, painfully slow death. I was like, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to make this the rest of my life. I cannot even take these next few minutes.” I would say to her, “Rachel, the Lord is going to be so faithful to you. You will know the face fullness of the Lord because that’s that is what has sustained me and saved me saved me from my self, his faithfulness.”

It’s true. It isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want his faithfulness. All I wanted was Andre to come back but again, under the rubble of losing what you don’t want to lose, which is going to continue to happen to us, the people that we love, our health, and the things. Unless we go first, we’re going to continue to lose these things. When you move away the rubble of what you’ve lost, you can find that foundation of what can’t be taken from you. The Lord’s faithfulness has been there.

I am so grateful for you taking time to have this conversation. I’ve asked you a lot of questions. Do you have any questions you have of me?

I would love to know if you’d be willing to share. When did you have a prompting or was there a turning point for you when your story went from you surviving and living, too, Widowhood Real Talk with Tina, your nonprofit and the things that you do that calling of widowhood when that became that acceptance would joy for you? All the people that you touched, served, and all the people who are reading, when did that transition happen from just surviving you that myopic view to what you do for all these beautiful people?

That’s a good question. That view shifted in conversations I had with my late husband. Mark had a lot of chronic heart condition and his family. He was certain that he was going to leave this world before the age of 55. Begrudgingly, we had a lot of conversations of what my life would look like in his absence and that was the genesis of those thoughts of what my life would look like as Tina. I’ve been saying Tina and Mark for 32 years and we were happily married.

On vacation, he had a heart attack and I came home from that vacation alone. My family and friends gather around and they were as supportive now as they were then. They have remained supportive in ways that I thought everybody received support. In conversations with other people, learning that so many people travel this process alone feeling like they’re a burden to other people. They had chatter of so much negativity leaves them in a place of isolation and loneliness.

I was speaking with a family friend who had lost a loved one, who lost her spouse. She had posted something on social media and I said, “Do you want to give me a call? Do you want to talk about it?” She said, “I’ll talk tomorrow.” I said, “Do you want to talk now?” She called and spoke with me. We were on that phone way past my bedtime. I remember hanging up the phone and just exhausted but also remembering Mark’s first birthday and what that felt like for me.

I’ll say that I will never tell another widow, “I know how you feel,” because I don’t. Unique feeling is based on using unique individual in the spouse that is no longer here. I can certainly relate and empathize but I cannot say I know how you feel. There is something sacred to be able to talk to someone that has traveled a path that you have been on and you don’t have to mix words. You can just clearly explain. The thing that may have made somebody gas before you and you took a bath for a month because I didn’t. I’m like, “It was just a month for you?”

Having that discussion with her and when I hung up from her, I could hear God saying, “What are you going to do about the next person?” I was like, “No one is calling my phone at this time. This is late. What? No.” The next person that needs to know they’re not alone. At that time, my mom was 79 and she has a show called Timeless Journey. The idea that when we are in the throes of this profound grief, we may not be in a place. we want to talk to another person but we do want to gain information.

We have a weekly episode and we put out content across six social media platforms, which yield about 4.3 million views across 111 countries. We provide social content for people being on our website to be able to have resources, books, or mental health professional coaches. The third lane is through mental health events, memorial gardens, butterfly release ceremony, and events before the holidays. As I’m writing my memoir and looking at how I navigated grief, these three pillars are those same things.

The only thing that Widowhood Real Talk of Tina is not a safe base organization. In the conversations with my Pastor when I started the non-profit, this grief journey can mess up somebody’s faith and their thought of church religion. I don’t want that to be a hindrance from me being able this organization to show up and love. If you ask me personally, my relationship with Yeshua, Jesus, my Savior, father, son, Holy Spirit is the only reason why I’m breathing and living. It’s the reason it gives me purpose for wanting to help people, but I will meet you at your place in need that this non-profit if I want to see three is not faith-based.

This is people-base and loving and supporting them. It has become unequivocally clear this is the space that God would have me to be in. That can be complicated because movies and TVs romanticized grief like we’re all floating around. This is high garbage. This is the worst experience in my entire life. My husband didn’t die, then I was like, “I’m going to.” No. This was crawling through lava every day. This was wondering, how is this going to work? God prompted change and facilitated and because of the views and other things, we have business sponsors.

There are opportunities for people because there’s a niche market that we’re supporting. Some people want to connect with that market. We have sponsorship programs for people that are looking to come along with us. That allows us to keep doing what it is. All of the board members have a full-time job. All of the money we receive goes to the mission of Widowhood Real Talk with Tina. I am blown away by the idea that this is what God has allowed me to use to be able to help other people. I try to say yes to God because saying no don’t work, so just go with it.

Amen. There’s so much there. Thank you for all that you do. It’s a gift and a grace. It’s beautiful to behold and to get to be part of a little bit here.

Thank you. I’m going to say something to my audience, my community, then I would like for you to close out this conversation with the final words. I am so sorry for the person that you have lost that has joined you to this conversation but I’m glad you found us. I’m glad that you’re here. I know this conversation will be helpful for you and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

I would just like to add that, if you can’t feel it, sense it, know it, and see it in any way. There is still hope under your feet and a path forward for you. I want to give you that encouragement that in the darkest places, the cracks are where the light gets through. Your story isn’t over yet and this reality is not your forever reality. There is still good and beautiful things ahead of you.

Important Links

• Rachel Powell on Facebook
• Rachel Powell on Instagram
• Hope Speaker
• Timeless Journey

About Rachel Powell

Rachel Powell is an inspirational writer, speaker, singer, & merchandise creator who is on mission to reach people struggling with pain & hopelessness, after losing her young husband by suicide & then attempting herself. A widowed & remarried suicide survivor, she is also a bio, kinship & stepmom, a Registered Nurse, & the founder of Hope Speaker.

Navigating & healing through tragedy enables her to be a light in the darkness of pain for others (see topics below from her personal journey). Rachel is passionate about knowing God more deeply & experientially through suffering.

Rachel is a vulnerable story-teller, connecting with her audience honestly on the hardest topics, & leaving them with life-transforming truth (rather than fleeting motivation). Rachel has received many messages that her authentic & compassionate sharing has not only strengthened those in her reach, but has prevented suicides.”