The following excerpts are rough drafts, and they are protected by copyright laws. While I want to share this with you, I ask that you respectfully do not publish, copy, duplicate or transmit any part of it in any form. Thank you.





I woke up to sunlight streaming in the bedroom. I could feel him beside me, and rolled over to put my arm around him. Suddenly, I sat straight up in bed. It was not him! Then it hit me, as hard as though a train had slammed into me. The pain ripped through me. It felt like I had been struck by lightning, or worse. Someone was ripping my heart out, but I could not die. I began to scream. My mother sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around me and held me.



"Oh, God, Mama. I want him back. I want my husband. Please, tell God I want him back!" I wailed like a child. My body was wracked by sobs that I could not control, could not bear to let go of, and could not hold onto. My mother rocked me back and forth. She cooed to me that she was so sorry for my pain and my loss. I begged her to make it better, as a child begs a mother to fix what is wrong. Even as I knew she could not, I knew that God would not bring him back. He was gone. I would have to face this day, and every day to come, knowing that I was now a widow. He would not be coming home. I was alone. My life was over. Heart and Soul were torn apart.

All I wanted to do was to not face this day, not remember the horror of the day before, and not live through to see the next. I wanted to go back to sleep, to bury my head in his pillow and breath in his smell. I wanted him to come home, to take his place beside of me. I wanted him more desperately than I ever before, and I knew that my wants would go unfulfilled. I wanted to go back to the cocoon of unconciousness of the night before, and to say no to the future. But already the day was imposing itself on me. My wails had alerted the household that I was awake. The things that had to be done cried out their own demands.

A soft knock on the door and my daughter, Amy, entered. "Mama, the funeral director is on his way here. Can you get dressed?" I don't know how I did get dressed. It was all a blurr of activity. My house was full of family and neighbors. Friends and church members began to arrive. The word was getting around fast, the pastor had been killed in a car wreck. It was all so unreal, and yet so devastingly true. Food was being brought in. I did not want food, refused to eat and over the next few weeks I would lose thirty pounds. It did not matter. Food was something we had enjoyed together. The family is built around the dinner table. Meals were a special time of togetherness in our home. We prayed together at meal times, and we ate together. It was a time of laughter and sharing. Every special occasion included a special meal to celebrate it and a special prayer to thank God for it.

But, the celebration was gone out of life now. The food being brought was not for celebrating, it was for sustaining. It was for life, and I did not want life.

How many times recently had he and I gone to share a meal at someone's home who had suffered loss? He had preached at many funerals over the past three years. Most of the time we were invited to eat with the family, and usually I took something to share. The last time it had been a salad and banana pudding. The banana pudding was a special recipe that my daughter, Angela, had taught me to make. It was "the favorite" around our house. I had just made it for him a few days before.

A wreath had been hung by the funeral home, as is our tradition, on the front door to show that a death had visited this house. Inwardly, I screamed, "That doesn't belong there. Get it off my door. Death hasn't come. Death hasn't visited here." And yet, the truth was, it had. It was my day to suffer. It was my time to know this loss. And not only mine, but my children's and grandchildren's too. I would have to live through this, as much as I did not want to. They would demand that of me, and I would do it for them. We would survive this tragedy, someway, somehow, together.

People came and went. I was kept informed of who needed to be where and when. The autopsy had been completed. My darling's remains would be at the funeral home. I had decisions to make because of the extent of his injuries. I would have to go to the funeral home and see for myself. The director told us that they would "prepare" him for me to see. I would then have to decide on whether to have an open casket viewing or a closed. "My God, this is not my husband, this is not happening to us. This is not our life!" I wanted to scream on the way to the funeral home. But it was.............



another excerpt from another chapter.....

"Mrs. Ferrell?", I heard the medical examiner speak my name. "We received the call and were on site in less than five minutes. Your husband was killed immediately." My family sat around the table in an office at the funeral home. The man at the end of the table took my husband's wallet and keys and laid them on the table in front of us. He handed me my husband's wedding band.
I knew he was talking but I sat looking at the band on my left finger and the one laying in my hand. His was smaller than mine. His had soul engraved inside of it, and mine had heart. Noone knew that but us. He had designed our rings, there was a cross and a star of David, side by side. It signified our commitment to our faith and our support for all of God's Chosen people. They were to be a perpetual symbol of our love, our becoming one heart and one soul.

"His wallet was in his front right pocket." the M.E.'s words interrupted my thoughts. I looked at the black wallet and began to weep. I knew the feel of it. I could see my husband opening it, as he had so many times to pull out a card or cash, to show me something like his picture from a new license he had just gotten. I reached and took it off the table. My family watched as I lifted it to my lips and kissed it, a "ritual" that I still do today. The leather smelled like my husband's aftershave. I knew his hands had touched it shortly before he had died. It was a link, a weak link, but a link all the same. Every link counts. Every scent and touch savored, every thought filed away for the future.

I heard details of how the emergency personnel had arrived on the scene. I thought of all the times I had watched reality t.v. emergency room shows. They almost always saved the victim through heroic medical or rescue procedures. Yet, no heroics had been done to save my husband. Nothing could be done. It wasn't the EMT's fault, nor the Medical Examiner's. It was just a fact. He was gone. God had called, "Gary..." and he had gone, obedient to His Father, just the way he had tried to live his life. God calling, Gary answering.



.....and from another chapter...



I sat on the shore watching the couple holding hands. It had only been a few months since Gary and I had been camping on a deserted island off the coast of North Carolina. We had taken seven foreign exchange students, our daughter, and her four children! We had laughed when the wind had stolen one of our tents in the dark of night.

"Will you run away with me to a deserted island?" Gary had teased the next day. I looked up into his blue eyes shining and his sparkling smile. "God, I love this man", I had silently prayed. His hand pressed against my back as he drew me near to him.

"We're on a deserted island," I had laughed. I knew what he wanted, time alone together. "Yes, I will run away with you." and I grabbed a sweater hanging on the back of a chair near the tent. We walked hand in hand down the beach, away from the noise of the children and the sounds of kids playing in the sand. Amy watched us go. She was helping her little ones build a sand castle. I knew she understood the need to get away with the one you love.

We walked for about three miles. "Here it is," he said. "This is where we camped the last time." He pointed out the markings, but it had all changed so much after the hurricane.

We had spent a week together here in a small, two man pup tent. We had "built" furniture out of drift wood, and cooked in an "oven" built out of sand. In the mornings, he had gotten up early to take our "order" down to the box where it would be picked up by one of the Ferry workers. Our ice came by ferry each day, along with extra provisions that we might need. When he got back, I had breakfast ready. At night, we lay with the ocean in front of us, the sky above us and the stars twinkling. A star had fallen and we had wished on it. My wish was that this moment could last forever. But it didn't. We went back to the real world of pastor and wife.
We had ridden our bicycles down the beach each day, the sun on our backs, our hats flopping on our heads. The bicycles had been a Christmas gift from Angie and we enjoyed them immensely. There was a wire basket on the front of both of the red bicycles. We stocked the baskets with water bottles and a bag with lunch and snacks. We tied a half-tent on the back of his bike and a beach blanket on the back of mine, and off we rode into the sunny day.

He was always patient with me and my wants. I wanted to stop and play in the waves, and we did. I wanted to stop and see every broken conch shell, every star fish and sand dollar, and we did. We watched the storm build over the south-eastern end of the island and knew we wouldn't make it back to the tent before the storm hit. We would have to get off the beach and make a shelter quickly before the storm came. I knew it could be dangerous to be on the beach during a lightening storm, but I was not afraid. We were side by side. We would put the metal bicycles out away from where we would shelter, and we would snuggle under the blanket together in our half tent, with the zipper closed until the storm passed. We were snug inside this cocoon as the storm raged outside. His arms were wrapped tightly around me, his body sheltering me. We were husband and wife, we were one heart and one soul and one body.
That was last year. The hurricane had ripped apart the island, creating a new channel and making one body of land into two. We caught a ride back to our camp and the grandkids ran out to meet us.

"Look Nana! Look Grampy!" they had treasures to show and we were delighted to be a part of their world, where life is precious and every things is a "treasure".

Now, less than a year later, here I was on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea, in Bat Yam, Israel, and he was in heaven with God. Life sure had twists and turns.



It has been 10 1/2 months at the time that I'm writing this since Gary went to sleep behind the steering wheel of his little car, and he woke up in heaven. Yesterday, I went to the cemetary. The headstone had arrived and I wanted to put new flowers on the grave. I didn't know that seeing the stone would throw me for such a loop, but it did.

I had spent the past several months worrying about what to put on the stone that would mark his grave, and the place that I will eventually be laid to rest (unless I'm raptured out of this world!). I wanted it to say something meaningful. I finally decided on a double stone with wedding rings in the middle. His "side" would have his name, Rev. Gary Leroy Ferrell" and the date of his birth and death. Above his name, it would say "Grampy" and below it "Heart". My "side" would have my name and birth date. It will be left to someone else to have that final date engraved. Above my name, "Nana" and below it, "soul". To our grandchildren, we are Nana and Grampy. To each other, we were heart and soul, just as we had had inscribed inside our wedding bands. In each corner, witnessing to the hope that he now knows triumphantly and the one that I still cling to, is a cross.

I felt a hand ease into mind. It was soft and small. My grandson had decided to get out of the car and come help his "Nana" put flowers on "Grampy's" grave. Just as a child does, he saw that having a hand to hold would make things better. It did.



I am blessed to be surrounded by my children and grandchildren. I wish I could say that our church that my husband had served was there for me, but for the most part, they were not, are not. I have found a new church family to fellowship with and I am grateful for them. And, God has given me Lydia Ministries, which allows me to share in your suffering and in your joys.

If you are a pastor's widow, then you know some of the challenges that it brings. How difficult it can be to go to church, where we have been accustomed to seeing our spouse, front and center. I always enjoyed my husband's sermons and watching him interact with the congregation. I still can't imagine him gone, when I remember him sitting down at the front of the church on Sunday mornings, all of the little ones gathered around their pastor, some sitting on his knee. He would tell some simple but fascinating story to them, show some amazing thing or picture, and they would draw close to God together.



There are things that we face that are particular to being the widow of a pastor. I had to move out of the parsonage within a few short days after my husband's funeral. I stayed in a hotel for about three weeks. Finally, I stayed at my daughter's home. I had a house to go to, but it was piled full with boxes and furniture stacked from floor to ceiling. Most of the boxes contained Gary's belongings. Everything represented our memories, our life together. Fittingly, just as I felt life had come tumbling in on me, these boxes sat precariously one atop another, and others had tumbled in on them.

Thankfully, God has a plan for each of us, and His plan is perfect. This is where my strength comes from. I know that nothing is going to come my way but that my Father has a plan to work it out to my good and to His glory. He doesn't promise that we won't have suffering and tears, but He does promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Nothing can steal us from the palm of His hand. This is hope.