I really thought I understood strength, until the day I stood before two hundred women, wrapped in their Sunday best, some in lace, others in simple Ankara, and watched them laugh through pain that would have broken the earth itself if it were made of flesh.
That day, we hosted our Widows’ Outreach. Two hundred seats filled, but somehow, it felt like two hundred worlds, each woman carrying her own country of memories, her own unspoken battles. And what I saw changed me.
Strength Revealed
The morning began with the hum of chatter and the rustle of wrappers. Some women arrived before sunrise, carrying their handbags and stories alongside them, balancing expectations on their heads like baskets. We had come prepared to give food packs, render support, and listening ear, but as the hours unfolded, I realized they were the ones giving us something far richer.
Strength, I learned, does not always roar. Sometimes it hums softly in the background, wearing a faded wrapper and calling you my sister with a smile that hides decades of endurance.
When Grief Becomes Grace
One woman told me she lost her husband twenty-two years ago. Another said she buried hers last year and hadn’t laughed since. Yet, there they were, laughing, dancing, holding hands.
You could feel an aura in the room, the force of held it all together. These women had learned to make peace with pain, to plant flowers on the graves of their sorrows and call it living.
I watched one woman share her food with another who had arrived late. I watched another adjust the headscarf of a stranger as though she were her sister. Words may not express how much these actions impacted us.
The Power of Gathering
People may have the notion that women ‘have problem’; but be assured that when these women come together in unity for one purpose, it will be a force to reckon with. It almost feels ethereal. There is a kind of strength that forms from there.
When one woman says, “This is what I’ve been through,” another whispers, “Me too.” And in that moment, shame loses its power. That is what Beulah Walk of Hope stands for: these spaces where stories meet, collide, and generate comfort. Because the truth is: women heal women. Always have. Always will.
Strength Redefined
Before that outreach, I used to define strength as endurance, the ability to keep standing no matter what. But these women redefined it for me.
They showed me that strength is also in softness, in the way you still find joy when life gives you reasons not to. It’s in the laughter that escapes your mouth before you realize you’re laughing again. It’s in the hand you stretch to another woman, even when your own hand trembles. Strength is not just about surviving, it’s about still choosing to love, still choosing to hope.
Lessons from 200 Women
Here is what those 200 women taught me:
- That strength wears many faces; some tired, some smiling, but all beautiful.
- That survival is not weakness
- That sometimes, your miracle is not in what you receive, but in what you still have left to give.
- That hope shared is hope multiplied.
And perhaps most beautifully, they taught me that even in widowhood, a word society sometimes treats like a scar, there is still grace, dignity, laughter, and life.
Still Walking, Still Learning
When we closed the event that day, the sun was already dipping, painting everything in gold. The women began to leave, one by one, carrying their packages and stories like sacred relics. I stood there watching, my heart full and happy.
That day, I came to care for these women, but I left discipled. And so we keep walking, with them, for them, because of them. Join us; partner, volunteer, or support a widow. Together, let’s build a world where no woman walks alone, no matter how heavy her story feels.