Grief After Losing Your Husband: Teresa’s Story of Faith
When you are in fresh grief after losing your husband, the ground doesn’t just feel shaky. It feels gone. In this Redeeming Her podcast episode, Deborah Larson sits down with guest Teresa Thompson to talk about caregiving, terminal cancer, widowhood, and grief after losing your husband. If you’re walking through loss or trying to support someone who is, this story gives you honest language, hope, and practical ways to keep moving with the help of the Spirit of Truth.
How Do You Survive Grief After Losing Your Husband?
Teresa’s story begins long before the diagnosis. She grew up as the firstborn of twelve on a dairy farm in Northern California—responsible, steady, and carrying more weight than most adults. Years later, as a single mom raising her children and putting herself through college, she learned how to survive hard seasons without breaking. But nothing prepared her for the moment everything changed.
Only eighteen months into marriage, after a weekend getaway to Tahoe, Teresa and her husband, Kevin, stopped at an emergency room because of what they assumed was a minor infection. Instead, the CT scan revealed a mass. Within weeks, the doctors confirmed metastatic pancreatic cancer. The disease had already spread to multiple organs, and his Type 1 Diabetes only complicated everything.
What followed was caregiving at a level most people never talk about. Teresa worked full time while giving him round-the-clock medication, managing nine to ten prescriptions, monitoring pain, and trying to keep him comfortable. She barely slept for months. She barely ate. She barely breathed. But she kept going because when you love someone that much, you will do whatever it takes.
The crash didn’t come until after he died. She describes it as finally falling from a height she didn’t realize she’d been standing on. Once the Holy Spirit lifted His sustaining strength, she could feel how exhausted she truly was. And yet—and this is the miracle—she survived.
What the Holy Spirit Does When Your Whole Life Collapses
Years earlier, long before Kevin ever got sick, Teresa had a powerful encounter in what she lovingly calls a “Hollywood church”—lights, strobes, fog machines, the whole production. But what happened in the prayer room changed her forever. Deborah placed her hands above Teresa’s, not touching her, and she felt a rush of warmth, electricity, and peace—a blanket of love from the Holy Spirit that awakened something deep inside her. It created a hunger for truth, an awareness of God’s voice, and a new strength she didn’t yet understand she would need.
That encounter prepared her for what was coming.
During Kevin’s final months, the Holy Spirit met her in the cracks. In fear. In the bathroom between medication rounds. In the car driving to appointments. In the nights when she slept in ten-minute intervals. When she could no longer carry herself, she was carried. And when they celebrated their second anniversary—knowing it would be their last—God orchestrated a moment that changed everything.
On the drive home from Monterey, Teresa felt prompted to stop at the church where she and Kevin had married. The pastor felt prompted on the same weekend to change his sermon. Kevin listened to the message and wept. “That was for me,” he said, over and over. Kevin accepted Christ that day. He experienced peace. He felt love. He felt God. And a month later, on Good Friday at 1:30 PM, he passed into eternity with Teresa holding his hand.
Finding Purpose in Eternal Rest
At his funeral, the pastor gave an altar call—twelve people responded. Teresa realized then what she now calls her assignment: helping Kevin transition from where he was to where he needed to be.
Today, she reminds women everywhere that grief isn’t something you fix—it’s something you walk through, with God carrying you when your strength runs out. What her story truly reveals is the core of this episode: love is stronger than the grave, and the Spirit of Truth meets you right where your weakness begins.
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