widowI recently read an article in one of my mom’s weekly magazines about the so called Festive Widows.  To those who are not familiar with the term, a festive widow is one who’s partner goes MIA (missing in action) as soon as he gets his bonus on the 15th of every December until January the following year, when he is broke without a dime and ready to humble himself and ask for your forgiveness.

Now I know this relationship status has been around for a while even if not quiet as defined, in fact many marriages were born out of this status which is defined as perseverance aka. ukunyamezela  in Xhosa…(something I am not famous for possessing much of).

As you might have guessed, this is totally unrelated to any church and might not even have scriptural reference, it is just a human wonder post reading the Festive Widow article… this is a part of the human side of this church girl.  Upon reading the article I wondered how many self respecting ladies out there are going to be camping at home awaiting the resurrection of their partner in 2016. I cant lie and say this has never happened to me before and maybe that is partly the reason it upsets me that there is even a term for it. The thing about these terms society comes up with is that they pose a danger of making something so demining to women totally  acceptable.

Often we are not in control of how people treat us, we are however in control of our own reactions to that treatment.

Now that word is out on Festive Widows, as they are called; sadly there will be a “self  respecting” woman who will refer to another woman as this. I hope that wont be you.  Calling each other names is a form of disservice to self, people will treat us the way we treat ourselves and each other.

Stranger things have happened  even at church, whether you are born again or not,  in courtship, relationship or marriage I hope you will recognise it early when love is no longer served at your table.

For my own amusement I did look up a “Widow” description again  which is said to be a Married woman whose husband has died and who remains unmarried or a woman who has lost her spouse by death and has not married again.. So if you are not married, you have even less reasons to be doing widow shadowing.

Festive Widow? Honestly there is nothing cool about this , if there was I am sure Facebook would have included it on their status updates.

#FestiveWidowingMustFall #SisterhoodMustRise

xoxo

ChurchGirlHuman

LM.