I don’t know if you’ve ever heard me talk about making sourdough bread. The process and the result are both lengthy, and so worth it. As I smell fresh bread baking in the oven this morning, I’m reminded how much this one practice mirrors our lives.

As widows, we start out like the sourdough starter. It’s not pretty, and it takes days of care before it’s ready to create a loaf. But when the starter finally reaches that perfect stage, when it’s proofed just right, you can begin your creation. Still, that’s not the end of the process.

Before you bake, you make something called a levain. The night before, about ten hours before starting your loaf, you take around 25 grams of your starter and build a new one. I know, it already sounds like a lot. But stay with me. Once the levain is ready, you have a choice: throw away most of the leftover starter or use the discard for something else, like pancakes or pizza dough.

Before you toss it though, you take another 25 grams to begin the starter process again. Because if you stop feeding the starter, you lose it. And if you’ve ever made sourdough, you know you don’t want to start from scratch again. You keep feeding it so it stays alive. READ that line again… YOU keep feeding it so it stays alive….

Once the levain is ready and risen, that’s when you finally start the dough. All you need is flour, water, salt, and your levain. You mix them together and what you get first is a shaggy dough, not smooth but, full of potential.

You let it sit, resting for about thirty minutes, then add a little more water if needed and the salt. Now the folding and stretching begin. This takes about 10 minutes, your arms are exhausted by this point. Then you wait thirty minutes, stretch and fold again, and repeat this several times until the dough begins to smooth out, rising and taking shape.

This is where the lesson comes in. I think as widows, we spend too much time dumping out the “discard” and not enough time nurturing what’s growing within us. We forget that what looks messy and shaggy right now might just be the start of something beautiful.

Even after the dough has risen, it’s still not ready to bake. It needs shaping, resting in its basket overnight for about ten hours…proofing time. Heating the oven as hot as it can get, and when the dough is ready, you score it. That little cut allows the gases to release so the bread can expand and bake properly. Without that step, it might burst in strange places.

Then comes the waiting again. You can smell it baking and your mouth waters, but you still can’t cut into it right away. You have to let it rest, because it’s been through intense heat and needs time to settle. Only then can you enjoy the beautiful loaf you’ve worked so hard to create.

Widowhood feels a lot like that. The process is long, the waiting uncomfortable, the stretching and folding painful, and the heat, well, it feels unbearable.

But all of it is shaping us. We are a work in progress, and what comes out of this will depend on how we choose to care for our own “starter.”

You see, the discard can still be used…it has value…but the levain, the part you nurture and let rise, that’s where new creation begins. You’re not the discard. You’re the levain, waiting to be used for something so much more. WE are not the discard.

I wish we didn’t have to walk this path. I wish our husbands were still here and that we didn’t have to “bake our sourdough lives.” But since this is where we are, maybe we can trust that something beautiful can still rise from what’s been broken.

If I could, I’d slice this bread with you and share it right now. But for today, just know this: you are being shaped with intention and care. You’re not done yet. You are becoming something beautiful, something that carries the warmth and scent of love, resilience, and life still rising. This is our widowhood….

Love to you my friends

If you plan on joining this week….We meet on Thursday at 3pm PST I look forward to meeting with you as always. The zoom link is in this email. 🙂

PPS… There are four spots left for the course “A New Way To Stand” Make sure to get on this wait list. We will be starting this course in January.