Narrative Research of the Relationship Between Christian Beliefs and the Meaning Reconstruction Process of Widows

[[abstract]]The purpose of this study was to explore how Christian women reconstruct their life meaning and self-esteem through religious beliefs after conjugal loss. Narrative research method was applied to collect life stories of 3 female participants who have been widowed for 21, 14 and 8 years respectively. Three in-depth interviews, each lasting about 2.5 to 3 hours, were conducted for the participants to narrate their life course thoroughly. The narrated texts were analyzed by the narrative analysis models of holistic-content approach and holistic-form approach, combined with the model of “problem solution narrative structure” proposed by Ollerenshaw and Creswell (2000). Results indicated that Christian widows’ life meaning reconstruction process was manifested through the change of their life core issues. Five core issues that have been changed among all participants were: death attitude, parental relationship, self image, relationship with God, and church service. With regard to death attitude, changes were exhibited from initial confusion to present neutral death acceptance. While for parental relationship, authoritarian parenting style was replaced by democratic parenting style aligning with the growth of the children. For self image, negative self image was substituted for self confidence and positive self image. On the subject of relationship with God, God was perceived as a father, friend and even spouse instead of the previous estranged relationship. As to church service, devotion to the church services was participants’ shared vision. There were two pathways through which Christian widows mightreconstructtheir life meaning. One was that God utilize the persons surrounding the widows, widows’ own dreams, and Himself to change the widows’ negative self image. The other was that the widows adjusted their bereavement by participating church services, being intrinsic religiousness, adopting religious coping, getting religious social support, and being spiritually oriented.