I rather doubt she received any comfort. They lived in the country over 20 miles from town. Her neighbours (two miles away) who came to help her (load her husband's body in the back of their neighbour's pick-up truck (he was a big tall man that she could not move)) to take to the ER. were, a few days later both t-boned by a speeding teenager who did not slow down or yield at the intersection killing both her neighbours (husband/wife) instantly. So both her neighbours died before her husband's funeral. From what I understand, the widow quickly sold their farmstead (her husband had purchased the farmstead only a few years earlier) and moved about a thousand miles to live with his parents.

As her husband was a product of his very devout parents, I am not optimistic about her emotional well being.

@NoMagicCookie that gives me an ache, in my heart! I 'know' this mentality and I continue to be puzzled as to how it keeps perpetuating, itself (religious distortions), with TV and all the other exposures (may not be educational, but it does have some real things to ponder)! It is somewhat like that here! Right down to our Senators and Representatives...even our Sheriff! I find it hard to understand, because I came out of that culture and I am far, far removed, with exposure and experience to real life. And, I came from poverty and deprivation!

@Freedompath I congratulate your ascension from the darkness of superstitious dogma. Although my Christian upbringing was not as intense, because the church openly (taught?) things that were in direct contradiction with observed reality, for example (Star of Bethlehem that shone above the baby Jesus (face palm)) and many others. . . As this and so many other assertions were utterly ridiculous, when I was young I thought the only purpose of churches was to scare children (as only a child would possibly believe this junk) into doing what adults wanted them to do. It wasn't until my 20's before I realized many adults never grew up and still believed in their invisible sky daddy. That was a very sad and scary realization that has greatly reduced my optimism for a healthy civilization that will continue to advance or survive the increasing population/environment pressures.

@NoMagicCookie believe me...I feel grateful for clarity and my freedom, every day!

I could be wrong but I think it was actually his (as in he purchased the building) church. The building started in the late 50's as First United Methodist church (coincidently the same church my parents took me to when I was a child and had no option to forgo the experience) about five years before the death, the building went up for sale. The guy who died about four years before his death happily called his church a "New" church and, although a standard "praise Jesus" institution, it may not have been affiliated with a major recognized "praise Jesus" franchise. It wasn't long after the funeral when the church again went up for sale. I think the preacher realizing one of his best meal-tickets was about to be cancelled may have also increased his stress factor.

In retrospect, I think his "becoming more devout to Jesus " etc. may have also been implied code for "I am god's representative, Give me more money". As he stressed her need to sacrifice because she displeased god seamed to be the centre of his argument.