1 Peter 5:10

"After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. "

As she closed a heartfelt and oh so helpful e-mail a friend from my past, who has suffered a terrible loss in her own life wrote:  "So,  keep putting one foot in front of the other for a little while longer"  and then, she quoted the scripture above.

After reading that e-mail the morning slipped by.  I've kept busy doing the things I felt like doing.  Hobo and I have walked up to the cemetery and I've measured the water depth by the dock.  I've even begun to sand sheet rock seams that have gone untended for many months as we fought Bonnie's illness and I attempt to put one foot in front of the other now.

The thinking about the e-mail and the scripture has gone on however. 

The subject that began our 'discussion' was what I described to her as "hitting a wall" over the weekend.  Having been a long distance runner many years ago, I knew what becoming tired was like during runs.  I could, as most runners do, run through the majority of those episodes.  Occasionally, however, even experienced runners will experience what we call "hitting a wall".  You may have run through several, normal episodes of tiredness on a particularly long run, but then, your body just refuses to cooperate.  You mind cannot make your body go on.  You just can't put one foot in front of the other.  Sometimes, it will force you to the curb and you are finished for the day.  You are exhausted.  You've reached an altogether different level of tired.

That was what happened to me over the weekend....in an emotional, mental way.  I hit a wall.

It had been six weeks since Bonnie's funeral.  I've written a partial, surface description of the depth of my grief, and yet, it was seeming to get better.  The losses of breath were occurring less often.  The tears were not as plentiful as they had been.  I was still missing Bonnie terribly, but I was getting better.

Then the wall.  As my friend, Judy, and I corresponded about this I found she understood.  She expected this to happen.  She also regretted not warning me.  She described it perfectly as moving from grief to longing.  She described it as being like the difference between poverty and abject poverty.    She said "there is 'missing someone' and there is 'yearning and longing' for them.  Yearning and Longing is the superlative of missing someone".  I call it a different, deeper and quite honestly, scarier level of missing someone.

It reminded me that this is not a short term prospect.  This is not something that someone 'gets over' quickly...or ever.  Those of us who have experienced a loss such as this want to be whole again.  We want to be who we were again.  We want what will never be.  We will not be who we were before. 

I've described it this way:  Up until October 30th I had always been "US".  Now I am "ME".  I do not have a definition of who "ME" is.  I'm not even sure if I like "ME".  I will never be "US" again.  

As I realized that over the weekend, I think that was what made me hit that wall.  This was an entirely different prospect.  It moved "missing" to a whole new level.  It moved it to an understanding that I am never to be "US" again.

Then came Judy's e-mail and the equivalent of "a little yellow piece of paper".  There was a scripture.  There was a promise....."After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. "

This promise told me that no, I won't ever be "US" again on this earth, but, Christ is not finished with me yet.  He has not abandoned me just because I feel a yearning or longing.  He won't throw me away.  This period of time to me is long, but compared to eternity it is but "a little while". 

For now, I'll just keep on putting one foot in front of the other.  And, after "a little while"....