Friends along the journey

There once was a man who suffered a great tragedy in his life. His life as he had known it disappeared, and he was thrust into a new life, and not one of his choosing. Despite his internal pain and suffering, he got out of bed everyday and would barrel through his day. At some point each day he would fall into a heap and cry. Always a problem-solver he thought, “Maybe if I cut my day into doable chunks I can make it through the day.”

So the next day he told himself, “I won’t worry about anything except getting out of bed and getting to the kitchen and eating breakfast.”

He tried but all his worries and sadness greeted him before he made it to the kitchen.

He tried a smaller goal, ”Let me make it out of bed and to the bedroom door”. The next morning he found his sadness waiting at the bedroom door.

The following day he decided,”I’m going to get out of bed and look at my feet and I’m going to focus only on lifting one foot and putting it in front of the other. I’m not going to think about getting to the bedroom door, or to the kitchen. I’m not going to think about my loss, my grief, or how I miss my old life and the person I was. Just one foot in front of the other. That is all God asks of me and all I will focus on.”

And so he did. The next morning he took one footstep after the other and made it to the bedroom door. He smiled and looked back at the journey he had made and proceeded to the kitchen. His sadness and grief met him halfway to the kitchen, but he sighed, looked down at his feet again and concentrated on walking.

Over the days as sadness and grief continued to visit he would smile and think, ”at least they are reliable and visit everyday, sometimes several times a day.” He walked further each day before sadness and grief would visit and finally decided he would greet them as friends. So, when sadness and grief arrived the following day he said, ”friends I see you are here today and will likely visit several times today. Why don’t you just stay with me. I may not pay much attention to you, but stay. And know that I am also bringing kindness, faith, love, happiness, fear, doubt, anger, jealousy, vanity and many other friends. They are all in every footstep I take. Some moments or days I may fall down on my journey and you: fear, worry, sadness, grief, anger or jealousy may have your way with me. But faith, love and kindness will get me back up and walking again, and I will remember to put one foot in front of the other and that is all that God asks of me.”