Where to place my stakes

I had taken 2 weeks off from work. I have no idea how most of those days went. I do remember walking in the park that is close to the house every morning and evening. I would walk within 15 minutes of getting up and within 30 minutes of closing down for the night. I know it was my salvation, however.

There's a cement pathway near the primeter of the park. It's ringed by willows and pecans. When the day's first rays filter through the trees, something celestial dawns on the conscious awareness. I simply put one foot in front of the other and walk a mile. And that's the phrase I still remember most of that 2-week time period—one foot in front of the other. I didn't have a whole lot to think about except why I was in the condition I was in. It was not supposed to be the way it was. So, around the park I would go uttering the Lord's prayer. If anyone did watch me making the rounds of the park, they had to be wondering why or what I was constantly muttering under my breath. It was the only thing I could say. I knew better than to lash out to God. But, I still knew that I had to find my way in a forest of different thoughts. So, I staked my 2 weeks' recovery period before reporting back to work on 2 recitations. They flowed from my lips morning and evening. Beyond those 2 recitations, I knew nothing. So, my lips moved:

My father in heaven, your name is sacred.

I wish for the coming of your kingdom.

I wish for your will to be done on earth just like it is in heaven.

Give us today the bread we need,

and forgive us our wrongdoing as we have forgiven wrongdoings against us.

Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one

because to you belongs the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. So it is.

Many times I would go line by line thinking through every word and how it applied to my new world without the flesh and blood member I had grown so used to seeing everyday and who represented my future. The 4th line I concentrated on. The 4th line the Maker delivered on. My days went by without a lapse into deep, dark depression.

In my father's compound are many, many houses. If it were not so, I wouldn't have told you it was. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare you a place, I will come again and take you to be with me so that you can be where I am.

The second sentence I repeated time and time again. I had to bank on either the reality of what I see is what I get or that life after death was both truth and reality. It helped me to address the one I loved and lost. It helped me adopt the phrase for my future, "I'll catch up to you soon." I can now actually look forward to the life after this one. If it were not true, the Son of Man would not have lied. He even said, "I wouldn't have told you it was true if it wasn't."

Even today I look upward and whisper, "I'll catch up to you soon."