Phew. The third-year anniversary of John’s death is over. It was so hard this year. Every day since John died I have got out of bed straight away when I’ve been awake but twice in the last month I haven’t been able to, and this worried me. I’ve never struggled with depression but I would imagine that is what was going on. Life just felt too much and I had no energy at all. After work I would be totally done in, I mean utterly spent. I’ve really had to keep an eye on myself. Two days before John’s anniversary I had Therapy and boy did it knock me out. I came home and lay on the sofa unable to move, a good friend came and got me something to eat. Many thoughts have plagued me the last month: “How is John not here?”, “This cannot be happening.”, “I just want John.”, “He was my best friend.”, “What am I meant to do now?”, “I can’t do this without him.”, “Am I doing the right thing?”, “Would John be proud of me or disappointed.” During therapy, we walked through the last three years and I commented on how much in my life has changed (for obvious reasons) and how much my thoughts, attitudes and theology has changed. “It looks like I have just walked to a different place completely..” I said. My Therapist interrupted (I think she picked up on the sense of panic in my voice), “Yes but you haven’t just walked to another place, I have seen you genuinely think things through, wrestle with things,  read up on things, pray things over for years and months. You haven’t just arrived at where you are. You have worked really hard on your internal life, and I’m proud of you. So don’t worry. Even if no one else knows and no one else has seen. God has seen you, and I have seen you think and pray and agonise over many different things.” I needed it to hear that. That has helped a lot, I was beginning to believe the lie that I have just flippantly changed my mind about things and not thought things through properly. This hasn’t all happened overnight, the morning after John died as I stood in the shower and cried out to God that I wanted to somehow still serve God and live my life through Him even though I had no idea how that was ever going to happen now, I promised to rebuild my life with honesty and integrity to Him and myself. And this is how it is forming. I’ve also realised as I wrote on Twitter yesterday, my compassion for humanity is at an all-time high and so is my Christology. I’m extremely grateful for those. I’m extremely grateful to my therapist and my Vicar who have helped me think and talk things through without pressure to come to decisions or without judgement. So even though the sadness has been heavy, I’ve seen a few chinks of light appearing.