Acceptance: I am beginning to have hope again

This is not what you wanted. Your life is coming back together, though, and you are beginning to have hope in your heart again.

You'll never be the same, but you are starting th think that you just might have a life, a different one, but a life. You'll bring to that life a strength and depth you didn't begin to have before.

Even after you have reached this stage, however, you may still have moments, or days when you go back into one of the earlier stages. When this happens, you will forget all that you have accomplished, and that you really are better.

If you know that this is normal, and to be expected, you may feel less worried when is comes.

Acceptance comes gradually, as you catch yourself laughing, or feeling happy for a few hours or days. You will have parts of days that feel almost like your old self, or you forget for a time what has happened.

The first time you find yourself happy, or laughing, you may at first feel that you are betraing what you've gone through, or who you lost by feeling less sad. The opposite is true!

By living again, you show respect for the gift you've been given through your crisis. Terrible as it's been, you'll eventually gain something from what has happened. And I mean more than the trite and true "you'll be bigger for this." Something profound has happened and you have come to the other side. You are different. You have gained. I don't need to promise this.

What is more important, God promises you this.