Brick By Brick - Written March 7, 2025 - Posted March 16, 2025

Brick by Brick

Written By Wanda Rodriguez

Written March 7, 2025 

Published March 16, 2025

Spending time alone can be a wonderful opportunity to recharge your batteries, to get things done, to tackle projects you have been putting off, or maybe to escape into the pages of a good book.  The possibilities are endless.  It can be very therapeutic really. 

Spending time alone can also be a painful and lonely endeavor.  The echoes created by quiet can be quite deafening.  The lack of distractions is distracting in and of itself, and you may find yourself unable to focus and spinning in circles, rather than being productive or restorative with your time.  Like me, you may miss having someone there to do things with, to make plans with, to share experiences and inside jokes with, to love.

You have other friends, family members and outlets, but there is still something missing.  Consistency?  Reliability?  Familiarity?  The comfort in knowing that no matter what happens, you are not alone.  When you lose someone that you love, that security is ripped away.  Though you try to find things to fill that gap, the gap remains.  You can try to cover it, but the covering is weak and easily gives way.  You may take art classes, find new hobbies, go to the gym, find a church group, take classes, find new friends to share experiences with.  Are these real or just temporary distractions you’ve orchestrated to trick your mind into believing you are not really alone, merely efforts to convince yourself that you are brave, strong and capable? Are these just efforts to fuel the belief that you are not lonely?

Do you find yourself inadvertently sabotaging new relationships by looking for reasons to cut them off before they are allowed to grow solid roots?  Is it fair to others you meet, who may only get to know part of you because the rest of you, the part that is badly broken, is tucked neatly away for safekeeping?  Perhaps the rest of you is being protected under emotional lock and key to prevent further damage.  How do you move past these feelings of being guarded and broken, to truly let others into your world?  Is it even worth the risk?

If you are looking for profound words of wisdom at this point, you are not going to find them here.  I sincerely do not know the answers, and this is something I am wrestling with as we speak.  As the one-year mark of my husband’s passing rapidly approaches, looming large above me, I find that my footing is less stable than I originally thought.  After much time “adrift” on the ocean of grief, passing in and out the stages that accompanied it, I was starting to feel a false sense of security by thinking that I had a pretty decent handle on things.  Boloney!  The truth is, as the date draws closer, I feel less confident and secure by the second.  It is like I had spent much of the past year rebuilding myself on what I believed to be solid ground, only to realize that my foundation is not truly secure, and the integrity of my structure is compromised.  What the heck does that even mean?  It means I feel like I am at the water’s edge and the refreshing waves bumping up against my legs are the distractions that I carefully put in place to fill the void left by my loss.  As I allow myself to give way to these distractions, I realize that my foundation is also giving way and breaking off bit by bit into the water.

I need to rebuild my life upon the foundation of God’s love and guidance, with the truths and promises of His word holding each brick firmly in place. I believe that God will provide a way and shine bright lights on my path.  I do not need to find distractions to fill my quiet time.  He will provide opportunities and open the right doors, encouraging me to walk through them. I believe God will also give me strength to close the wrong doors.  My prayer is for the wisdom to know the difference and wisdom in navigating the path ahead as, together with God, we rebuild on solid ground. Brick by brick.