A Timely Reminder

"If you spend your life waiting on the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine."
~ Morris West


I woke early this morning in the grips of nightmare backwash and wasted over thirty minutes trying to go back to sleep. I finally gave up, got up and read. I read Just For Today, but I didn't get much out of it other than the reminder that it's been a while since I've made a meeting. My mind struggled with trying to think through the aftereffects of an all too real feeling dream the way a fly struggles to fly from oil. It failed. I couldn't think. Yet I read on.

I read Daily Reflections. No great relief or inspiration came. I read Twenty-Four Hours A Day and thought I'm still trying to ground myself to this reality and feel like what I woke from was a dream so I doubt I'd be of much service at the moment. I thought, "I'm wasting my time. I'll just have to read all of this again later, if I'm going to get anything out of them today." Yet I read on.

I read As Bill Sees It, then Walk In Dry Places (at which point I only remember thinking that my throat felt quite dry), and then Keep It Simple. I thought I should make sure to reread that one, as it appeared to have potential to inspire some thought once my brain began working again. Maybe I needed caffeine? No, I thought. My thoughts felt as though they were being strained through cold molasses, but I didn't want to start making coffee just yet. I continued to read.

I enjoyed Each Day A New Beginning as I often do (I don't care if the subtitle says it's a meditation for women - I have found some universally good stuff in that one - look for the similarities, not the differences), but it did nothing to pull me from the funk I felt. Or maybe it did. For a brief moment I paused from feeling frustration at being stuck in mental low gear and felt grateful for my wife lying beside me, the "someone who brings out the colors of life and whose very presence offers tranquility and contentment, enriches my being and makes me grateful for the opportunity to share," as Kathleen Tierney Crilly put it. Upon reflection, that deviation from self-focused thought may have prepared me to receive what was to come, but I assure my readers that I was by no means aware of the possibility as I continued on with my reading journey to my Big Book. My brain still was not functioning on a high enough level for me to do any self-diagnostics. To be honest, I don't even remember reading Twelve Steps And Twelve Traditions, though I know I did.

Finally, I arrived at my daily dose of quotes. This is quite often my favorite part of the day. A single profound sentence or two is often more what I need as a jumping off point than a paragraph or more. Three quotes in I read the Morris West cited at the start of this rambling. The sentence broke through my fog, a lighthouse beacon guiding me safely to more peaceful shores. I went on a read the rest of the quotes for the day, Father Leo's Daily Meditation, Daily Inspiration and some scriptures from the Bible, but my thoughts kept returning to that simple truth about waiting on the storm.

I know that I've written way too much to preface this, but rather than edit, I will simply remind the reader of what the West quote. "If you spend your life waiting on the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine." How simple, yet how true! I unwound my body from bed, snap, crackled and popped my way into some clothes, and went outside to brace the damp, cold wind for a smoke. As I stood on the porch mulling over the statement, I began to feel grateful that once again, as so often occurs, somewhere in all the reading I do to being my day was exactly what I needed at that moment.

I believe that my nightmare came from the tension that has been building within me about something I might, I repeat might, have to deal with sometime in the next couple of weeks. My magic magnifying mind at work again projecting the possible though improbable. Worry and fear have entered my mind through a small portal created by anger and resentment left undealt with. I felt ashamed for a second that I had allowed this resentment to grow and fester, but I quickly chose instead to be grateful that I now realized the problem and the solution. I finished my cigarette, returned to bed, cuddled up next to my warm wife grateful she didn't push my cold body away, and went back to sleep for a little while.

It's amazing how the peace that comes from understanding can provide the ability to rest. I received no new revelation. I instead discovered a timely reminder of truth I already know. Worry is a waste of my time. I have reached a point where I should not be fighting anything or anyone, and I desperately needed the reminder that to gear up for a fight mentally, even if I avoid it in reality, is just as damaging, maybe more so, than walking into a situation swinging. I've been in enough physical fights to know that they start fast and don't last long. It's the mental fight before and after that replays and fantasizes that take up way too much energy and time from life,

The Proverbs of the Old Testament are filled with wisdom on the importance of not being lazy and preparing for the future. Aesop handled the topic well with the story of the grasshopper and the ants. But Jesus instructed me not to worry about what I was going to eat or wear and to trust God to provide. Was He contradicting the wisdom of Solomon? Absolutely not! No, there is a huge difference between taking care of my responsibilities today to ensure a more stable future, whether it be financially, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, etc and worrying and fretting about what tomorrow might bring. I should do what I can to prepare but then go on with life, trusting God with the outcome. Expectations, after all, are the building blocks of resentment.

If there is a situation that I am dreading enough to fret over, to imagine different scenarios and dialogues about, then there is somewhere in that situation that I am trying to control something out of my control. There is something in that situation that I am not trusting God with. This is true if the situation is something like finding a job, or interaction with another person. These imaginings or possible future scenes are fueled by fear. When it comes to relationships these fears are often about someone else hurting me by not doing what I feel they should. The stem from the idea that I am not going to get my way. And since I have no business trying to control another person and rarely should have my own way in anything, these fears grow from a weed of selfishness that needs to be pulled. At times there is more to it than that though, and fear is sown from anger. Anger that someone or something damaged me or someone I love and fear that they or it will continue to do more damage in the future. Once again this comes from me not trusting God to protect me, to protect my heart, and or to protect those I love. It also grows out of my failure to release the resentment over the initial hurt.

So what does all that really have to do with the West quote? I lose the ability to enjoy the present, to live a life worth living, if I waste the time and energy of the present looking for the storm that may or may not come out of encounters with any person or situation. With situations, I need to prepare myself by making sure my side of the street is clean and that I am constantly walking the road of the next right thing. I need to stay within the direction of God's will and let expectations of outcomes die. I have to stay in the present and trust God with the future. And with people, I still have to keep my side of the street clean. I have to forgive and release anger and resentment. I need to make sure that I see my part in the tension (I have found through experience that I always have a part in any relationship tensions) and own up to and make amends for that part while demanding or expecting no change in attitude or behavior and no apology from the other party. Cleaning up my crap has nothing to do with if my pile is bigger than theirs or if they do any clean up or not. Neither does forgiveness. If I sail into a storm with a boat that is not burdened down under a load of anger and resentment then I will be more able to maneuver to safety under the gentle correcting winds of the Spirit. The alternative is to struggle with a sluggish and unresponsive to the Spirit boat that fights the waves until they tear it asunder. But other than making sure that I am spiritually fit and full of love and forgiveness, I need make no other preparations. While I need to be aware of changes in the spiritual and situation weather, my time is much better spent enjoying the beautiful skies of the present than searching the horizon for storm clouds that have not yet arrived.

Be Excellent To Each Other...And Party On Dudes!

I haven't seen Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure in over a decade, but for some reason I have had a quote from the movie going through my mind all morning. Be excellent to each other...and party on dudes! For years I tried to live my life with the party on dudes aspect at least, but the party was over long before my life could even begin to recover from the miserable mess that philosophy had landed me in. I pretty much ignored the be excellent to each other part. I mean if anyone was watching whose acceptance I wanted I'd be nice. If someone might later be able to do something I needed or wanted I could be quite helpful. If it might make people think my life was not a heinous mess so that they would not catch me as easily as I engaged in the party on dudes then the Golden Rule was sweet. But in truth, in the core of my soul, my philosophy was me first and you...if I get around to it and it doesn't cost me in any way.

During my period of recovery I have learned that to enjoy ones self in a gathering of people does not in and of itself require alcohol or drugs. I have also learned that I can celebrate without enhancement. In short, I do not need to drink or drug to party on. Upon reflection I realize that my concept or definition of party on is really more to live life to the fullest in a sensual manner. I mean to enjoy the people I'm sending time with and the places and events and situations by soaking in the sights or God's beautiful creation and the artistic creations of people created in the Master Artist's image, by listening to the sounds of nature, music, and laughter, by basking in the aromas of things that give me pleasure like ceder trees and fresh baked cookies and the bath oils my wife uses, by thanking God for and enjoying the spectrum of flavors that can be found in the vast number of choices we have been given to sustain our nutritional needs, by giving and receiving the comfort and joy that comes from a hug, from contact with another. To suck the marrow from life by enjoying all it has to offer the senses God gave me to experience life with and to add back to the sights, sounds, textures, scents and flavors when I can is really what I associate with the idea of "party on dudes!" And upon further reflection I realize that there was very little of any of that in my party days.

Do unto others as you would have them be unto you. This is the Golden Rule. Be nice and don't do anything to someone that you wouldn't want done to you is how I have most often interpreted this concept. But wouldn't be excellent to each other actually be more appropriate. As I would have someone do to me is a lot different in reality than simply what I don't want done to me. Sure I don't want people to gossip about me or back stab, so I shouldn't do those to others. But if I stop there, I fall so far short. As I would have done to me is more than be nice, be good. All my life I wanted accept me, love me in a way that means something and makes my life better, help me when I need it, don't let me suffer alone, comfort me, don't let me rejoice alone, rejoice with me, and so much more. Don't stop at be good to me, please go beyond that. Be excellent. Be faithful. Be reliable. Be God for me because I had a God shaped hole in my life.

But no person could be so excellent. People always failed. They always disappointed and hurt. And I myself was never that for anyone. Usually, I was not even in the same neighborhood. Partly because I lived a selfish and self-centered life, but this was mostly because I am not God and can't fill the God shaped hole in my own life, much less anyone else's. No, we as humans can not love each other and be good to one another and help and encourage one another in the way that God has been most excellent to us. And yet, Jesus instructed those that would follow His ways to love one another as He has loved us. What an impossible task!

But here's the wonderful part. While I am powerless over my selfishness and attitudes that would keep me from loving as Christ has loved, I know from experiencing the miracle of having Him fill my God shaped hole that there is one who has the power to love so excellently. The more I turn my will and my life over to Him, the more of His power, strength and point of view I operate on and the less of my own. This means that though I can not, on my own, treat people as God would have me, I can allow the Spirit of God dwelling in me to have His way and love, demanding no change, expecting no return, simply love.

This is what God did for me when he gave the excellent gift of Himself. He loved fully and completely. He made a way for me. He demanded nothing. He would love me no less had I totally rejected His gift, but when I did accept the freely offered, He filed the missing pieces of life in a way that nothing and no one else ever could. He was most excellent to me and gave me a life worth living and the ability to enjoy it.

I know that it easy to get frustrated with the crowds and commercialism and have to's of the season and have the Ba Humbug spirit rear its ugly head. Tolerance can be so lacking during a time when we are supposed to be remembering the gift God's tolerance and love for us provided. But as things get more and more crazy, I am going to try to focus more and more on the One who can provide peace in the midst of turmoil. I will try to accept His love for me and live like I have value to God. I will try to treat others as though they also are much loved of God. I will try to see and enjoy this life as a gift from God and treasure and embrace it rather than complain and act as though I am cursed for living. I will try to encourage others to do the same.

To put it simply, I will do my best to get out of the way so that God through me can be excellent to those I encounter, and I will party on dudes.

No Alexis I'm Not....Neither Were You

I have several spiritual and recovery based readings that I start my day off with. One of the ones that I usually favor is Father Leo's Daily Meditation. I don't know if he's a Catholic, Anglican or what, and frankly, I don't care. I love that recovered alcoholic. He has some wisdom that I am grateful he shared with the rest of us. He usually has a quote at the start of his writing and then expounds on it. I love quotes to, so this is a good meditation for me.

But no daily meditation would be worth anything, whether it be Daily Bread, Upper Room, My Utmost For His Highest, Daily Reflections, 24 Hours A Day or any others, if I didn't actually meditate on what they're saying. I don't do daily readings to learn what I am supposed to think, but rather to give me a few options of topics to focus on as I start my day and see where the Spirit leads my mind and heart. And as much as I love Father Leo, in my opinion, he missed the mark with the one I read today, which is actually the entry for December 13. I missed a day a while back.

"Man can not remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor." ~Alexis Carrel

This is the quote that Father Leo used to expound on, and what he said was, in my opinion, good and right. He focused on the aspect of being grateful for his sufferings, because he learns from them and grows because of them. The Apostle Paul said similar things. I do not disagree.

But this blog is about my experience, strength and hope on whatever subject I feel lead to use as a topic, and while I do not disagree with Father Leo, and certainly not with the Apostle Paul, I greatly disagree with the spirit and philosophy of Alexis Carrel and therefore take issue with the quote used. Yes, I have both learned and grown from suffering. Suffering is one of the only ways that this stubborn man will find himself able to release his own will and check out how God may want things done. It's a sad but true fact. Knowing that I have pleased my Father is usually not as good a motivator as the misery I find myself in due to the law of cause and effect after walking in my own will. I pray that someday it will be the opposite.

Here's the issue. I'm a fairly intelligent man. I have a strong will in many ways. I know how to think, and I have read plenty of books on motivation, psychology, etc. And yet, I have never been able to change myself. I have caused my own suffering and grown and changed due to that suffering, but that is different. I did not do the changing, never on any long term basis anyway. Because I can't. In the words of the great philosopher Popeye, I ams what I ams and that's all that I ams. I can't be anything other than who I am. I've tried. I can fight against myself for a while. I can wear masks, pretend, and hide the truth for a while. But I have never been able to truly change anything about the nature of who I am, and I have never met anyone who could.

I am the marble, that much is true, but I am most certainly not the sculptor. Whenever I have tried to be I have only succeeded in failure, misery and making a mess. My Father, my Creator, God is the sculptor. There are several different scriptures in the Bible that specifically say that He is the potter and we are the clay to be molded and formed according to His will. Carrel believed that mankind could better itself by following the guidance of an elite group of intellectuals, and by implementing a regime of enforced eugenics. But even were he right, it is not the individual acting as sculptor but a select few exceptional individuals. And he was not right. The truth is that I have less chance of changing anyone else than I do of changing myself. I can take a man's life and end it, but I can never give him life. None can but the Creator.

So while I do want to be grateful for my sufferings, and I want to walk in what I have learned so that I do not need as much suffering to inspire positive change in the future, I do not ever want my pride to get in the way of my remembering who has done what I couldn't do in my life. I want to make sure to always give the glory and the honor to the One who deserves it. God performed a miracle in my life, and to quote Scrooge, "I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!...I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!” The spirit of Christmas that I keep in my heart is the constant reminder that God's greatest gift to me was Himself to make a way to have relationship with Him and to enable me to change from what I was destined to be in my own will to the man I could be in His, happy, joyous and free from a hopeless state of mind, body and soul, no longer enslaved by drugs and alcohol and daily dancing with death but rather making my own journey following yonder star to find freedom.

I am not the sculptor. I am the marble. I am not the potter. I am the clay. And I am not the composer, but like the little drummer boys before me I will play the Composer's music the best I can in gratitude and thanksgiving for the song He has placed in my heart.

Different But The Same

Last night my wife and I braced the cold and went to hear a friend of mine tell her story. As I've already indicated, my friend is female and therefore different than me. She is also several years younger than I am. She is from one of the Northern, non-Yankee states and a transplant to Texas. I am a native of Texas. She started drinking about the same age as I did, but did not hit full speed on the crazy train until later and held off on adding drugs to the booze for quite some time. I started a little younger and was doing coke to remedy hangovers at 13. Different. She never got arrested, and I went to prison. She has two precious daughters, and I am not a father. Differences, differences, differences, there are so many differences. And yet, our stories are much the same.

Hearing her story served as another reminder of the truth behind the statement often heard in the rooms of recovery to look for the similarities and not the differences. Seeing the similarities in my lives and the lives of others is crucial. First it makes seeing the common solution easier. No matter how different someone is or someone's life is from me/mine, every person on this planet has something so wonderful and important in common with me. We are all loved of God and as long as we are still breathing have a chance to find relationship with our Creator because of the grace He has provided to make relationship possible.

My friend and I have more than that in common. We are both powerless in our own strength over alcohol and drugs and under the wisdom and power of our own wills can not manage our lives. We both came to understand and believe that as powerless as we were and are, God has the power to overcome addiction and any other problem and is well able to manage the universe, much less our lives. We both made a decision to our will and our lives over to the care of God, because He loves and cares for us. We both took stock of our lives in the form of a written inventory and shared that inventory, admitting to God, ourselves, and at least one other person the exact nature of our wrongs. We both understand that our secrets will kill us, and that which is done in secret will come to light or there will be no lasting recovery. From our inventory we were both able to define and see areas in our life where our character was bankrupt. We both asked God to remove these character defects and then made a list of people we had harmed throughout our lives. We both began making amends to those people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. We both continue to take personal daily inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it. We both seek to improve our conscious contact with our Creator through prayer and meditation, asking especially for the power and grace to do His will. As a result of doing these things, we have both found recovery. We are no longer powerless, because we are tapped in to the Ultimate Power. We have been set free and healed of a hopeless state of mind and body. We do not need nor wish to drink or drug today. We have both received miracles from God, and our lives, indeed, have become examples of what the love and power of God can do for those who will let Him and are willing to surrender. We both try to carry this message to other alcoholics and addicts and to practice the principles of relationship and surrender to God in all of our affairs.

My friend and I both had God shaped holes in our lives that we tried to fill and patch with chemicals. We both nearly died. We both lost relationships and things. We both suffered. We both hated our lives and ourselves. We were both dishonest and criminal. We both found a spiritual solution. We both worked the steps of recovery, and we both got well. Out stories are the same. Today, my friend is happy (more than not), joyous and fee woman with a real and beautiful smile and a life worth living. Today I am a happy, joyous and free man with a real and fast smile and a life worth living. Our stories are the same, and that is why I cried as she spoke, because the similarities tore at my heart, and that is also why I smiled as she spoke, because God did for her what He has done for me. And that is why I can write with complete faith and confidence that if you are an alcoholic or addict reading this, that our stories can also be the same. There is a solution. There is one powerful enough to set you free. That one is God- may you find Him now.

The Prodigal Restored

I haven't updated my blog in way too long. Partly because I haven't wanted to lose any more time in my day than I had to with my normal responsibilities and activities and partly because I haven't really had anything to say. I started to write something a couple of weeks ago and about a paragraph in scrapped the entry due to frustration over not being able to say what I felt I needed or wanted to say. Sometimes I forget that at times you just have to ramble until you get to where you need to go.

About a week ago I received a friend request from an old friend I haven't seen in ages. I had actually looked for him on Facebook a few times over the past couple of years and had not been able to find him. I felt blessed that he had found me, especially since the name I go by now is not the nickname I used as a boy when the two of us were best friends. He sent me a message a few days ago and asked how the past twenty years have been. I haven't been on Facebook much the last week, so I just read the message this morning and haven't responded yet, but the question got me to thinking.

The last time I saw my friend was in 1989, and it had been several years before he stood up with me at my first wedding that I had seen him. In reality, the two of us haven't really spent any time together since I was 11 or so, almost thirty years ago. The few time I saw him or any of his family around the time I was 13 and 14, I had been traveling the road of addiction long enough to have tried to hide it. I didn't try to hide that I had played in the street, but I attempted to disguise that it had become my normal commute. If I remember correctly, the last time I saw his mother was during one of the brief week or so long periods at about 14 or 15 when I tried to clean up my act, and I believe I even may have spoken to her about how God had helped me kick the habits I had so foolishly started. The sad thing is that it was a lie built on the overwhelming need I had at the time for the acceptance and approval of others. The truth was that I had not quit anything for long enough to claim recovery and that I knew that I would use again. I wasn't stopping anything, just trying to pause long enough to postpone the wreck I could see was about to happen in my life. The other sad truth was that I played lip service to a relationship with God that deep down I knew I needed but that did not exist in any real sense. I burned with anger at my Creator and believed deeply that He hated me. My life was worse than empty, it was filled with toxic poisons that had nothing to do with the chemicals I put in my body. The chemicals were simply an attempt to kill the spiritual pain I felt was killing me in slow motion.

Skip ahead about four years, and I asked my friend to be one of my groomsmen at my wedding. He drove up from Huntsville. It was good to see him, but we didn't have a lot of time to catch up. It wouldn't have mattered if we had the time, because there was no way I would have let him see the real me, the messed up me, the me I had learned to hide so well from everyone, including quite often, myself. In many ways, I had become so adept at wearing masks and camouflaging the insanity that on the last day I saw my friend even the woman about to become my bride had little idea of what she was bout to join herself with and the danger that she was in. That was twenty-two years ago, and this morning I have been thinking some about what transpired after. How do I answer the question how was that time?

Of course, like any question so general that covers two decades, there is no simple good or bad answer. Over all, today, I would say that it was good...more good than bad anyway. That's a little strange to me, since I know that it wouldn't appear so to many. There are some good memories of some fun and pleasant times, but they were too few and spread too far apart. Many of them should even be placed in category of riotous living, as the Bible describes it in the story of the Prodigal Son. In the meantime, the uncontrollable mess of my life became more and more uncontrollable while the wreckage became worse and worse.

Between the last time I saw my friend and ten years later I would see actions damage and destroy more and more of my life and the lives of those I cared about. I cut through the life and heart of my first wife like a fragmentation grenade that went of in spurts rather than a single explosion. I remember all too well how it felt to see what was happening in every area of my life and be unable to stop it. I remember thinking, "I need to quit this, and today I won't do (fill in the blank)" as physically I prepared to do the very thing I was thinking I would not do. I felt powerless and hopeless. But I couldn't admit that powerlessness, not even to myself.

Over that ten year period I destroyed the chances to do so much of what it seemed clear that God had given me gifts suited to do. I nuked a career that I loved. About the time that I finally felt a desire to follow in the footsteps of my minister father, I also realized that I had left that road way to far back to do so. Now relax, I am not saying that God can not or will not use me or that I can not minister to and help others. He can and does, and I can and do.

A few months after the first decade past, I found myself facing a felony less than a month after having tried to kill myself yet again. As angry as I had been with God at the age of fourteen, it did not compare to the anger I felt in 1999 as I faced a world full of the knowledge that God would not help me and yet would not let me die and escape. Of course the truth is that I would not let God help me.

My relationship with my family deteriorated. My brother saw me at my worst and saw the damage I had done to my wife, and our relationship has yet to recover. The marriage ended in an unsurprising divorce. I broke my parents hearts and witnessed the pain in their eyes over and over on visitation days. I spent the majority of the next decade wearing a prison uniform, and my life continued to spiral downward as anger, bitterness, self-pity and fear ate away at me, fueled by the chemicals I continued to assault my body and mind with. It has been barely more than three years since that chapter of my life ended. I have been unable to find steady employment since my release.

I hope my little recount of some of the basics of what has happened over the past two decades doesn't sound like I'm whining or feeling sorry for myself. It is what it is. I did every bit of that damage, to myself and others, and ran with the bit in my teeth through to fields of destruction while cursing God for not reining me in. And please don't forget that I said looking back today I see the past twenty years as more good than bad. How?

Well, for starters I had gotten so far off the right path that I needed the road I was on to turn to rubble so I would see how much I needed to return to the highway my Creator called me to travel on. I had to destroy my life enough to become desperate enough to get past my anger with God and discover that I was truly angry with me. I needed to learn that it was me who hated me and not my Creator. I needed to discover the truth and the depths of God's love for me, and for me, that was only possible looking back over the destruction and danger I had survived when there is no earthly reason that I should have.

While prison would not have been my choice of methods to save my life, God used it do do just that. I am thoroughly convinced that had I not been arrested and caged, I would not be alive today. In many ways, my wounds and addictions and anger grew worse over that time, but in several key ways, I found healing and time to recover. Some of that recovery would not bear fruit until after I was released, but the healing began in the darkest of places.

Thanks to parole, I found the rooms of recovery. At first, of course, I went only to get my paper signed. Meetings were better than prison any day. But God gave me ears to hear, and I became drawn to recovery and sobriety. I began working the steps for myself and discovered in the process how much God loves me, how much my wreckage can be the exact right tool to help others who believe that they have strayed to far have destroyed too much to return to their Creator. Though my recovery has not been constant over the past three years and I have only eighteen and a half months clean and sober right now, that is the longest that I have gone without changing the way I feel with alcohol and drugs since I was 12. That is a miracle. And the greater miracle is that I do not feel a loss of anything. I have a peace and a joy today that have nothing to do with my circumstances or prospects for worldly success or approval.

Once I finally surrendered my will and my life over to the care of the God who loves me and died so that I might live, He blessed me with love and companionship I believed I had forfeited all right to. I thank God daily that He brought Leah into my life and saw fit to join us together. I am so grateful that she said yes to my marriage proposal when on paper I surely seems as bad an investment as giving a loan to a crack head. I am grateful for my relationship with my parents, and my in-laws. So much of the damage I caused in my past has healed, and I have friendships with people, including my ex-wife, who have every right to hate me forever. Most of all, I am at peace with who I am and content with my life. I am no longer driven by the need for approval of others or a hundred forms of fear, anger, self-pity, etc. I have recovered from a hopeless state of mind, body and spirit. Greatest of all, I experience the truth and wonder of a personal and daily relationship with my Creator.

The road from there to here was long and filled with destruction and pain, but it was the road that I had to take to discover for myself what the Prodigal felt when his father saw him returning from a long way off and ran to embrace him and welcome him back into the family. I despised my birthright. I rejected everything. I destroyed and tarnished the gifts God had given me living selfishly and playing god of my own life. And yet, He loved me. He protected me. And when I finally beat myself down enough to say I know I do not deserve to be His son, but even being a servant in the household of my Father is better than this, I will return, I discovered the relief and gratefulness that comes from restoration.

Thank You Dee.....

This morning I woke up feeling blessed and extremely grateful as I reached a new mile marker on the road to recovery. Today is the first time that I have had 16 months clean and sober since 1984. I'm not bragging, because I didn't do it. I couldn't. Nothing short of the grace and power of God could give me the ability to stay away from that first drink and drug. Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord, and He was surely correct. Only a spiritual solution ever worked to keep me sober.

But moments after I got up- feeling so grateful I saw something that saddened me. From some posts I saw on Facebook I deduced that a friend of mine had died. When I went to a noon meeting, another good friend confirmed the news. My friend Dee went to be with her Creator. While this is wonderful for her (she'd been fighting cancer for over a year and is now free from that pain), the part of me that remains selfish and self-centered ached. I hate that she's gone. Maybe now she knows exactly how much she means to me and how grateful I am for her. I couldn't express that gratitude to my satisfaction while she was alive.

I thank God for Dee. She supported me more than anyone I can think of when I first walked into the rooms. She grabbed me by the hand and drug me to my first sponsor. She spent hours with me sitting on her couch, talking and watching TV so that I'd have a safe place to hang while I white knuckled the early days of sobriety. She was the common factor in my getting to know one of my best friends and future sponsees. I spent several nights on her couch when I felt afraid that if I stayed home alone I would not be sober by morning. I did step work with my spiritual adviser at her house and did my first fourth step on that couch I mentioned. More than once, Dee was the instrument God used to keep me from going back out. She fought for me, and when I found recovery, she sent newcomers my way so that I'd have someone to help. You can't keep what you don't give away.

I love Dee, and I feel she helped God save my life. I knew this day was coming, but it still hurts in that selfish little corner of my heart. I'm going to miss her. But the part of me that is not selfish and self-centered rejoices for my friend. She ran her race. She died sober, even after a long battle with a painful illness. She's totally and completely free. She will be quoted and used to inspire people in her home group for years to come I'm sure. Way to go Dee! You won! You did it! I owe you so much that I can only repay by folowing your example and helping those who walk through the doors. Living a life of service to the alcoholic and addict is not easy, and it won't bring riches or glory. But it will bring love and keep me sober. How do I know? I saw it in Dee's life.

Don't Strive, Surrender

I've been thinking about several things that I read this morning. I read several different daily "meditations," and I usually agree and get a lot out of them. Obviously if I have a daily reading source that I disagree with a lot, I stop using it. But this morning, I had the interesting experience of agreeing at first, and then almost vehemently disagreeing as I mulled over and chewed on what I'd read.

"'If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.' The eye of the soul is the will. If your will is to do the will of God, to serve Him with your life, to serve Him by helping others, then truly shall your whole body be full of light. The important thing is to strive to attune your will to the will of God, a single eye to God's purpose, desiring nothing less than His purposes be fulfilled. Try to seek in all things the advance of His kingdom, seek the spiritual values of honesty and purity, unselfishness and love, and earnestly desire spiritual growth. Then your life will emerge from the darkness of futility into the light of victory."

That is one of the meditations I read this morning, and as I stated earlier, I agreed at first. It looks good and right from the surface. But maybe by spending some time really thinking about what it says and the implications I "tested" the spirit of the writing and found it to be untrue. "The important thing is to strive to attune your will to the will of God, a single eye to God's purpose, desiring nothing less than His purposes be fulfilled. Try to seek in all things the advance of His kingdom, seek the spiritual values of honesty and purity, unselfishness and love, and earnestly desire spiritual growth." This is where I see a problem.

I don't believe it is spiritually sound for me to strive to align my will with God's. For one thing, Step 10 promises say that by this time I have ceased fighting ANYTHING OR ANYONE. Striving to align my will with God's is a fight. I am fighting against my old nature to try to do what I know is right. It sounds like a good idea, but it is still fighting, so something must be off. So I thought about is some more and realized that for me to strive to align my will with God's implies that I can do that. I can't. If I could change my will and simply align my will with God's I would not need Christ. By trying to do that myself, I am trying to control something I can not control (and have no business trying to control if I have done a true Step 3 and turned my will and my life over to the care of God).

That's just it. I am not to strive to be good or right or align my will. I am to turn my will over to the care of God. Quite simply, my striving won't make me a good person. Been there; failed at that. But my laying my will on the altar and allowing it to be put to death gets me out of the way of my High Priest. It creates a void in me where God can then place His will within me. I don't have to fight or strive. I simply have to surrender. Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord.

Anytime I look at a spiritual idea as though there is something I can do under my own power to get closer to God or to walk with Him, I am heading of the path and onto a slippery slope that can only lead to destruction. If I strive to align my will to God's, it won't be long before my selfish will decides it has a better idea than my Creator has for me. But if I give my will to God, then He gives me the power and desire, by grace, to do His will. A subtle but important distinction.

Pursue God Before Trouble Starts

I have been thinking that I need to update my blog, but then I feel like I don't have anything to say or I get distracted. I have slipped into "I'll do it later" mode, which is not good for me. Things get away from me when I do that. A couple of I'll update my blog laters and it's been over two months. How did that happen? Procrastination.

Procrastination is not good for me. It makes life so much harder, but most importantly it makes it easy for me to get lazy and let things slide. Oh I don't need to pray right now, I can do that later. Right now I want to.........When I begin putting off the things I know I need to do because I don't really want to do them at that moment or because there is something else I'd rather do, then I have taken my will and life back from God. I am failing at step three. It means that in little ways I have begun running the show and calling the shots again. And that is a quick way for me to start messing up.

I can't allow things in my life to slide until I begin to struggle in areas that I have already been given victory over. It's so important for me to pursue God with a passion that rivals the desperation of a drowning man. I have lost my sense of urgency, and that bothers me. I am not sure exactly how that happened, but I thank God, that I began to see and sense this loss of urgency before I got off the road and started trying to make my own path through the wilderness of life.

Seek first the kingdom of God and the other things will be added to you, but I can't get so comfortable with the other things that I stop seeking. What's great is seeing this, I am not down on myself or beating myself up. I am simply seeing the need to cry out Lord, make me desperate for You. Also I am grateful that I see the direction things have been sliding before a real problem exists. In times past, putting off my relationship with God in the slightest way would have me full blown out of control running on self-will and drunk or high in little to no time at all. Now I am feeling the need to draw closer to Him, before I ever think of a drink, and long before I turn away.

Because I haven't turned away. I have continued to pray daily. I spent the weekend with my wife's family (including her father, who I hadn't spoken to since he made it clear that he'd rather I not have a relationship with his daughter over a year ago) and leaned on God heavily to prepare my heart for the time, and to guard my attitude while there. The trip went well, and I am grateful for it. I have continued to try to do the next right thing, to practice patience, love and tolerance. No, I have not completely neglected anything. What I am talking about is a simple change in desperation. In a few little areas I have put things off, I have begun to go through the motions. I don't want that for my life. I want to live, not merely exist. I can't have that life worth living while coasting. I have to run, to pursue, to strive toward relationship and service. God, I thank You for helping me to see where I am weaving my way across thin ice before it even begins to crack. Make me desperate for you before the crisis, so that the crisis can be avoided and I don't turn you into a 911 God again.

Still In Need Of A Savior

This morning I got up and read a few different things as part of my morning meditations, including a new to me blog on recovery that focused on morning actions. The entry hit my where I've been living. In fact, I spoke on the subject to the man I am working with slash for yesterday and found out that we share similar views and opinions.

One of my character defects is that I am an illogical idiot. OK, that's not rigorous honesty and a bit generalized, but it's how I feel sometimes. It's somewhat how I've been feeling this week, which has been wonderful in many ways, but quite difficult in others. The reason for the difficulty is one of the many ways that I make absolutely no sense, even to myself.

I know from past experience that if I get up about an hour or so before I have to leave in the morning, go outside and smoke my pipe while enjoying the beauty of God's morning nature show and spend some time in prayer and praise and meditation before I do anything else that I feel better throughout my day. When I do this, my attitude toward people, work, life in general is better. When I do this, it is easier for me to go through the day conscious of living in such a way that my life and will has been turned over to the care of God, and things just don't get to me as much as otherwise.

On the other hand, when I sleep in and just get up and go at the last minute, I actually feel less rested. In fact, I usually feel rushed the rest of the day. My attitude regresses to at least partly self-will run riot and I find myself overly critical of others and sensitive throughout the day. Basically when I don't start my day with God and serenity, I have a much harder time finding those connections later as the day goes on.

And yet, all week long I found myself practicing my character defect of laziness and being a sluggard and hitting that blasted snooze button. I averaged about nine snooze resets a morning rather than getting up. I barely made it to work on time. While I prayed and praised on the ride to work, those ten minutes (feeling rushed and late at the time) just aren't the same as relaxing at home with God. I'd find myself griping more and fighting with circumstances and inanimate objects. I'd have to constantly check myself for the answer to whose will was I running on, God's or mine, and then having to adjust to try to get back to where I needed to be. I want to run of God's will, not mine, but when I rush through my morning and exercise my will not to get up and start my day the way that I know I need to in order to fuel up for the day spiritually, I am starting from the hole. For one thing, it's hard to stay in God's will for the day when the first 30 minutes to an hour are spent fighting it. Then I would say to myself, you know better and you know why you feel this way, tomorrow you need to get up and start your day right. The next day? I hit the snooze button repeatedly.

How messed up is that? I want my day to go the way it does when I start it off with God. When I get up and spend that time with my Creator, I love it. I enjoy that time so much and enjoy my day better. Time and time again, experienced has shown this to be true. And yet, when that alarm goes off, my self will rises from the grave and says, "No, I don't want to get up yet, I don't want to go to work. I don't want to do anything but lay here and feel sorry for myself because of how stiff and sore I feel and dread how worse I'll feel at work." Never mind that getting up and working actually erase the soreness much more quickly than laying in bed thinking about it and feeling sorry for myself. Self-pity has never actually brought me relief in any area, still I love to pull it out and try it over and over again.

SO why do I struggle so much with this? Because I am a selfish and self centered man who is much less so than in the past, but still not even close to the perfect death to self required to truly be like Him who lived His life truly and completely surrendered to the will of the Father. Paul put it this way, "That which I would do I do not, and that which I would not do, that I do." Basically, I am still am man in need of a savior. The key lies in being willing to see those areas and work the seventh step when I do, praying and meaning "God, I am willing that you now have all of me, the good and the bad. Remove from me every defect of character (every area of self will in my life) that would keep me from being of service to You and others. May I do Your will always." Then I have to get out of the way and let God direct my day and not my feelings. Today, I got up, even though I didn't have to work. I started my day the way I know is better, even though my feelings still said, "c'mon I just want to stay in bed a while longer. And already I feel better. The last day of the week has started better than the others. Progress.

Recipe For Relapse Preventionn

Believe that God can and will if He is sought. Add to that belief goodness by continuing to simply do the next right thing. Add to goodness knowledge and understanding. Add to knowledge brotherly kindness by cleaning up my side of the street and being of service. Add to brotherly kindness love...let love be the mark I measure every choice against, let it be my motivation and purpose. If this is how I live I will not fail or lack what I need to be of maximum service to God and others. Be sure to truly surrender and turn over my life and will to the care of God, for if I (or anyone else for that matter) do these things I will never stumble, never slip, never relapse. The above is a summary of II Peter 1:1-11 as applied to the addiction of self centeredness and all resulting addictions and bondage caused by obsession of self will. May grace and peace abound to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.

Getting Out Of The Way

"Hot on the trail of God's will, and getting warmer still. Got it together this time around. There's nothing to stop you now.

"Stopped by the slam of a door. God, what'd You do that for? Sometimes we just don't understand how He wants to let us in.

"When God closes a door, look for a window, oh look for a window. Don't stand at the door, there might be a window. Oh look for a window.

"Responsibilities change, and so do our pathways. One way God shows which way to go is to let the old road close...

"There's no point in getting down on yourself. God is only pointing you somewhere else."

The above are the lyrics to a song by Dallas Holm that ran through my mind most of the night last night. For a while now I have struggled with disappointment and attempting to delay what was becoming more and more clearly inevitable. I had already accepted things the way they were, or so I thought. I applied for work, knowing that as soon as that work was found, I would have to put my business, my dreams, on hold yet again, perhaps permanently. But I held off on the announcement and continued to take on the occasional customer. Fighting the shut down. The truth is that it became obvious to me last night that I had not accepted things at all.

When I am in the right place with God, totally surrendered to His will and direction for my life and my recovery is on track, then I find that I no longer struggle. No, I don't mean that things don't still go wrong or that life doesn't happen. I mean I don't fight my circumstances. I cease fighting anything and anyone. So the constant struggle within and without to hang on to my dream, to go out kicking and screaming if I had to go out, should have been my first clue that I had begun to run on self-will in this area in my life. I even began to compromise certain principles in order to try to make things work. When it comes to what you know is right, compromise is not a good thing. I told myself I couldn't do this or that because...but when I am honest with myself, that because was simply fear. A being driven, motivated and/or controlled by fear is another sign God gives me to enable me to see where I am running on self-will rather than His will.

Am I disappointed? Yes. At first, I tried to fight that emotion. I've been fighting against, trying to squash it and deny it for a while now, as I slowly saw where the situation was headed. I know that when I am disappointed, it means something didn't go or isn't going my way. I didn't get what I wanted. Since the most important principle in my life today is that God is the principle, and I am simply His agent, I know that my way doesn't really matter. I didn't want to be upset about not getting my way, because that means that I am not where I need to be on the most important factor in my life....there is a God, and I'm not Him.

But trying to ignore my disappointment or crush it doesn't change that I didn't get my way. I didn't. But last night, as the song above ran on repeat on my mental jukebox, I realized that I don't have to fight that either. God gave me the talents and gifts that inspired the dream. It's only natural that I am reluctant to let it go. I don't have to fight that. I don't have to fix it. I simply have to see it for what it is. I have a desire that God has decided that the time is not right for. It's ok to want what I want as long as I want what He wants more.

I know that if I follow His lead and direction than He will either take me to the place where when the dream comes true it is even better than if I had been able to make it work now. And that He will receive the glory for it. And I also know that if this is not a temporary delay, as I hope that it is, then He has something even better in store for me, that once again will bring Him glory and will fill my life with more purpose, satisfaction and serenity than having what I want now could ever bring.

So, I took a deep breath, practiced acceptance, ignored my fear and trusted God to catch me and care for me. I did what made it real, so that I couldn't fight it or run from it any longer. I closed the doors on my business and said Ok God, I won't fight You on this any more. I know that my happiness, my joy, my freedom, and my serenity is not based on any outside situation, such as doing what I want and love for a living. I know that my significance and value is not set by what I do but rather by my relationship with Him who created me.

This morning I have less fear and disappointment, but they are there. Still, I know that if I look for what God would have me do this minute and this minute only, they will fade even more. Eventually they will be destroyed. I trust that God has a plan for me, a plan to prosper, to live, and that His plan is better and more satisfying than anything that I could design. It might even include my own personal dreams, but for now, that's not important. The important thing is that I am getting out of His way so that He can give me everything that He wants to. Regardless of the outcome I believe that will be worth more than anything my selfish heart could ever desire. I am grateful.

I Shouldn't Be Sober

Recently I burnt some trash and had one of those experiences that I’m sure anyone who has had burn piles or gatherings around a bonfire has known. The wind picked up and then seemed to follow me wherever I went. When I got away from the fire the wind seemed to come from one steady direction. But whenever I got close to the flame, the smoke seemed to actively seek me out. It followed me around the fire as I moved to avoid it. The heat of the flame effected the air currents, and I could not predict which way it would shift next. I had only a guess as to which way to move to find a moment of relief before the winds shifted and the smoke found me again, making my eyes water and choking me.

Lately my life has felt much like the burn pile experience. Oh I am talking about it being rubbish that needed to be burnt up or that I feel like my dreams are once more being reduced to ash or anything like that. No, the truth is the last couple of weeks have been amazing and great for more reasons than I can mention. I am richly and truly blessed. In so many ways my life is better than it has ever been.

I have moved and am now in a place where there is less pressure and that Leah loves (at least in some ways). The trip to San Antonio so that Leah could watch her son graduate from Air Force basic training went so much better than I even hoped it would. I loved seeing the joy on Leah’s face from being able to spend time with her son and being able to express her love for him and feel his for her. I spent some wonderful time with Leah on that trip, visited for a few hours with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law (a quite pleasant experience….I’m blessed with an amazing mother-in-law that I love and who, for reasons only God knows, doesn’t feel her daughter married disgustingly below herself as I often feel), I had the blessing of being able to eat lunch with my new (I still consider myself a newlywed) step-son and his fiancé (a true blessing indeed…he has a good father who loves him and who he loves, so I felt especially grateful for being included and given the opportunity to get to know him), and I could go on about several other blessings from that trip. A week later and another trip provided more visiting time with Leah on the road (get the idea that I enjoy traveling, especially with Leah?) and a wonderfully amazing day with her and her daughter. Dinner, bowling, visiting and laughing over youtube videos gave me a chance to get to know my step-daughter a little, and I rejoiced over it. Leah’s children (feels weird to say that when they are both adults) are amazing and wonderful. She and Brad did good there.

I wanted to give Leah and her daughter some time to visit just the two of them, so I found a meeting in Burleson. I had an awesome time visiting that particular group, and the time was fully focused on recovery. Along that subject I have recently added three men to those I work with on the road to recovery, and I so love seeing the light come on in the eyes of those discovering the steps to freedom.

On top of those blessings and so many more that I left out (like my friend finally finding God this week), the greatest miracle sits like a cherry on top of my gratitude list. I am sober today and have not needed to change the way I feel with a drink or drug in over a year. There’s no rhyme or reason for that to be true outside of God. The simple fact is with all the smoke and heat in my life lately, blessings I’m grateful for notwithstanding, I have absolutely no business being sober today. That’s just not who I am. I praise God that it is however who He is.

I haven’t updated my blog in a while, and I spent perhaps too long talking about the things that I’m grateful about for the reader to understand why I say that. I will not go into the list of all the things that have crashed against and over me the past few weeks that nearly buried me in the rubble and ash. How it seemed to blow up yesterday morning even worse, and hope fled from me. But basically all those blessings become little more in my life than patches of blue sky seen through the smoke blinding me. As the smoke of circumstances swirled around me, chasing and overcoming me wherever I turned, and the heat of my life and certain plans burning, I began to choke on self-pity and found myself cut off from the fresh air of the Spirit.

For a moment yesterday morning I slipped so far back into self and self-pity that I actually had the thought that I knew how to make the pain stop and quiet my ever-growing fear. I knew where I could get a bottle. I could make it all go away. Instead I cried as I drove. Cried tears but also out to God. I prayed the only prayer I could muster at the moment was simply, “Oh God, I’m fucked. Help. Oh God, I’m so fucked. There’s no way out. Help. Oh God.” But while I was feeling and saying that there was no way out of the downward spiral I had fallen into, I knew in my Spirit that there was. I was crying out to my only way out, my only source of strength and hope. A few minutes later and not only was the idea of grabbing that bottle long past, but I was able to pray better. I prayed about my fear, my anger, and even my hopelessness and self-pity. I found freedom, although I still had the stench of that smoke of self-pity, anger and fear clinging to me for several more hours.

By late afternoon, I used what I had gone through that morning to try to help another alcoholic and addict who still suffers. Don’t know if what I said was heard or helped much, but I felt free and happy and peaceful once more before the sun had set. The day ended much better for me than it began, and that is always a good thing no matter how the day starts.

I found peace, freedom and salvation as I cried in the morning. Another did not, and in the pain and hopelessness of self-pity ended the fight. As I wait to find out about funeral arrangements, I can’t help but wonder why I was saved and she was not. But I am grateful that as I cried out on the road, “Son of David have mercy on me!” that He did. I can’t explain why some find recovery and some don’t, but I know that as I cling to relationship with He who has all the power that I lack in myself I find victory and freedom and peace that I have not earned and do not deserve. I have no business being alive and sober today, but I am. And so I thank God and share what He has done for me so that others may know that they can find grace instead of the grave.

Thank You

This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. I will enter His gates with Thanksgiving in my heart.

The above reminds me to be grateful and how important gratitude is to my life in general and my relationship with God in particular. The Big Book tells me that Step three, to turn my will and life over to God as I understand Him, is the keystone to the arch of freedom that the road to recovery passes through. Everything hinges on this. Without it, the rest of the program rings hollow and lack of power remains my dilemma. Experience has shown me that without maintaining my relationship with God, I can not stay clean and sober, and I resubmit my life to the bondage of self.

But how can I trust God enough to turn my life and will over to Him if I can not or will not acknowledge and be grateful for all the blessings that are already in my life. If I can't see the good things in my life, how can I appreciate what God has done for me? I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart tells me that gratitude is the security badge for getting into the gates of the Creator. I don't have to bow a certain way or a certain number of times. I don't have to scrape or humiliate myself. I don't have to perform some mighty dead or be perfect. All I have to do is be thankful for what my Father has done for me.

I didn't sleep last night, but surprisingly I feel more rested than I have in some time now. I lay in bed last night at peace enjoying the presence of my wife beside me. As I watched the clock work its way toward the moment it would sound the alarm I felt so blessed. Usually, I would have been cursing my lack of sleep. I would have become frustrated and angry. Last night I didn't. I reflected on all the amazing and wonderful miracles and blessings I have received over my lifetime and especially in the last year. I listened to Leah's breathing and thanked God for what little rest she was receiving and prayed for more for her because I knew that she was not sleeping well either. I simply soaked in a spirit of gratitude. It was a restful experience even without the sleep, and I am thankful for it. I don't believe I have ever quite experienced that before.

Last night I shared my story at a meeting. Our past is our greatest asset if used to help others, and I am so grateful for the opportunity. I am sick, and barely could function. Several friends and family members were praying for me. I prayed in the bathroom moments before time to talk. I had one break from the painful coughing, stuffy congestion and misery. It was when I got up to walk to the podium until I set back down. I got a little tickle in my throat a couple of times and had to take a drink of water, but that was it. For about 45 minutes it was almost as if I wasn't even sick. It still amazes me to see God do for me what I can not do for myself. I still need that affirmation that God can give me the power to do what He wants me to do, when I can in no way muster the strength on my own. All it takes is surrender and agreement that if He wants me to do it, I can, regardless of what the outward circumstances tell me. Praise be to God for the miracles in my life and for another day of recovery and relationship.

Reflections

I thank God for an earthly father who lives an example of Christ-like love and gave me an understanding of the concept of mercy, love and forgiveness rather than hatred, rejection, fire and brimstone. Because of this I can believe in forgiveness from God, because I have seen it in my earthly father I can believe it from a Heavenly Father. I can accept the philosophy of progress not perfection and release myself from the bondage of legalism and expectations I set too high for myself.

The above paragraph comes from the end of a blog entry I wrote a year and a day ago. I had started the day messed up and ended the day sober. The next day, May 17, 2010 I started my first new day free from alcohol and drugs. I have not had to change or enhance the way I feel with drink or drug in one year today, and that is truly a miracle. I refuse to beat myself up over my relapse today. Instead I am going to take this reminder from a year ago, accept the forgiveness of my Creator, forgive myself (again) and thank the Lord for the miracle of the past year.

So much has changed for the better in the past year. I regained my sobriety with a better understanding of and foundation in my program of recovery. I have been blessed with the amazing love and relationship that enriches my life today more than I ever imagined possible. If anyone had asked me a year ago today if I'd be sitting in my home happily married today I would have said no way. First I never believed I would have that blessing in my life again, and a year ago I was such a mess that I never believed recovery and stability could come as quickly as it did. But I have been blessed of God, and really, how long does it take to be raised from the dead? Only as long as it takes me to be willing to let God do whatever He wants and need to do to breathe the life back into my soul.

My name is Dalyn, and I have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. I am free today of the obsession to use alcohol and drugs, but more importantly I am being set free, slowly but surely, from the obsession of self. Self is the barrier that creates distance between God and me, and every bit of freedom I have today is in direct proportion to how much of my will I turn over to God. Jesus said essentially that if I want relationship with God, I must die to self, set self aside, and follow His example of servitude, sacrifice and love. My program of recovery tells me that selfishness and self-centeredness are the root of all my problems and the ability to get out of self through conscious contact with God, service to others and cleaning up my side of the street is the way I find recovery of mind, body and spirit.

My selfishness tells me that to do those things means giving up my life, and it's right. But my experience shows me that when I lose my life I find a new and better life full of freedom, joy and peace. A little over a year ago I was almost ready to die and doing a good job of trying to make that happen. Today I have a better life than I ever imagined I could have. I am not special. I am not unique. God could and God has and God will do for anyone what He did for me. The solution is simple, although not always easy...surrender self to the One who has the power to give life and life more abundantly and let the love of Him who is love fill every hole and empty place. After that, fear flees and healing is birthed.

You changed my sorrow into dancing. You took away my clothes of sadness and clothed me in happiness. Psalm 30:11 ncv

Dry Bones Dancing

"Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up." Psalm 5:1-3

Since the book of Psalms was originally a collection of songs, it's no surprise to me that so many of them have been set to music and used as praise, worship and prayer songs in modern times. The three verses I quoted above make up a song that I grew up singing in my father's church, and I woke up with the refrain repeating in my mind this morning.

I feel the weight on my emotions, and I know that my soul is crying out, but I'm not exactly sure in what way. I can't put it into words, not even to myself. But while I don't know exactly what the prayer of my heart is this morning, I know that at its root is please get this boulder off of me. I feel pinned beneath a a weight that I can not budge. My spirit weighs heavy against me.

But I know that God does not make too hard of terms with those who seek him. That doesn't mean that times won't be hard. For me, it means that my contract with my Creator does not have terms and conditions that I can not fulfill. I do not have to figure out how to remove the weight from my heart. I do not have to muster up the strength to pull myself out from underneath it or push it off me. I do not have to perform at some unattainable level of perfection in order to find relief.

My part of the agreement is simply this, heavy heart or light, I surrender to Him. When everything is going my way and when nothing is, I walk in what He has called me and taught me to the best of my ability and trust Him to give me the grace and strength to complete the journey. My part is to cry out to Him when I weary and let Him carry the burden. Jesus tells me to come to Him when I am weary and heavy laden and that when I do that, He will make my burden light. That means that I will have access to His strength to do whatever it is I need to do. I know that I can cast my cares on Him, for He cares for me.

It is so wonderful to be reminded that God loves and cares for me. I need that more than ever when the circumstances of my life would testify to the opposite. But circumstances are not my God nor my truth. There was a time when feeling such a weight on my soul and mourning the loss of my own dreams and desires I would react in self-pity and seek oblivion. Today, I know that if I lose a dream of my own, that God will replace it with Him dream for me, which is infinitely better and more satisfying. To surrender to His dream for me can even simply prepare me to better handle the fulfillment of my own dream later on down the road. If there's one thing I have learned, I know that death, even of dreams, is not the end of the story with God. He has proven able to revive old, dry bones into living beings able to dance for the world to see.

So I cry out to my Daddy, listen to my words, and when I don't have the words, understand and listen to my heavy sighs. Listen to my cries for help, for I know that you are my help, and I know that I am powerless to help myself. That's why I run to You. I know my Creator is holy and perfect and will not associate with evil, but though I myself am still evil in part, I rely on Your great mercy to allow me to come to You and fellowship with You. I can enter Your house, though I have done nothing to earn that right. I will come in to Your presence with reverence because I know that I didn't do anything to deserve to be there. Lead and guide me Lord. I need Your direction because my mind is my enemy and it deceives me and taunts me to go toward my own destruction. Banish those strongholds within my mind that refuse to surrender to You and Your will for me, because I know that the thoughts which would lead me from You or cause me to run from You are an open grave waiting to be filled. "(verse 11) But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you." Yes, let me find my safety in You, and may that safety bring gladness to my heart to replace the fear and heaviness. For I am sure that You bless those who seek You in earnest and surround them with Your favor as with a shield. When I seek You I am protected from the pain and fear of calamity, if not from calamity itself. If I am to be destroyed, then let it be done in such a way that my destruction and or reconstruction shows others Your power and willingness to deliver. Like dry bones dancing in the desert, let it be obvious that any life in me is because of and from You. God, I offer myself to You — to build with me and to do with me as You will (that includes working how and where You want me to work, to help those You would have me help, and to give up any part of me that You need me to let go of). Relieve me of the bondage of self (and the need to protect my own dreams and desires), that I may better do Your will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your Love, and Your Way of life (and how much better Your power, love and way of life is than anything I could have on my own). May I do Your will always! My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad, dreams and fears. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character, every habit of thought, every selfish desire, which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here to do what You would have me do. Fill these dry bones with Your quickening water that I might dance for Your glory and be a living testimony of Your deliverance.

Traction

Today is my wife's birthday and the day we make our monthly trip to the lake. The night we truly became a couple, I took her to one of my most special places, and we return there every month. It's a special tradition that I treasure.

On the way home, I hit a pot hole in the road that shook us a little, and Leah said, "There's a pot hole there." I said, "I know. I found it." Normally, that would have been the end of the incident, but I realized something a few seconds later. As we entered the turn in the road just past the pot hole, I noticed that it was the same spot in the road that I fishtailed all over the road and nearly wrecked during the ice storm a couple of months ago. I have no doubt that the pot hole I hit tonight was the same one that sent us sliding before.

So, what was the difference between tonight and the afternoon a couple of months ago? Ice. Tonight I had good traction and dry ground. Last time, the road was slick and covered in ice, and when we hit the pot hole I lost control of the vehicle. The similarity with this and sobriety entered my thoughts as I safely exited the turn and continued on down the road.

I have a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintanence of my spiritual condition. I don't have to beware of triggers or worry about where I can and can't go. When I am spiritually fit, it's like driving on a dry highway. I have plenty of traction to maneuver, and life's pot holes don't cause a serious problem. But when I am not spiritually fit and try to live as though I am it's like driving on an icy road as if it were not icy. I may go along fine for miles without a problem, but sooner or later I will find a curve that is too sharp or a pot hole I didn't expect. Then, the lack of traction causes me to loose all control and my life becomes a series of fishtailing actions to attempt to recover. The question stops being if I'll wreck and becomes how bad is the wreck going to be.

Maintaining my relationship with God is like making sure I have the traction of a dry highway under the vehicle of my life. I can go faster, be and feel safer, and not be afraid that something bad might happen at any second. When I feel that my relationship is not right, it's like the roads being badly iced over. I slow down, don't go anywhere I don't have to, and warm my roads with the sunlight of the Spirit to melt the ice and renew my relationship with God. The most dangerous times are when I don't realize that I have let my relationship dwindle, when I don't realize that there's still ice on the road and drive like there's not any. That's when I end up going to fast for the conditions and the pot holes send me sliding.

Tonight I am grateful that the pot hole barely registered. We didn't come close to leaving our lane, much less wrecking. But I am even more grateful for the object lesson that reminded me to check my road to recovery for ice, even in the summer. I can't let my heart grow cold towards God. I must maintain my relationship, for it is in relationship with Him that I find safety to travel, as well as peace, joy and love that gives me reason to live and spills out into the rest of my life and gives me all the other blessings I enjoy that make life worth living. Blessings like being able to enjoy celebrating Leah's birthday with her and having a special trip to the lake, because I don't spoil those moments by obsessing over alcohol or drugs, or worse, by using them. Thank you God for keeping my road to recovery free from ice and safe to travel, and especially thank you for my companions I get to travel with.

Taking The Time

Some might say that I have wasted this day. I would call it quite productive, although not in material ways. What seems to have become a "Spiritual Day" started as a long break. A new film on the Netflix watch it now catalog caught my eye. I thought I'd watch the first 10 minutes or so of it to see if it was worth exploring with my wife.

This is not a film review, so I will not discuss predictability versus beautiful camera work. The film, One Week, caught me from the start. I could not stop and wait. I sent my helper off, mainly because I knew he wouldn't shut up about Joshua Jackson the whole movie if I let him stay, and closed shop for about an hour and a half.

The movie is a bucket list type thing with the main character taking a motorcycle cross-country trip after learning he has terminal cancer. Filled with all the expected philosophy and spirituality you'd expect, the film tells this story well. It did so well, in fact, that as the credits rolled I thought on the message of the film and put myself mentally in the place where the question could be asked of me, if you knew you only had one week to live, what would you do? Perhaps the more important question might be what would you change about yourself, about your life?

There was a time might answer would be filled with places to see and things to do, and, yes, riding the world's largest wooden and the largest metal roller coasters have both been on and checked off such a list. There was also a time when the answer would have been get as high and drunk as I could get for whatever time remained. Today, when I imagined the idea of myself in that situation of a week to live, I received a blessing.

I saw myself in several different situations, laughing and mourning. First, this is significant, because I never really imagined myself mourning my own death before. The idea of my death has more often than not brought with it the idea of a feeling of relief, not mourning. Today, I am thankful that I have a life worth mourning.

In every scenario I saw, I was sober. I don't care if these are silly post-philosophical movie daydreams, they are the daydreams of an addict. For me to not once have thought about taking some of the remaining time to get good and wasted did not appear. That is a miracle, even just in not fantasizing about using.

The funny thing is that if you asked me yesterday how content I am, I'd have said very. But that is both true and false. In the areas that I am content, I have never been more so. I have so many blessings and my life has enough content that the vast majority of my imaginary scenarios are things I do regularly. Most included time with my Creator and time with my wife. That I have either of these two relationships today is a miracle that could only be made possible by the first of those two. I am truly thankful.

I'm not trying to get sappy or have a Hallmark moment. I just had a reminder of how in the relative short time of a couple of years I have gone from a life no one would want and few would call worth living to a life worth not only living, but of mourning. Today I would have no need to run anywhere to find what was missing in my life upon hearing news of my nearing end. The simple reason for this is that I am not missing anything, nothing of import. Sure, finances suck. But as noble as it might be to feel like making a mad dash to raise money to pay your bills before you die, I'm just not that noble. No, the things worth looking for at that moment, I have every day,

No man is promised tomorrow, but today I don't have to live the first day of the rest of my life in or searching for oblivion, and I don't ever have to be subjected the daydreaming fantasies of it. It always feels great to feel and see reminders that the promises do come true. I may never feel more content and at peace than I do when I get a deep revelation about how much contentment and peace truly is in my life. I appreciate these swellings of thankfulness for the blessings in my life to remind me to never for a moment taking them for granted, because if I take the things worth living for for granted they may fade and I never want to lose them.

Today I will spend some extra time with my Creator, give the help a break, and then spend some time with my wife (I can't wait to watch and explore this film with her, but I really am looking forward to Wasteland tonight too....ah such conflict...too many movies, too little time.), and what I am most thankful for right now is that if I knew this was my last week, then my current plans for the day would still be on my need and want to do list. It is good to have days where you can feel that way. It is good to have a day where God can just minister to your soul. May prayer us that everyone who reads this have such experiences in their life.

One Picture Is Never Enough

When photography first hit the scene it somewhat told the truth, but it didn't take long for that to change. At first, portrait photographers traveled to locations and photographed people as they were, as they lived, at their homes or places of business. What you saw was what you got. There was no after camera touchups, no way to really lie. Then photographers began providing clothing, so that customers and subjects could look their best. A man who could never afford a suit suddenly was able to be immortalized dressed to the nines. Women whose best outfit was made from gingham passed down images of themselves in beautiful gowns to their children. A few generations later, their ancestors would lose a part of their grandmothers truth and her story, to them, would include her in that dress, and little else was known about her life. Soon, photographers had artists paint backdrops to enhance the photographs even more. Airbrushed dyes and paints were used to soften, hide blemishes, create an instant diet, whiten teeth, etc. By the time I was having school pictures taken in elementary school, even they were a misrepresentation. My mother bought photos of me to give to family of her son at school if an outfit he'd never wear to school if it wasn't picture day. My hair would be combed and white rained into static place. The result was an image that supposedly said who I was, but in truth I never looked like that except for perhaps the first five minutes of the trip to church on Sunday mornings. That illusion could never last long in real life, but photographs, could last forever. During family portraits with Olan Mills, backdrops told the viewer that I was standing in a beautiful field at sunset, while in truth I was miserably waiting my turn, trying not to move enough to mess up my hair or clothes, in a hotel room. Today we have digital backdrops, and with a few clicks of a computer button a subject can be made blemish free and placed in a location they have never even seen.

From the first baby steps of photojournalism, pictures stumbled away from the truth. Photographers wanting to show the glory of war or inspire those back home to support the troops, took photographs of happy victors, smiling young men, dances and games and clean, ordered army life. Those who wanted to see the fighting end showed crying men, fearful faces, horrible wounds and twisted corpses. Neither photographed was faked. Both lied. There has never been a photograph taken on purpose that did not have at least some editorializing from the photographer to make the subject look better, or worse, or to emphasize whatever the photographer believed to be the statement or message of the scene.

In many ways, photographers are like politicians. We lie for a living. Even when a photograph tells the truth, it's an accident, or a half truth at best. It wasn't always as bad as it is today, but photography has always been the most believable kind of lie. A photograph is a sentence taken out of a book, made to stand alone and then tell a chapter of the story. That's why they say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

But it's not. Because a single photograph can never be like Paul Harvey. It never tells the rest of the story, or the whole story for that matter. The story is manipulated by the photographer who chooses by what is included or excluded in the framing of the shot and the lighting and exposure what the viewer will and will not see. Angles and poses are chosen to convey a message. See how happy I am? See what a loving family we are? See how I good I look? See what I want you to see? Isn't my mask pretty? Nevermind we fought the whole way here, my teenager is just waiting for this moment to be over so she can bolt and go be with her friends or anywhere but home, and I never, ever look this good, especially when I look in the mirror. Or maybe this is a true representation of how good I can look, but it surely doesn't express the other side of the coin.

And that's OK for portraiture. Those lies didn't start with photography. Painters spent hours and hours on portraits that only vaguely represented the truth of who the subject was. And like I've heard in recovery from time to time, fake it till you make it kind of applies here. It's not so much a lie as an attempt to capture an image of who we aspire to be. There's nothing wrong with putting my best foot forward, or, to keep with the metaphor I've chosen, to present my best image.

However, I can not allow myself to remember that it's not the truth, or at least not the whole truth. It doesn't tell the whole story. I can not take one image, one day, one week, month, year or decade from my life, or anyone else's for that matter, and tell the whole truth about a life.

I am a forty year old man who runs his own business. I am married to a woman I love totally and completely, and I want no one but her. I do not drink or do drugs. I do not steal, and I am honest. I am slow to wrath, patient, abhor violence, and whenever possible I live in peace with my fellow humans, even if that means having to walk away from things some believe worth fighting for. I am often a servant and helper today. And as I think on what I just typed, I think it's not a bad resume, but it's not the whole truth. Anyone who only sees those things about me is missing part of the whole that is important, because they are also missing the miracle that made it happen, the truth that I am not the above because of anything I have or could do on my own. It's a God thing. The biggest miracle I have ever seen made it possible for me to write the above self description and be telling the truth, even if only a half truth.

The rest of the story is I am an alcoholic and a drug addict who has consumed enough of both that he should be dead. I am lazy, and with the exception of photojournalism, I never held a job for more than a year before quitting out of anger, boredom or laziness and having to find something else. I was 37 years old before I ever had a monogamous relationship. I had relationships that were supposed to be monogamous, but I was never faithful for long enough to make them work. This is a huge part of the reason why the wife I love today is my second wife. I am divorced. I am a man who loves family and is extremely family oriented, yet the whole truth is that I have moved through the lives of families, especially my own, like a tornado, leaving sorrow and destruction in my wake. I am a felon. I was and have done a lot of things that are not pretty. Some are downright evil. If I were a Hebrew 3000 years ago I would have been stoned to death long before I reached the age of twenty. But like the positive, this is also not the truth, at least not the whole truth.

The truth is that I have done good things in my life, even during my days of bondage, and I have done bad things, even during my recovery. I am not, and have never been, totally evil and worthless, even though I have believed those about myself and felt that way. And at the same time, I am not, and never will be on this side of heaven, a saint. Today, I am more the man God wants me to be than I have ever been. Tomorrow, I want to be even more so. But the man I am today is not a mask, or a photograph that I can present to the world and say, see, this is who I am. It is not the whole picture. I have to remember the man pre-miracle, Dalyn BC. Because it is the whole the picture, rotten and diseased tree recovered and bearing fruit that tells the story of my life. It is that story which can show others who are now or will be living where I was how to escape. It is the whole story that needs to be told so that I never allow myself to feel superior to another human being because of the mistakes they have made or because of how they deal with the pain and misery in their own life. But I also do not have to let those who only see an image from my past destroy me. I can be sad that they can't see the whole truth, because if they could they might find they way of escape for themselves, not just the escape from alcohol and or drug addiction, but escape from the hell and misery of living without understanding how much God truly loves them and desires relationship with them. It must make the angels weep to see someone in such bondage encounter another who has the key to freedom and reject it because of an image that is only half true, or less. It must break the heart of God.

I am finally coming to understand, really understand at the depths of my heart, why I do not need to regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. This morning, I am grateful for the first time that no matter how much progress I make, no matter how much better I get, I will never be able to erase the record of my past. I am thankful today for my scarlet A. My past proves the power of God greater than any story about seas splitting in half to provide escape for slaves. It emphasizes an image that today's slaves can see, if they will only look. No, a photograph can not tell the whole truth, but two can. I can not hold on to the image of my present picture without the image of my past and tell the truth. And if I do not tell the truth I can not help free the slaves. Thank you Father for reminding me that while Paul served you, even 2000 years later we first learned about Saul, the legalist, self-righteous, murderer. Saul completes the story, shows the miracle and helps me to see that I can have what Paul had....relationship with you, regardless of where and what I have been before.

Prodigal Come Home

Yesterday I received the blessing of meeting one of my cousins again. That sounds a little strange, I'm sure, but when you are in the 40 years old range and all your memories of someone are from the childhood and teen years, then the truth is that you don't know that person. She is not the same person she was in the 70s and 80s any more than I am. So I met her again, and the time was as wonderful as she is. Ok, in some ways she hasn't changed a bit.

But as great and laughter filled as the visit was, I came away from it a little sad as well. Sad is not the right word. My joy was tinged with regret. I thought I had not seen her since probably 1989, and that alone is regrettable. I have always told myself and others that family is very important to me, and yet, I have lost touch with so many. As the years stretch by it gets easier and easier to let the gap widen and the relationships fade. Feelings of shame for why I lost touch with everyone combine with fear of rejection to keep me from reaching out. That is not how recovery should be, but it is how I feel all too often, even now, when I stop long enough to look at it and be honest with myself.

But yesterday, I learned something else. I was wrong about the last time I saw my cousin. I saw her in 1999. I just didn't remember the short encounter she had with a trashed out man who looked a mess, was a worse mess, and greeted the cousin he loved and hadn't seen in years simply with the words, "You didn't see me here." She responded, "Cool," and I walked away from that convenience store so far from where I was supposed to be at the time with someone I never should have spent any time with, and left. A few months later my house of cards crashed down and my choices finished taking away even the illusion of freedom in my life.

Oh how far I fell from the precocious little blonde haired boy who ran laughing through life spreading joy and loving family. But I am not feeling sorry for myself or wallowing in regret. I am grateful. I am grateful that I am closer to that childlike joy than I have ever been since my youth. I am thankful for a relationship with God that erases the shame of the past and uses the crap consequences of foolish choices as fertilizer to help myself and others grow in relationship and recovery. And I am grateful for family who walk into rooms with smiles and open arms for the prodigal son who wasted all on riotous living. I am grateful that I bear little resemblance to the man who walked into a store three hours from home and bumped into two cousins in 1999. I am grateful for recovery and freedom from self-imposed bondage and slavery. And I know that I am forgiven. The joy of forgiveness overrides the pain of regret, the fear of rejection and the sense of shame that would enslave me again.

I am so grateful to have met a wonderful lady who still so reminds me of the childhood friend I loved so many years ago. I am grateful for her open arms and tight hug and amazing smile. But I am not special. This is not even a rare miracle. The truth is that I am loved by an amazing God who has a special love for the broken, the bruised and the slave. He offers freedom and recovery to all who will receive it and surrender to His call that says to the addict, come home and let Me restore you.

I do have family that are not quite as quick to forgive and welcome. Others have forgiven and rejoiced at my recovery but the closeness just will never be there. But out of total insanity and isolation I have found relationship, most importantly with God. There are new relationships that strengthen and enrich my life. And I can look in the mirror this morning without shame, fear and self-rejection. What I have done, anyone can do. All that is required is to hear the call and respond. Prodigal, come home. It seems an eternity away, you've run so far, but in truth, you're only 12 steps away from deliverance and relationship with the Father who stands on His porch daily looking down the road just waiting for a glimpse of His child.

Not Every Man Really Lives

Self obsession is to be occupied or filled with selfish affairs while ignoring others. When I am obsessed with myself I ignore God and others that I love. The acquaintance and the stranger don't even show up on my mental radar unless I see a way to get something for myself or improve my life in some way by using them. I live my life based on my selfish needs and desires. As long as my needs are met life is good, and I don't worry about others. And in my experience it soon follows my slipping into this attitude that I am completely empty of all but pain and misery. God wants my life to positively effect the lives of others. It's not all about me.

One of my favorite lines from the movie Braveheart is "Every man dies. Not every man really lives." But then what does it mean to really live? Today I believe that to really live means that to enter into relationship with my Creator in such a way that I become happy, joyous and free and that I am ruled by love, love for God and love for others. The result is my actions and life no longer being about only myself but instead what I have overflowing positively into the lives of others and my course of action being determined by how what I think and do will effect others.

The truth is that even my relationship with God is not just about me. Some would say: It's a personal thing, and my relationship between me and God is just that, between me and God. It's nobody's business but mine, because it only effects me.

I think that philosophy totally misses the mark and makes me question the relationship. God, as I understand Him, blessed me through the the service of others, and He wants me to serve others in return. He set up the spiritual paradox of to get you have to give away, to be free you have to surrender to another, to have life you must be willing to lay your life down and that no greater love can be shown than to lay down your life for another. These are not the spiritual principles of a God who is ok with me being selfish and our relationship only being about me. My relationship with God must go beyond me so that it can reach and positively effect other people's lives or it has no value.

If all I have done is save myself then what's the point? I have found the path through the fire to safety, but if I run down the path and do not care who else is saved then I am also partly responsible for those who die in the fire behind me. Now, if I say, "Hey, follow me! I know the way out!" and they say no, I got this. I'm going to do it myself, then I'm going on down the path. I am going to make sure that my butt is safe, my sobriety is stable, my relationship with God is right. But that is just it; if I don't care about the men, women and children who still suffer because I am too busy enjoying that I don't suffer anymore, then my relationship with God is not right. It won't be long before I am suffering again too. Self obsession and self centeredness has always led to suffering in my life.

Today I want to really live and use my will the way it was intended to be used by choosing to surrender that very will to the will of God. It there, safely tucked away in my Creator's Good Orderly Direction that I find freedom, and everything being the best it can be, and the ability to be of service to Him and my fellow man. Being a servant is more of a life than I ever found while living for myself. Strange, I know, but true.