With my Eclectic Imagery Facebook page and business blog, I have been posting the theme or assignment for a photo a day. The last few days I've been incorporating the theme for the day's photo with something to do with the day in history. I have found looking through significant, and sometimes trivial, events that happened on each day interesting and sometimes, like today, it has been difficult to choose which event to tie into the day's photo theme.
On this day, January 26, 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip guided a fleet of 11 British ships carrying convicts to the colony of New South Wales, effectively founding Australia. After overcoming a period of hardship, the fledgling colony began to celebrate the anniversary of this date with great fanfare. This hit me as related to recovery in two ways.
The first way this struck me as related to recovery is that the people that were making this historically significant event were convicts. They had made at least one mistake that caused them to be exiled to this place that would come to be Australia. They made the best of their present and worked for a better future. They overcame the hardships that faced them and began celebrating the anniversary of their landing in what was basically a island prison as the start of their better, new life and the forming of something great. I have had some seriously negative consequences and regulations imposed on my life due to my actions. When I have taken that punishment or consequence as a chance to learn and grow and make something better and good come out of it, growth has occurred. My experience and past can be my greatest asset today. It can be used to build something worthwhile and miraculous.
The second way that the historical founding of Australia struck me as related to recovery came when I saw how one website noted the event. One site stated on this day in 1788 the first European settlers arrived on Australia. How many times have I done this with my life and past. This manipulative way at looking at the past is a technique that I have used all too often to pretty up my past and allow myself to deceive myself as much as others. It keeps me from honestly looking at what it was like, which allows me to excuse what happened and effects what it's like now. These were not European settlers. They were convicts. Australia started as a penal colony. And I did not live my life a little out of control. I moved through the lives of others like a tornado blowing lives apart and leaving wreckage in my wake. To call it less than it was, I do a disservice to the truth. First, I lose humility because I am trying to make myself look different or not as bad as the reality. Humility is seeing the truth about both my strengths and weaknesses and my place in the past and present. It is remaining teachable, which I can not do if I can not truthfully look at who I was and am. The second disservice is to God. When I admit truthfully the level I lived in the true extent of the miracle God performed to make my character and life what it is today can be seen. But when I cover up how low I was it hides just how far I have been lifted up.
Today I count it as best for me and a part of my service to the alcoholic and addict that still suffers to be honest about exactly who I was and what it was like so that the true extent of the change into who I am and what it is like now can be seen. Then when I talk about what happened to bring about the miraculous change, my experience, strength and hope can be properly evaluated when someone is trying to decide if they want what I have before deciding to do what I did to get it.
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