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.

Choices

I read today that selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of my troubles. My life and choices were driven by many different manifestations of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, and those choices led to almost every instance of damage and pain that I have experienced and or caused others to experience. Realizing this came as a result of taking a thorough moral inventory of myself. But today I associate this passage and the ideas I feel are behind it with a different step of my program of recovery. Today it helps me keep a proper attitude and reaction to the very foundation of recovery.

In the same book that I read the above information about the root of my problem I am told that lack of power was my dilemma. I know that I am powerless over alcohol and other addictions and that my life, as a result of running on my own strength, power, and making choices based on my reactions to and bondage of fear, self-reliance, self-will, etc. had become unmanageable. Experience has proved to me that when I make choices based on my own understanding of things and survival instincts that far more often than not, I choose something that leads to disappointment, if not outright disaster. Eventually when I begin to attempt to run my own life and make my choices based on what I feel is best or right I distance myself from God and lose contact, guidance and power that He freely makes available to me. When I begin to live this way, insanity returns, and although I can not explain it, everything within me makes a drink or a drug seem like a really good idea.

I have a daily reprieve from the obsession to drink and drug contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. The maintenance of my spiritual condition is not my spiritual knowledge or understanding, it is the level that I put into action what I have learned of and from God and how I stay connected to Him. When everything feels like it is falling apart in areas of my life I need to beware my choices. I am not writing here of choices to drink and use but the choices in how I react or respond to what is happening in my life. When I don't know what to do, I feel afraid, but I can not allow my choices to be directed by fear. If I begin to act on my own wisdom, knowledge, will and power in the everyday direction of my life I am beginning to return to the path that led to my near destruction. But when I remember that I have surrendered my will and my life, and therefore my choices, over to the care of my Creator, I am directed through the storm to a port of safety and security...and while I am traveling to that safe place I can know peace. My choices based on my needs, desires and instincts have almost never lead to life, but every choice I have made to let God make the choice of direction and reaction has lead to freedom and serenity. The only choice I can safely make in my life when I feel the pressure of life pushing me under is to choose to let God direct every action and reaction I make.

Living My Own Life

"There is one life to live for each of us: our own" - Euripedes

I would amend what Euripedes said by adding that my own life is not my own. It is the life that God gave me. I didn't ask for my life, earn my life or deserve my life. It is a gift from my Creator. And while in many respects I am no different from any other human that has ever lived, lives, or will ever live, in some respects I am uniquely and wonderfully made by God just as I am. No one else can live my life or do exactly what I can do, just as I can not live anyone else's life or do exactly what they can do. But my power and freedom come not from within or just bull headedly doing whatever I want or feel like doing. Living my life in the way that best benefits me and those that I love means that I must live my life and my life alone. I can not live yours or anyone else's. This doesn't just mean I can't enjoy the perks of the rich and famous. It also means that I can't tell someone else how they have to do even the smallest thing. I can show them what works for me and let it go at that.

I also can not live or have someone else's sobriety or control. I can not have someone I admire's sobriety by wishing for it, nor get it instantly by working for it. Theirs came after work and through the grace of God. It takes time. Mine does too. I also do not have to live in fear because of weaknesses I see in others. I must surrender my life and will over to God and do the work He would have me do. The rest will come. Remembering this helps me to not measure my insides by someone else's outsides.

Most importantly, living my own life means that God has a unique purpose for me that only I can fulfill, with His power, grace and help. If I don't do it, it may not get done. For me to have the most freedom, power and enjoyment in my life, I must surrender that life. In order for my life to be my own, my will can not be mine. Living by my own will takes away all freedom in my life and keeps me in bondage. Paradoxically, giving my will up and surrendering to God's will in my life enables me to be happy, joyous and free and equips me for the service that He needs of me. That is my goal, my dream today. No longer do I simply want to be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I tried that, and nearly died in misery. I want to lose my life to my Creator's control, because I have learned that when I do that, He returns my life to me in much better shape than I could ever get it, and then and only then can I live my own life in a manner that makes it feel worthwhile to be alive.