Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of February 04;

Sometimes when I’m unhappy with my situation, I feel that God is punishing me. Once again I’ve lost my image of a loving God and need to recover it.

It helps to call my Sponsor, who reminds me that God is not a terrorist. I read Al-Anon literature and go to extra meetings. Mostly I walk beside the river and talk with God about how afraid I am. I watch the water and thank God for the good things in my life: Al-Anon recovery, the gift of the Twelve Steps, creativity and the joy I have in expressing it, my loving Al-Anon family. After I’ve talked it through, I sit and wait until I feel God’s healing touch reassuring me, drying my tears.

The funny thing is that, after I’m through those hard times, I never truly remember the pain. What I remember is the sunshine on the water, the peace of the moment, the love of my Higher Power wrapping around me as tangibly as the sunshine. The pain is gone, but the increased trust in my Higher Power remains.

Today’s Reminder

When faced with difficult or painful situations, I can remember that a loving God is always there for me, always available as a source of comfort, guidance, and peace.

“No one is alone if they’ve come to believe in a Power greater than themselves.” — Sponsorship – What It’s All About

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What is God, really? So invisible and so all pervasive; seducing us to search, to grapple, to hunger for more. God is the ultimate “not enough” of my life. For one so afflicted with addiction within and without, I image that is a statement of worship. Gomu, I want more, always more. It sometimes feels like my spiritual neediness drives the Infinite One away to get some I AM time.

Where are you? An Entity cloaked in plausible deniability. Our relationship is vulnerable to the vultures of lazy skepticism in my mind. How is that possible? I want to know and be known and You are the only one who can answer that need in its most absolute terms. Is it any wonder that the greatest hope in human intimacy is to discover You hiding in glistening eyes, excited to be found out, and disappointed when we struggling mortals are only ourselves?

If I surrender, will I have You? Every moment your presence has flashed or fluttered into my speculative interaction, I value. I remember and cling. I do not really know how to love you. The closest thing I can render is hunger and manipulation. For you see, I am human. Teach me to be the something more I desire from you. Something beyond the flesh that you are able to embrace.

Make U/us real.

From Courage to Change of February 03;

As a newcomer to Al-Anon, I heard that the principles of the program could lead to serenity. I’d have preferred to hear that the program would cure the alcoholic, undo the damage of the past, or at least pay the gas bill. My idea of serenity was sitting on a mountaintop with a silly grin on my face, not caring very much about anything. I was more interested in passion!

Eventually I realized that serenity didn’t have to strip me of my passion. Instead, it offered me a sense of inner security that freed me to live my life as fully and passionately as I pleased, because it tapped into an unlimited source of energy and wisdom: a Higher Power. I could make strong choices and take risks because, with this help, I was better able to deal with anything that happened.

Nothing can compare to the drama of exploring my full potential as a human being. Once I had a taste of the rich life that could be mine with the help of Al-Anon and my Higher Power, I discovered that serenity was a great treasure.

Today’s Reminder

Today I seek serenity, knowing that when I am serene, I am capable of becoming more fully, and more passionately, myself.

“Without this program I could not have appreciated how truly wonderful my life can be in spite of difficult situations.” …In All Our Affairs

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I can’t explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb –

Lyrics from the Pink Floyd song, “Comfortably Numb”

It seems to me that for every useful empowerment of this or any program of spiritual development, there is a shadow cast from that God-given tool that stretches across the fear-laden minefield of living with someone’s addiction related disease. The tool of serenity is necessary for open communication with my Higher Power and for learning to associate my free living with who I truly am instead of linking it to the icon of what I think I should be. That icon is something a fearful child constructed and a young adult invested in at great cost to protect. The icon is not me. It is detached from my pain and pleasure. It knows neither defeat nor victory. This all-consuming armor allows me to tolerate the unacceptable.  It allows me to live a life of pointless self-sacrifice. This numbness is the shadow of serenity.

The process of moving from the shadow of stoic detachment to the substance of serene confidence is often painfully messy. I seriously doubt that I could have made that transition without the support of those vested in my higher good. It takes my daily commitment to retain it. Possessing this serenity allows the real me to live freely and walk with confidence in the presence of my God, the GOMU (God of my understanding).