Endigar 945
From Courage to Change of Jul 06:
So many of us come to Al-Anon feeling that we’ve gotten a raw deal from life. “It isn’t fair!” we complain. “Don’t I deserve better after all I’ve been though?” The prayer quoted in out “Just for Today” pamphlet may shed some light on this subject when it says, “Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; . . . to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive . . . ” Instead of questioning what life is giving us, perhaps we might profit fore by asking what we ourselves can give.
By reaching out to help others in a healthy way, we move beyond our problems and lean to give unconditionally. Every moment can be an opportunity to serve, an opportunity to change our lives. Al-Anon offers us many good places to start – setting up chairs, welcoming newcomers, leading a meeting. When we discover that we really can make a positive contribution, many of us find that self-esteem has replaced self-pity.
Today’s Reminder
Today I seek to be an instrument of the peace of God. I know that it is the most loving and generous commitment I can possibly make – to myself.
“When people are serving, life is no longer meaningless.” ~ John Gardner
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There was a time I believed life owed me something. I walked into the rooms of Al-Anon with a deep ache — not just from the chaos around me, but from the belief that I was owed repair, apology, recompense. I had poured myself into relationships, into fixing, into surviving. And yet I felt empty. Betrayed. Forgotten.
But recovery has gently, patiently, and sometimes painfully, taught me that healing doesn’t come through demanding fairness. It comes through surrender. It comes when I stop keeping score — when I turn the ledger over to my Higher Power and ask: What can I give?
Serving others in small ways has reintroduced me to myself. The self I had forgotten in the shadows of other people’s dysfunction. The self who is worthy because he gives, not only when he receives. Service, in recovery, isn’t martyrdom. It’s freedom. It’s participation in a new way of life.
When I seek to be an instrument of peace — not as performance, but as practice — I begin to live in alignment with something bigger than resentment. I become more than just someone trying to survive. I become someone who contributes. Who belongs. Who is home within himself.
And that, for me, is one of the greatest gifts of this path: the slow transformation of self-pity into self-worth — one act of surrender at a time.
Daily Reprieve 
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