MYSTERIOUS WAYS
. . . out of every season of grief or suffering, when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered, and that finally, inescapably, the conviction came that God does "move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 105
After losing my career, family and health, I remained unconvinced that my way of life needed a second look. My drinking and other drug use were killing me, but I had never met a recovering person or an A.A. member. I thought I was destined to die alone and that I deserved it. At the peak of my despair, my infant son became critically ill with a rare disease. Doctors' efforts to help him proved useless. I redoubled my efforts to block my feelings, but now the alcohol had stopped working. I was left staring into God's eyes, begging for help. My introduction to A.A. came within days, through an odd series of coincidences, and I have remained sober ever since. My son lived and his disease is in remission. The entire episode convinced me of my powerlessness and the unmanageability of my life. Today my son and I thank God for His intervention.
*****************************************************************
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
A.A. also helps us to hang onto sobriety. By having regular meetings so that we can associate with other alcoholics who have come through that same door in the wall, by encouraging us to tell the story of our own sad experiences with alcohol, and by showing us how to help other alcoholics, A.A. keeps us sober. Our attitude toward life changes from one of pride and selfishness to one of humility and gratitude. Am I going to step back through that door in the wall to my old helpless, hopeless, drunken life?
Meditation for the Day
Withdraw into the calm of communion with God. Rest in that calm and peace. When the soul finds its home of rest in God, then it is that real life begins. Only when you are calm and serene can you do good work. Emotional upsets make you useless. The eternal life is calmness and when you enter into that, then you live as an eternal being. Calmness is based on complete trust in God. Nothing in this world can separate you from the love of God.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may wear the world like a loose garment. I pray that I may keep serene at the center of my being.
********************************************
***********************
NA - Just for Today
True courage
Page 79
"Those who make it through these times show a courage not their own."
Basic Text, p. 86
Before coming to NA, many of us thought we were brave simply because we had never experienced fear. We had drugged all our feelings, fear among them, until we had convinced ourselves that we were tough, courageous people who wouldn't crack under any circumstances.
But finding our courage in drugs has nothing to do with the way we live our lives today. Clean and in recovery, we are bound to feel frightened at times. When we first realize we are feeling frightened, we may think we are cowards. Were afraid to pick up the phone because the person on the other end might not understand. We're afraid to ask someone to sponsor us because they might say no. We're afraid to look for a job. We're afraid to be honest with our friends. But all of these fears are natural, even healthy. What's not healthy is allowing fear to paralyze us.
When we permit our fear to stop our growth, we will be defeated. True courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the willingness to walk through it.
Just for Today: I will be courageous today. When I'm afraid, I'll do what I need to do to grow in recovery.
************************************************************
Thought for Today
"Every night I go to sleep and I'm grateful for my life, and I wake
up and I feel the same thing.
I just accept everything as it is -- whatever happens is what I'm
supposed to deal with."
--Ellen DeGeneres
*************************************************************************
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.
The Buddha meditated for six years, Bodhidharma for nine. The practice of meditation is not a method for the attainment of realization—it is enlightenment itself.
-Zen Master Dogen, "The Practice of Meditation"
***************************************
Native American
"By listening to the inner self and following one's instincts and intuitions, a person may be guided to safety."
--Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA
Be still and know. The Medicine Wheel teaches the four directions of inner power-not personal power, but the power of God. These four directions are emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual. As our emotions get too far our of control, we simultaneously create an equivalent mental picture, our physical body fills with stress and tension, and we become spiritually confused. When we experience these uptight feelings, the best thing to do is mentally pause, slow down our thinking, breathe slowly, or pray and ask the spirits to help. Only when we approach the stillness of the mind do we get access to our spiritual guidance system. To be guided, let your mind be still.
Creator, today, let me reside in Your stillness.
***************************************
Keep It Simple
Skill to do comes of doing. --- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Often, we just want to sit and do nothing. And why not. We go to meetings, work the Twelve Steps, read, make new friends. All this takes energy and means taking risk. Haven't we earned the right to just sit and take it a break from it all? No! In the past, we avoided life. Now we're becoming people of action. We take risk. We're becoming people who get involved in life. We practice caring about people and caring about ourselves. At times, we may complain, but we do what is needed to stay sober. We gain skills by doing. why? We do it to save our lives. How? By trusting. We now trust that our Higher Power and friends will be there for us. They will help us push past our fears. As we practice daily how to stay sober, our skills grow.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, Yours is a spirit of action. Allow me to become skilled at being active.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll work at being active and alive. Maybe I'll start a new friendship or try a new meeting.
********************************
Big Book
Chapter 1 BILL'S STORY (pg 4)
Abruptly in October 1929 hell broke loose on the New York stock exchange. After one of those days of inferno, I wobbled from a hotel bar to a brokerage office. It was eight o'clock-five hours after the market closed. The ticker still clattered. I was staring at an inch of the tape which bore the inscription XYZ-32. It had been 52 that morning. I was finished and so were many friends. The papers reported men jumping to death from the towers of High Finance. That disgusted me. I would not jump. I went back to the bar. My friends had dropped several million since ten o'clock-so what? Tomorrow was another day. As I drank, the old fierce determination to win came back.
Next morning I telephoned a friend in Montreal. He had plenty of money left and thought I had better go to Canada. By the following spring we were living in our accustomed style. I felt like Napoleon returning from Elba. No St. Helena for me! But drinking caught up with me again and my generous friend had to let me go. This time we stayed broke.
We went to live with my wife's parents. I found a job; then lost it as the result of a brawl with a taxi driver. Mercifully, no one could guess that I was to have no real employment for five years, or hardly draw a sober breath. My wife began to work in a department store, coming home exhausted to find me drunk.
Come visit us at Friendship House
_________________
. . . out of every season of grief or suffering, when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered, and that finally, inescapably, the conviction came that God does "move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 105
After losing my career, family and health, I remained unconvinced that my way of life needed a second look. My drinking and other drug use were killing me, but I had never met a recovering person or an A.A. member. I thought I was destined to die alone and that I deserved it. At the peak of my despair, my infant son became critically ill with a rare disease. Doctors' efforts to help him proved useless. I redoubled my efforts to block my feelings, but now the alcohol had stopped working. I was left staring into God's eyes, begging for help. My introduction to A.A. came within days, through an odd series of coincidences, and I have remained sober ever since. My son lived and his disease is in remission. The entire episode convinced me of my powerlessness and the unmanageability of my life. Today my son and I thank God for His intervention.
*****************************************************************
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
A.A. also helps us to hang onto sobriety. By having regular meetings so that we can associate with other alcoholics who have come through that same door in the wall, by encouraging us to tell the story of our own sad experiences with alcohol, and by showing us how to help other alcoholics, A.A. keeps us sober. Our attitude toward life changes from one of pride and selfishness to one of humility and gratitude. Am I going to step back through that door in the wall to my old helpless, hopeless, drunken life?
Meditation for the Day
Withdraw into the calm of communion with God. Rest in that calm and peace. When the soul finds its home of rest in God, then it is that real life begins. Only when you are calm and serene can you do good work. Emotional upsets make you useless. The eternal life is calmness and when you enter into that, then you live as an eternal being. Calmness is based on complete trust in God. Nothing in this world can separate you from the love of God.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may wear the world like a loose garment. I pray that I may keep serene at the center of my being.
********************************************
***********************
NA - Just for Today
True courage
Page 79
"Those who make it through these times show a courage not their own."
Basic Text, p. 86
Before coming to NA, many of us thought we were brave simply because we had never experienced fear. We had drugged all our feelings, fear among them, until we had convinced ourselves that we were tough, courageous people who wouldn't crack under any circumstances.
But finding our courage in drugs has nothing to do with the way we live our lives today. Clean and in recovery, we are bound to feel frightened at times. When we first realize we are feeling frightened, we may think we are cowards. Were afraid to pick up the phone because the person on the other end might not understand. We're afraid to ask someone to sponsor us because they might say no. We're afraid to look for a job. We're afraid to be honest with our friends. But all of these fears are natural, even healthy. What's not healthy is allowing fear to paralyze us.
When we permit our fear to stop our growth, we will be defeated. True courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the willingness to walk through it.
Just for Today: I will be courageous today. When I'm afraid, I'll do what I need to do to grow in recovery.
************************************************************
Thought for Today
"Every night I go to sleep and I'm grateful for my life, and I wake
up and I feel the same thing.
I just accept everything as it is -- whatever happens is what I'm
supposed to deal with."
--Ellen DeGeneres
*************************************************************************
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.
The Buddha meditated for six years, Bodhidharma for nine. The practice of meditation is not a method for the attainment of realization—it is enlightenment itself.
-Zen Master Dogen, "The Practice of Meditation"
***************************************
Native American
"By listening to the inner self and following one's instincts and intuitions, a person may be guided to safety."
--Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA
Be still and know. The Medicine Wheel teaches the four directions of inner power-not personal power, but the power of God. These four directions are emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual. As our emotions get too far our of control, we simultaneously create an equivalent mental picture, our physical body fills with stress and tension, and we become spiritually confused. When we experience these uptight feelings, the best thing to do is mentally pause, slow down our thinking, breathe slowly, or pray and ask the spirits to help. Only when we approach the stillness of the mind do we get access to our spiritual guidance system. To be guided, let your mind be still.
Creator, today, let me reside in Your stillness.
***************************************
Keep It Simple
Skill to do comes of doing. --- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Often, we just want to sit and do nothing. And why not. We go to meetings, work the Twelve Steps, read, make new friends. All this takes energy and means taking risk. Haven't we earned the right to just sit and take it a break from it all? No! In the past, we avoided life. Now we're becoming people of action. We take risk. We're becoming people who get involved in life. We practice caring about people and caring about ourselves. At times, we may complain, but we do what is needed to stay sober. We gain skills by doing. why? We do it to save our lives. How? By trusting. We now trust that our Higher Power and friends will be there for us. They will help us push past our fears. As we practice daily how to stay sober, our skills grow.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, Yours is a spirit of action. Allow me to become skilled at being active.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll work at being active and alive. Maybe I'll start a new friendship or try a new meeting.
********************************
Big Book
Chapter 1 BILL'S STORY (pg 4)
Abruptly in October 1929 hell broke loose on the New York stock exchange. After one of those days of inferno, I wobbled from a hotel bar to a brokerage office. It was eight o'clock-five hours after the market closed. The ticker still clattered. I was staring at an inch of the tape which bore the inscription XYZ-32. It had been 52 that morning. I was finished and so were many friends. The papers reported men jumping to death from the towers of High Finance. That disgusted me. I would not jump. I went back to the bar. My friends had dropped several million since ten o'clock-so what? Tomorrow was another day. As I drank, the old fierce determination to win came back.
Next morning I telephoned a friend in Montreal. He had plenty of money left and thought I had better go to Canada. By the following spring we were living in our accustomed style. I felt like Napoleon returning from Elba. No St. Helena for me! But drinking caught up with me again and my generous friend had to let me go. This time we stayed broke.
We went to live with my wife's parents. I found a job; then lost it as the result of a brawl with a taxi driver. Mercifully, no one could guess that I was to have no real employment for five years, or hardly draw a sober breath. My wife began to work in a department store, coming home exhausted to find me drunk.
Come visit us at Friendship House
_________________
No comments:
Post a Comment