Encouragement - Christians in Recovery

Whose Are We?

We are who owns us. We derive our nature and uniqueness, our very selfhood, from our owner. Furthermore, we willingly join ourselves to God in Christ. Being forced to go to church, or feeling under coercion, ordered to be who we are, is like telling a bee it must gather pollen and fly to the hive. If it were unnatural to be who we are, the Christian life would be alien, foreign and against our will. But we belong to God.

All Mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. John 17:10

Through His gracious generosity, in Christ Jesus, God has adopted us. We are not natural born, but supernaturally born children, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus; He owns us. That’s the reality. Embracing any other owners, or powers is like swimming upstream or committing spiritual suicide. As long as we remember that we belong only to God, and continue to assemble to worship Him and do the work He has given us to do, we will be who we really are and do what we truly should do.

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Letting God

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“Letting God” testifies to the release of tension, the surrender to trust, and being at ease instead of in “dis-ease.” What is offered in each day’s meditation is relaxation and peace in Christ. You will be called to turn over control of your steering wheel. You will be urged to relax your power and control and open your door to the priceless gift of serenity in our Lord and Savior. You will be presented with scripture, stories, short essays, and even humor as ways to let God take over.

I have learned in forty years of experience with alcoholics and other addicts, that living the Gospel truth AND Twelve-step recovery creates a hallowed and holy life. This holiness is not sainthood but a serene state of being, achieved as cease our striving, halt our stressful efforts, and fall into the arms of our Higher Power, Jesus Christ.

“Letting God” is the key to most all experiences of sacredness and spirituality. The surrender to the divine within and without, the acknowledgment of the humanity of the Holy and the holiness of the human ls to “Let go and let God.” As we allow God to be God, without trying to fix or manipulate his reality in heaven or earth, we welcome his healing love. We let love flow. We use no force, no struggle, no strain, no competition, no trying harder, no willpower. We admit and accept our weakness and God’s strength. If we do not make this unconditional surrender to God, our own spirituality will lie dormant and lifeless. Our selfish will becomes our god, and we run rampant toward our own self-destruction, screaming to the end, “I can do it myself!”

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The New Year: With the Hope?

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“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.”
~Lewis Carol, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

The new year: it is a minefield. There can be this weird concoction of hope and discouragement, effort and apathy.

A social media post, once again, caught my attention concerning this point. It was of the literary figure, Alice, from Carol’s classic work, essentially binging.

And this was the image’s caption…

“I can relate to Alice. She just keeps randomly eating and drinking everything she sees with the hope that it might actually solve all her problems.”

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A Time Comes in Your Life When You Finally “Get It”

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A time comes in your life when you finally get it. When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shutter once or twice, you blink back your tears and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize that it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for, happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact she is not Cinderella and you are not Prince charming , and that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings or beginnings for that matter, and;

That any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you. And in the process, a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect, and that not everyone will always love,

Appreciate or approve of who or what you are and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own Views and opinions).

And you learn the importance of loving and championing yourself, and …sense of newly found confidence is born — of “self-approval.”

You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you (or didn’t do for you) – And you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say, and that

Not everyone will always be there for you, and that it’s not always about you. So, you

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Learning and Coping in Recovery

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There’s a theory out there which asserts we have only two jobs in life:

Spiritually, if we expound on this principle, we can see Divine Intervention at work, should we choose to embrace it.

The First Job: To Learn:

Scripture addresses our human need to learn. Proverbs 1:7 and Proverbs 4:7, for instance, are just a couple of verses which tout the important of wisdom.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

And, again, we are in dire need of this wisdom, as Paul reminds us of our vulnerable human condition…

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Overcoming Self-loathing

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I am astounded by the number of young people who approach me with such intense self-loathing. I frequently hear them say things like…

When I ask them, however, why they feel that way, I usually get this response:

“I don’t know.”

For what I am doing, I do not understand…” Romans 7:15

Statistics show…

“One in every 200 girls between 13 and 19 years old, or one-half of one percent, cut themselves regularly.”

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Heaven Encountered in the Midst of Tragedy

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Spinal Cord Injury denotes varying degrees of damage to the nerves in the spinal cord. The body’s amazing design incorporates a number of protective safeguards, and often this extremely serious injury isn’t immediately medically life threatening. Even when paralysis prevents most voluntary movements, life-sustaining automatic functions continue. Injuries high in the neck sometimes create breathing issues and cause dependence on a ventilator, and comprehensive treatment addresses a long list of other potentially critical concerns. But SCI is primarily chronic and forces adjustments to just about every aspect of life.

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Perseverance: The Race Set Before Us

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Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Hebrews 12:1

Gaman is a Japanese term of Zen origin which means “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity”. The term is generally translated as “perseverance” or “patience.”

And, within Scripture, this principle is, indeed, a faith focal point.

… we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience. And patience, experience; and experience, hope: Romans 5:3-4

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. Hebrews 10:36

I don’t know about your physical education experience when you were a kid, but my class always participated in the annual presidential physical fitness test.

Is anyone out there groaning yet?

As part of that test to assess kids’ fitness levels, things like pushups, sit ups and pull ups were measured. But the thing which caused me the most dread- and the least success- was the 600 yard run.

Now, is anyone out there groaning?

If you’re not familiar with

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People Who Fail (No other kind around)

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For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23

I recently came across this little inspiration ditty circulating on social media:

“God uses People Who Fail (No other kind around).”

That’s become more of a revelation to me in the last few years, especially within the context of recovery. It’s not a one-time, flawless thing. It’s day in, day out, with some days being better than others. It doesn’t sound glamorous or rewarding. Nevertheless, it is reality and embracing the process of life itself can be liberating if we, perhaps, give ourselves permission to fail. Part of that requires we not disqualify ourselves at the first — or the one thousandth — mistake; God doesn’t.

“I have chosen you and have not cast you away.” Isaiah 41:9

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

I often encounter people who are perfectionists — and I get it. Among all the things I’m recovering from in life, perfectionism is, indeed, right up there. And, again, in the recovery context, it is

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One Day at a Time to a Better Life

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“As your days–so shall your strength be!” Deuteronomy 33:25

One of the secrets of happy and beautiful life, is to live one day at a time. Really, we never have anything to do any day–but the bit of God’s will for that day. If we do that well–we have absolutely nothing else to do.

Time is given to us in days. It was so from the beginning. This breaking up of time into little daily portions means a great deal more than we are accustomed to think. For one thing, it illustrates the gentleness and goodness of God. It would have made life intolerably burdensome if a year, instead of a day–had been the unit of division. It would have been hard to carry a heavy load, to endure a great sorrow, or to keep on at a hard duty–for such a long stretch of time. How dreary our common task-work would be–if there were no breaks in it, if we had to keep our hand to the plough for a whole year! We never could go on with our struggles, our battles, our suffering–if night did not mercifully settle down with its darkness, and bid us rest and renew our strength.

We do not understand how great

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