When We Don't Know How to Pray

              Thought to Ponder: Nobody ever found recovery as a result of an intellectual awakening.

There are only two things we need to know about prayer and meditation for staying sober:

                        (1)  We have to start doing them, and, (2) We have to continue.

A dear AA friend once gave me a copy of The 12 Step Prayer Book. It's a lovely little book that contains a lot of very beautiful prayers written for us folks in recovery. It contains a few annoying ones, too, but then I am easily annoyed by prayers.

I'm not as easily annoyed by them as I was when I first got here though, because then I was especially annoyed when a member would rhapsodize about the Prayers of St. Francis of Assisi, the one that asks God to make us  "an instrument of Your peace."

As a single working mom with four small children, aging parents, a job to keep, a house to manage, and all while staying sober, I thought I was doing plenty enough for others, thanks. 

I called that lovely prayer "the codependent prayer," and said so, often. 

 (Yes. I was that kind of AA member).

But our spiritual program of recovery doesn't much care if we like the idea of prayer or not, and it doesn't care if we enjoy meditating, either (more about which in next week's blog). It just "suggests" we do both if we want to stay sober. 

With sobriety upon my arrival into A.A. being my priority goal (then and still), I examined all the prayers I knew by heart. I found all two of them lacking: 

(1) 

The Lord's Prayer was too masculine for my taste 

(but not too Christian. Pray it and listen to the words.). 

So I altered it some. 

I still pray my version at bedtime. 

(2) 

My Mum had taught me a grim little bedtime prayer when I was very young: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to God my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake. I pray thee, God, my soul to take." 

It was a bit scary when I was little to even think about not living through the night and I soon stopped praying it. Now that it's far more appropriate (though still disturbing) it has become part of my nighttime prayers once again.

Since I didn't get to AA with a headful of memorized prayer material I have had to cobble things together over the years. Some I'm quite pleased with, others not so much, but I do my best.

Being a creature who loves routine I tend to say the same old, same old, stuff, much of it written out by me as original prayers long ago, even knowing by then the only real prayer is to ask for knowledge of God's will for me and for the power to carry that out in that day. Today, In addition to "power," I ask for the energy, courage, ability and desire as well. 

I pray that, too, every day. 

But not until I've first bored blind the God of My understanding by naming my children, their partners, their own children, our pets, my friends, my sponsees, our pets, and then naming deceased loved ones, my country of origin, people affected by war, and climate change, and ... trust me, the list goes on (and on and on). These are my by rote prayers and I do them morning and evening, even though they often bore me, too.

My "real" prayers are those I mutter throughout the day when I appreciate something, accomplish something, find a missing something, hear from a loved one, have a nice surprise of any kind, cook a delicious meal for myself, paint a picture that turns out better than I had hoped, get a call from one of my sons, have a lengthy visit with my daughter, laugh with a grandchild, tell my dog he's a good boy, pet one of my pushy cats, and so on. 

My daily muttered prayers are all prayers of gratitude and they are pretty much ongoing these days.

But that was not always the case!

My life in early recovery still held a lot of turmoil, because I would still go full-on into situations in my time-honored fucked up way - and pay the penalty for that pretty much immediately. It took me a long old time to remember to ask my Higher Power to help me before I set out with my personal battering ram aimed to take down anything that got between me and what I wanted.

People in the states may remember those commercials where people would guzzle down a soda and then smack their forehead and cry, "I cudda had a V8" (a healthier veggie drink). 

In my case - after I had done damage - it was only then when I'd think, "Shit! I cudda said a prayer first."

Our Big Book says: When we see others solve their problems by simple reliance upon some Spirit of the universe, we have to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work, but the God-idea does. 

I now completely agree - but in the beginning we have to start to SEE it. And that can take us awhile.

Most alcoholics are perfectionist, people-pleasing, over-achieving, hard-driving neurotic accomplishers. A smaller number are procrastinators that won't leave a burning building until their clothing starts to smoke. We all have to come to terms with who we are and how to best work our 12-step program, our own prayers being a part of that. 

The main thing is we don't have to learn everything AA has to teach us in an afternoon. Our A.A. life is a journey and, like any journey, we learn the most by not trying to do too much, too fast.

SLOW-briety.

Spiritual gurus and philosophers through the ages have spent entire lifetimes pondering spiritual mysteries and truths. We drunks - guilt-fueled perhaps over years wasted in drinking - tend to want an understanding of the knowledge of the ages by next Thursday. 

Friday at the latest.

Reeeee-lax. 

Breathe. 

Slow the pace.

As long as we are staying clean and sober we are all exactly where we need to be at this stage of our recovery. 

We will all have our own battles in switching from a material viewpoint - the one fostered by our entire society and hammered into us by Madison Avenue jingles and other persuasions - to a more spiritual outlook. 

Some non-alcoholics make that change willingly, the vast majority do not, remaining focused on acquiring more "stuff," and often using the time-honored techniques of greed, arrogance, and selfish hoarding to get it. 

God has given every human free will to use as we choose, either for good or for evil.

 With us stubborn drunks, however, He has reigned us in a bit. 

In A.A. we soon learn we are pretty much doomed if we don't focus our life force on developing unselfish love, service and honesty. 

Given any other option in those early days of recovery we'd all still be drinking. 

True, we can still drink or drug if we choose to, but in our case, because our Higher Power knows us alkies so very well, He took our widdle hans and tied our widdle shoes, and then shooed us out onto the path to victory, like it or not.

Prayer is one of the most powerful ways for shifting our focus from the material to the eternal verities of life. I've come to the conclusion there is no wrong way to pray, as long as we do pray, and also that our prayer life grows and changes over time. 

Our Big Book talks about the power of prayer a lot, like this for instance: 

If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried ... Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient, they failed utterly. Lack of power that was our dilemma ...

Here the Big Book there launches into finding that power, that seeking God in prayer gives us that power. The entire book is in fact stuffed with that same information presented both in the text and its stories of recovery. 

Science has weighed in, too. It has discovered prayer which elicits feelings of love and compassion for others releases a nice hit of serotonin and dopamine into our own brains. As most of us know, both of those are notably in short supply in alcoholic heads. 

One study of the psychological benefits of prayer states it may help reduce anxiety and stress, promote a more positive outlook, and strengthen the will to live. 

There are many days when any one of us can use a good dose of that!

 

Note: I had some formatting problems today, with my computer wanting to squash some things too close together and spacing others out too far. It is beyond my tech skills to fix, but it is still at least readable. 

Made A Decision

           Our Disease of Perception

We read in our AA literature and we hear in meetings that we have a disease of perception. 

What does that mean?

It means we alcoholics do not see things as they actually are. 

We see things as WE are.

 

1. So, when we are angry, judgmental, envious, jealous, fearful or full of pride, our view of the world - and everything in it - will reflect that perception. 

2. Conversely, if we are filled with gratitude, serenity, hope, joy, patience,and willingness to get out of our own way to let our Higher Power handle our problems, our view of the world - and everything in it - will reflect that perception.

Moving our thoughts from (a) to (b) - and keeping them there at least most of the time - is the aim and story of our entire recovery journey. 

 I read just this morning in our Daily Reflections quote addressing this from our Big Book : This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime.

That entire reading (16th of October) describes the progress of our journey from distorted thinking to reality. It is a comfort to know we don’t “get it” all right away. A brain damaged by the relentless application of alcohol and other drugs for years, often decades, doesn’t heal overnight. 

But heal it will as we learn how to apply our program of recovery to living our lives.

I am often amazed, and occasionally even amused, at the resentments newcomers share with me about all manner of things, and by their inability to see their part in it. But, as a newcomer once myself, I know I was exactly the same. I have my journals to prove it whenever I try to remember myself differently. My ability to always think of myself first is on every page in those first weeks, months and years of my early recovery. 

I’m rereading those journals at the moment as I research material for a family history and my absolute indifference to the needs of others if their needs got in my way is stunning. I am so grateful to AA I don’t have to live that way today.

And my long ago journals starkly reveal my glaring disease of perception. I can remember thinking I was living the AA program beautifully back then - I certainly was living it to the best of my ability - but as I reread I see I was full of every possible negative emotion much of the time. 

I fought with other members. I got angry with my amazingly patient sponsor. I slammed out of meetings in fury. I gossiped about other members. I even, for an ego-ridden time, considered rewriting the “old fashioned” A.A. Big Book. 

Amidst all that continuing old behavior I “perceived” myself justified in every thought and action, totally blind to my controlling nature, inflexibility, and the astonishing size of my inflated ego.

I was just as blind to the meaning behind the small smiles of AA oldtimers when in meetings I waxed eloquent about my recovery. I “perceived” those smiles as recognition of my superior recovery over others having my length of sobriety.

When a meeting topic was “resentments,” I nodded in complete agreement at the dangers of harboring any resentment, completely oblivious I was harboring resentments for at least three people in every meeting.

If our discussion was about honesty I could contribute with enthusiasm and then tell three lies before I even left the building.

And so on. 

So if I could get past that kind of world view of the world, you can, too. 

Just don’t be impatient with yourself. A concert pianist doesn’t jump right from practicing the  scales to concertos. And even they will have days where they play their music in the gaps between the keys and not on the keys themselves. No one - ever - is perfect all the time. 

That is especially true of this recovery thing. 

(I know for sure that I can still lose my temper with the best of them, I’m just a lot “calmer” about it now.)

If we are staying sober we are right where we are supposed to be in our recovery today. By adding to our knowledge about what our program has to offer, by attending book study meetings, and hanging out with the winners in our program, we will soon be much further along our path to that “life beyond our wildest dreams!”

Our Big Book says:  I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.

By the time we take that step we already have more understanding of our powerlessness and have made our decision to turn our will and my lives over to the care of God, as we understand  Him. 

We merely ask God to decide which defects stand in the way of our usefulness to Him and then ask Him to remove them. But once our HP is in charge, we don't get to decide which defects, or how soon, or in what order, they’ll get removed. 

The same hands-off applies when we are in disharmony with anyone. We learn over time to pray for those people who disturb us. Not that prayer where we ask God to “give them what they deserve” (as I certainly did), but to say “God bless them,” and mean it. Because over time we learn by blessing others - especially those others we don’t like - we become blessed tenfold in return.

If punishment of someone is called for that’s a God job. God is far more creative than we can ever be for dishing out exactly what’s needed. It’s easy to doubt that sometimes when we see people prosper whom we think should be suffering, but we are not privy to their thoughts in their sleepless hours, either - or what lies in their future.

Our timing for punishment of others - or anything else - is not God’s timing. 

As my brother once wisely told me, “God is on Eternal Time. We’re on Daylight Savings.”

Do I have any hard feelings about other members or another A.A. group? Am I critical of the ways in which group members act - think? Do I feel another member or group is wrong and broadcast it? 

Or do I realize all A.A. members, in spite of any handicaps they may have, still have something to offer, some good they can bring to A.A.? Do I believe that there is a place for all, provided they are following A.A. traditions? Do I realize they can be effective even if I don't agree with them? Am I tolerant of people and groups?

We learn, over time, and often after painful lessons, to understand the importance of these things. 

And of patience - with others and, most importantly, with ourselves.

 We see everything in one dimension and direction, but God sees all the way around. We act in haste, but God waits for the right moment to give us the perfect job, partner, house, car, or life experience.

Patience!

Sure we can crash through every door toward getting what we want right now, but learning to wait for God’s timing can save us from a lot of painful bruises. I speak from my vast number of black and blue experiences. (Very slow learner, me). 

Newcomers worry a lot about what God is or what God isn’t, but seldom give nearly as much thought to their own purpose for even being alive. If we eventually conclude our flesh suit also has a soul, and that our purpose may involved lessons to educate that soul of ours, we can then learn A.A. gives us all the tools needed to do just that.

I’ve come to believe our spiritual progress gets delayed when we chose to focus on the needs and desires of our bodies over the needs and desires of our souls. 

We certainly need to look after our bodies, but our souls need nurturing, too. 

A.A. supports our having compassion for others, for helping other still-suffering alcoholics, for turning to prayer and meditation as part of our daily recovery, for our becoming more honest, less judgmental, kinder, more responsible, loving, supportive, and so on. 

As these qualities are developed our perception of what’s important in life changes and develops, too.

We are told in AA that ours is a physical, mental and spiritual illness. The desperation we felt when we arrived at our first meeting was a huge symptom of our soul sickness. I was so soul-sick of myself and my way of living I could barely look at myself in a mirror. I don’t ever want to forget the condition I was in when I got here. 

There’s no need for us to try and be perfectionist about our recovery, but we must become ‘completionists.”  If we start it, we must finish it.

 If we want to enjoy the best possible recovery, we must learn to recover. 

It’s usually only our attitude that needs changing so that our perception of a given situation can change. Is that an easy fix? No. It takes practice. It takes daily practice. But it is doable. 

Daily effort to improve ourselves has consequences, too. 

Learning to ignore most things is one of the greatest paths to inner peace.

Surrendering our willfulness is often our first and greatest victory. 

As our Big Book states: The only problems I have today are those I create when I break out in a rash of self-will.”

When I find myself complaining or blaming I know I’m in trouble. Those two things can distort my perception, destroy my inner power completely and render me a victim, because these show me I am still expecting solutions and changes from others. 

We must find our wisdom for ourselves - and apply it, which means seeking a broader clearer view. Years ago, to remind me that ours is a disease of perception, I hung this sign over my desk and it's still there to remind me. It reads:

      “Don’t believe everything you think!” 

 

Made A Decision

              The Miracles of AA come in all sizes

I've heard more than one person bemoan there are no miracles today like those found in ancient spiritual texts. 

But no one who has been in A.A. for any length of time will say that. 

We see miracles in our lives all the time.

The biggest miracle is - of all the alcoholics out there still lost in our disease - we are sober! Most of the millions of suffering alcoholics never even make it into A.A., and of those that do, not all manage to stay. 

So we - the sober ones - are all living breathing miracles!!!

Sobriety is our first miracle. 

Granted, it’s the biggest one, but certainly not the only one. 

Those new to recovery are quick to recognize the big miracle. Sadly, many longer-time sober members often take it for granted. But I've never known anyone with very long term sobriety to take their recovery for granted. 

The old-old-timers have seen far too many complacent sober drunks who, forgetting the cunning, baffling and powerful nature of our disease, returned to the bottle where death patiently had awaited their return.

The final stage of alcoholism is either a “wet brain,” where the drunk lives out whatever time they have left in an asylum’s rubber room because their brain is too far damaged for them to function in society; or just a lonely, miserable, painful death. 

That’s it. 

Those are the choices at the end of the drinking life for all alcoholics who continue to drink, unless of course they chose suicide. 

Many do.

We arrive in AA frustrated by our every attempt to control our lives while drinking uncontrollably. We arrive trusting no one. We see those happy, joyous and free AA members and suspect their stories are lies. We suspect they’re offering us bullshit. We look for the con. 

Or at least I did.

So I didn’t even recognize the first little miracles that showed up, the unrecognized ones that kept me coming back to A.A. But over time I started to see and marvel at them. 

They seemed to only show up on those days when I had checked in with my Higher Power first thing, too. 

When I had read my books offering spiritual ideas. When I had spent a little time in prayer and meditation. 

Hmmmmm … 

it made me start to wonder.

I once heard in a meeting that a coincidence is just God winking at us. I now think it's a perfect description.

But getting back to miracle number one - finding a way out of the drinker’s deadly destiny - that's just the beginning of the miracles in AA. 

We start to see them while still on that early pink cloud. That's when, for the first time in years, we again see how beautiful our world truly is.

Listen to newcomers talk about the beauty of nature. They are awed by such things as butterflies on flowers, dark clouds scuttling mysteriously across the moon, sunlight throwing diamonds across the sea or the call of an owl in the night ... 

Such things are miracles, but we never see them when we drink. 

Sobriety brings them back into focus where we are - rightfully - dazzled by them.

And as we learn more and more to release our problems to the care of our Higher Power, more miracles arrive. 

At first we call them coincidences, but when they show up on a regular basis, we start to realize they are a result of our partnership with that mysterious power greater than us. 

Miracles don't occur every day in recovery, but they become pretty thick on the ground as we start to begin each day acknowledging our powerlessness, accepting God has all power, and inviting our Higher Power to take charge of our day.  The results of taking those first three steps every morning soon became too obvious for me to doubt. 

An example:

My daughter was living in Ireland in the 1990s with her Dublin-born husband. One winter (cheaper flights) I went over from the states for a visit.

The weather was dreadful and, through a series of plane reroutings, I eventually caught the last night flight overseas out of New York. The truck-carrying de-icing equipment was blasting the wings of my aircraft even as we taxied to the runway. 

I had tried to alert my daughter I was on a different flight, but she never got the message.

And because of plane reschedulings I had not had time to visit a Bureau de Change.

 So when I arrived pre-dawn in Dublin, hours ahead of my earlier schedule, I didn't even have money to buy myself a cup of coffee or use a pay phone in that pre-cell-phone era. 

There was no sign of my daughter or her husband, Stephen (both still home asleep). 

As I sat there wearily with my luggage around me, to my amazement I suddenly saw faces in the crowd I recognized; Stephen's mother and father! They saw me at the same time and  made their way through the crowd to me.

A quick phone call on their part got my daughter and Stephen moving even as I was scooped up and taken to Stephen's cozy childhood home to wait for them. We had a lovely visit while waiting,

Now - here’s the miracle: 

On that morning I knew a grand total of only five people in Ireland - my daughter, Stephen, Stephen’s sister and his parents. 

When Stephen’s folks saw me they were leaving the airport after putting Stephen’s sister on a plane to Europe. 

We spotted one another during the busy early morning hours of flight arrivals into Dublin where crowd numbers were in the hundreds. 

I was jet-lagged, broke, and would have had hours to wait before anyone even realized I was there.

 

Not a miracle you say?

Well, how about this one?

I was headed to the AA clubhouse in Savannah,Georgia for my 6 p.m. home group meeting when I heard that flub-flub-flub unmistakable sound of a flat tire. 

I pulled over to the curb and confirmed it. I had just bought the car (an old one) and it had not come with a jack or spare tire, both were still on my ‘to buy’ list.

A lovely young man pulled over to help, couldn’t without my having a spare, but he pointed to the nearby Savannah Tire Company across four lanes of heavy traffic, and said they might still be open.

I thanked him, got back behind the wheel, the heavy traffic “miraculously” cleared completely and I crossed the highway and thumped my way into the company parking lot where two young friendly and chatty angels, one black and one white, bounded over to help.

It was almost their 6 p.m. closing time, but they whisked my tire off my car, took it into the garage for patching, and in less than 15 minutes had it repaired and back on my car.

 I went inside to pay, but the cashier waved me away saying he'd already shut down the till. There was no charge. He told me to just recommend the company to anyone in need of new tires and I said I would. (And I did, many times thereafter.) 

I drove on to my meeting and arrived just as a member finished reading “How It Works.” 

I never had those kinds of "miracles" before I partnered up with my Higher Power. And I also know exactly how my tire "miracle" would have gone had I not turned my will and my life over to my Higher Power on the morning of that day. 

Here’s what would have happened:

I was headed to the AA clubhouse in Savannah,Georgia for my home group meeting when I heard that flub-flub-flub unmistakable sound of a flat tire. I pulled over to the curb and confirmed it.

“Shit,” I said, kicking the tire. “Why does this crap always happen to me?”

No one stopped to help, but I eventually noticed the tire company. It took ages for a break in the heavy traffic, but horns still blared as I crossed, damaging the rim of my tire in the process. It was closing time. The men there didn't want to hang around. I was told to leave the tire and my phone number and they’d let me know in a day or two when I could pick it up. 

I asked the cost and was told because of the damage to the rim it would be $50, or maybe more.

I knew I could get a ride home after the meeting, but I now had to walk the two remaining miles to the clubhouse, pissed off every step of the way. 

I arrived just as the chairperson invited everyone to join her in the closing prayer, so I had missed my meeting, too.

How do I know that’s what would have happened? Because that was the story of my entire life’s experiences back when I was the one in sole charge of it. 

One more miracle A.A. has given me is I am not that woman anymore. 

Now - thanks to my partnership with that Power far greater than me - my days are filled with smooth-making miracles that roll in one after another, like:

Covid happened and shut down meetings. Zoom meetings arrived, bringing me friends I would never have otherwise met. 

When I need money for an unexpected expense, it always arrives. 

When I have a problem, the solution becomes apparent.

When I feel lonely, company shows up. 

I live in constant awareness of the beautiful gifts of nature that surround me in a place I would never have found without the direction (even insistence) of my Higher Power and the generous help from a beloved AA friend.

And, trust me, the list of my miracles goes on and on ...

All the promises of AA are ongoing in my life, but here’s the important thing. I am in no way special. I am a garden variety alcoholic just like you. This program of recovery offers each and every one of us the opportunity for miracles to be grateful for every single day. 

Pay close attention. We hear about such miracles in meetings all the time. 

Whatever you do, please don’t leave before your miracle(s) happen! 

  

 

Made a Decision

Letting God In

I arrived in AA with all my insanity intact. I had no idea who I was or what my life was supposed to look like. Recovery has been all about my staying sober while being given the tools to get those answers.

I was told right away to turn my life over to "the God of my understanding." I was so miserable and so desperate I was willing to do that, but what did that mean? It took a long old time for me to even have a concept of God take root in my head.

In earlier blogs I have outlined my search for God has taken me down many paths - from Goddess worship to Christianity and to many other concepts in between. I went to various places of worship. I read a lot of stuff. I prayed a lot. And I tried hard to meditate, even though I was pretty crap at it for a very long time. 

And meditation, is still not my superpower. I do it and I know that I benefit from it, but my mind on most days remains more restless than not.

Alcoholics in general, and I am no exception, tend to want to know what life is all about. We want to know if there is a system of cosmic justice, and, if there really is a God, does that God truly care about us? All the spiritual books assure us of that truth. Even so, we want to KNOW for sure!

Getting that assurance is up to us. We have to do the seeking and the finding. We have to reach our own conclusions based on the results we find in our own prayers and meditative times. And we have to find it by giving AA our service to help other alcoholics find and keep sobriety.

As our Big Book states:  We try not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the world's troubles on our shoulders. When we see a man sinking into the mire that is alcoholism, we give him first aid and place what we have at his disposal.

I've come to the conclusion I needed every bit of that exploration to find a God of my understanding, one I can hang out with, believe in, and trust that He/She is looking out for me. I have absolute faith in that God of mine today, but it sure didn't happen overnight.

What did happen was I stayed sober and I believe my willingness to keep looking for my personal God had a big part in that. That's my story and I sticking to it, but it's not everyone's story. Some in AA never find a personal God, yet they stay sober by living the principles of our program.

I take no one's inventory about these things. The winners we're supposed to hang out with in AA are those we see living lives that are joyous, happy and free. They're the ones who smile a lot and I enjoy their company. I don't care if they have a personal God or not, or what their God looks like if they do. It's none of my business anyway. I stay busy enough trying to decipher my own God's guidance for me.

Here's what prayer alone can do for us, according to an article in the AA Grapevine: As the doubter tries the process of prayer, he should begin to add up the results. If he persists, he will almost surely find more serenity, more tolerance, less fear, and less anger. He will acquire a quiet courage, the kind that isn't tension-ridden. He can look at "failure" and "success" for what these really are. Problems and calamity will begin to mean his instruction, instead of his destruction. 

He will feel freer and saner. The idea that he may have been hypnotizing himself by auto-suggestion will become laughable.

 His sense of purpose and of direction will increase. His anxieties will commence to fade. His physical health will be likely to improve.

Wonderful and unaccountable things will start to happen. Twisted relations in his family and on the outside will improve surprisingly.

One of the things I had to learn first was about my dark side. When I could do that, when I started to see myself more clearly, I was then (with my HP's help) able to stop my darker impulses before they get me into trouble - again!

(As my first sponsor often advised me, "When in doubt - don't.")

My learning to be more honest has been a help, too. The more honest we are with others, and with ourselves, the healthier we become.

When we first start our walk along the spiritual path we often want to just stay there, up in the spiritual treetops, where it feels safe and protected. Over time we learn, while we can get a pink cloud ride anytime we really need one, our proper place is right here at ground zero helping other suffering alcoholics. 

As long as we keep on doing-that-doing God will be right there with us. 

I've come to believe our trying to carry out God's guidance as best we can is the secret of personal power. We do our best to follow the directions and then we leave the results to Him.

I spend a lot more time these days thinking about my Higher Power maybe because I expect to meet Him in person in the not too distant future. I'm trying to think, act and live (to the best of my very limited ability) as if we are already in one another's presence.

Today I know for sure that the God of my understanding knows my circumstances better than I do and always comes up with far more creative solutions to my problems than I can. My God often appears disguised in amazing "gifts," or as "luck" or "happenstance" or "coincidence." He knows all my needs, wants, strengths and weaknesses and, when I let Him, always takes me along a smoother path to a better outcome.

We have to remember the God who calls us into the unknown is right there traveling with us to make the way easier. Getting to know Him is our job, all the rest is up to Him. The key - as we learn in AA - is to pray for guidance, look for its arrival, and then to just keep it simple and be grateful.  

Can I get an Amen?