(no subject)
Thank God for all of this. You know, I don't know how long I'm going to still have my initial reaction to hardship be to turn inward instead of out, but it is still there. It is still there, but as I've said recently in an earlier post, it is changing there's progress. It hasn't lasted months, but just a week or so. And as soon as it ended came another opportunity to be of service to my God.
I went to a meeting last night, tired, a little on the ornery side, and just really struggling with some tolerance issues in general. The topic, of course, ended up being well suited to what was going on with me. It was a good meeting and I, of course, heard many things that helped. The thing which was most helpful wasn't at all what one person said, but more that many people are exactly where I am with being tolerant or intolerant. It was yet another example of the fact that I'm not alone on this journey, that there are people (contrary to what I often feel) who are just like me, stumbling the same way I am, struggling with the same things I am, and practicing these principles as falteringly as I so often do. It's always good to be reminded I'm just another member of the human race. I know I'm a drunk, always have been always will be, but it was AA that reminded me I'm a part of the human race, and I have to be reminded occasionally.
But, I listen through the meeting and am feeling better as it goes on because being the same seems to make me feel better. I say my two cents worth (because I still can't shake my first sponsor's guidance which said I have to be there to let the new people know there are different stages we all go through, and we can stay sober through all of them), and after the meeting a guy who's got the same amount of time I have comes up to me and asks me to take him through the work. He wants to go through the Steps again, and he feels I have something he wants. Now to me, this is still a strangely uncomfortable thing to here. I am more comfortable being myself and just being whereever I am than ever before, but there's still a lot of shit I have I don't want. I accept it now, and believe God will change me as I let Him and as He sees fit, but given all of that, I still have some things I really just don't want. After those things go racing through my frantic, frenetic brain, I remember again I'm not the one responsible for any of this. I'm not responsible for the guy who asks me to help, I'm not responsible for what he may see in me, I'm not responsible for being anything but available and willing to help. I just have to be available and willing to carry this message, carry a vision of God's will into the lives of people who would have it. I just have to show up and be willing to put these principles before my own intolerant, impatient, annoyed personality. By just doing that I get yet another opportunity to be a part of the solution God has provided us. I get another opportunity to be closer to my God by being helpful to someone else. I get an opportunity to what is within my power to be changed.
It's amazing to me such a simple thing, just one simple question which would have once seemed like an unendurable task, would return me to the sense of peace I so love and enjoy and which helps me so much in acting kindly, tolerantly, and lovingly toward others. "Will you take me through the Steps?" That's all, just one simple question absolutely recenters me, pushes me back to what I know I'm here for, and away from all of the selfish, self-centered nonsense I put myself through. AA and God have given me these things. I never would have taken the time to do anything remotely like this before I came to AA because there are no concrete, material rewards. I know now, the rewards are spiritual, and spiritual health finds it rewards in all of the other areas of my life. I will never be perfect, I will never be some spiritual giant, but I do progress, I do change, the internal condition changes, when the internal condition changes, my entire outlook, attitude and perspective on life change. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Sometimes those changes take a long period of time to happen and are more or less the result of a chain of events, sometimes it's in just one sentence, one small action, and I never know when it's going to be quickly or slowly, so I have to keep showing up and see what is ahead of me and what God has for me in His will for my future, which by showing up each day, becomes my present.
What I have to be grateful for seems to be in direct proportion to what I am willing to give. Not necessarily what I am giving at a single moment, because that will change with what it is God has for me to do in different moments, but what I'm willing to give. I am willing to give of what I am, completely? Do I have reservations about what I can give? Do I have reservations about when I can give, how much I can give, who I give to? Those things are not up to me, they're up to God, I just have to be willing to give whatever it seems He's asking of me in each moment, that's all. If I walk into each day with the attitude that I am going to give what I have or am when and how it seems God has asked me to or more correctly, given me the opportunity to, I can give each moment who I am, maybe not the people, but the moment. Am I giving myself to this moment, right here, right now? Am I willing to be what God has made me if I am not giving of myself to this moment and in return for what God has given me? Questions, questions and more questions. It's good. I like the fact that sobriety has come to be more about questions than answers. I rarely come up with answers. Instead I find pieces of things which lead me to more questions, and I've come to see that the right answers are fleeting and probably less important than whether or not I am asking the right questions.
The most important question, for me, at this point is whether or not I'm acting with gratitude in my life. Am I acting like I'm grateful to AA and God? Not just saying it, not just talking about it, but acting with it. By putting gratitude into action, energy replenishes itself. When I act with gratitude, more gratitude comes and with it the eager action which we all do and we suggest to others and make available to them, so they may know this gratitude, this hope, this way of life, this strength which comes out of being a part of a greater solution. If I act with gratitude, I find many more things to be grateful for. If I act with bitterness, with anger, intolerance, I find more reasons to be bitter, angry and intolerant. Like the circle around our triangle, these things become the circle of my life. AA lead me to God, God gave me the ability to have a choice to put gratitude, love, kindness and tolerance first. Once I make the initial choice, it becomes.easier to continue to make it because the rewards are undeniable, unmistakable, and become necessary.