Morning Meditations

When I first started coming to AA over 3 years ago, I was angry, resentful and bitter toward God (as well as toward a lot of other people, events, and circumstances in my life, past and present). The thing is, I didn't even realize it. I knew I was cut off, disconnected and dead spiritually, but I felt like God had abandoned me, turned his back on me, and I was too angry, depressed and mired in my disease to even know how to begin to make my way back to him, or even to have the desire to do so.

Even while I was still trapped in my distorted thinking and drowning in self-pity, self-loathing, and self-righteousness, God had NOT abandoned me, and was still working all things together for good on my behalf. Somehow, when I was finally ready to seek the help I needed to confront my alcoholism, he brought people into my life who sang the praises of a particular treatment center in West Palm Beach.

It was not a "Christian" treatment center, but one that took a holistic approach to recovery, focusing on the medical, relational, and spiritual components, incorporating them into the 12 Steps. I didn't want to go to a treatment center that looked upon alcoholism and addiction as a sin that I should be able to control, and I feared I might encounter that approach at places other than the one I chose.

I was exactly where I needed to be. My therapists and my spiritual counselors are women who were able to gently guide me into the realization that God had not abandoned me at all, and that he was only waiting for me to walk forward into his embrace. When this realization came, for the very first time, I finally understood what surrender is.

I don't have to carry the burden of my disease by myself. There is One who is always with me, always walking beside me, lightening the load.

And when I grow too weary to move another step, he is the One who carries me.