The present is a gift.

When I'm in the present -- really paying attention to the here and now -- I have fewer worries. Because managing my worries is something I struggle with at times, I should show up for my life more often. Instead of making feeble attempts at warding off those pesky anxieties with unhealthy distractions, I could ask God to help me experience my life as it happens.

God, please help me to focus on the moment, realizing fully that each one is a gift from You and that for each one You have a perfect purpose in mind for me. Help me see, hear, touch, taste and even smell my life as it's happening so that I can be of the greatest good to those around me. I love You. Thank You. In Jesus' Name, amen.

No, no we are not satisfied...

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. -- Martin Luther King

"We Shall Overcome" speech excerpt
"We Shall Overcome" song sung by Joan Baez

Many of us have been concerned with social justice our whole lives. Perhaps it is because our hearts go out to those who have been oppressed and imprisoned. Perhaps it is because our people have been oppressed and imprisoned. Perhaps it is because we have been oppressed and imprisoned ourselves. We pray about what we hear in the news. We cry when learn about the pain of others. Our hearts are broken by how the world treats us and those we love. Sometimes we feel that the evil in the world is too much to withstand. We look for a way out from the misery we see all around us.

If we stay stuck in the bad news about the state of humankind: war, hunger, famine, oppression, slavery, rape, abuse, violence.. we prime ourselves for relapse, we deepen our depression, we forget that we have a Savior with a solution.

So, we don't look away from the truth of injustice in the world, but we also look up to God for answers. Dr. King referred to Amos 5 in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. In that chapter of Amos, our God says, "Seek Me and live... Seek the Lord and live... Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you." Like the writer of Psalms, "I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121: 1 and 2

So, we don't pick up a drink or a drug when we are overwhelmed by evil in the world. We need not eat over it or act out in any other way. We realize we are not alone and we take the advice found in Romans 12:14-21: "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Let's pray that God will focus our eyes on Him and our energies on His will.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next. Amen."

--Reinhold Niebuhr

time, time, time... see what's become of me

"Time, time, time... see what's become of me

while I looked around

for my possibilities.

I was so hard to please.

But look around

leaves are brown

and the sky is a hazy shade of winter."

-Simon & Garfunkel

Today I thanked God for the difference between today and yesterday.

Today I am even more hopeful than I was yesterday. Today I made even better use of the time and resources God has entrusted to me. Today I talked with God a little longer and listened to Him even longer. Today I ate healthier food than I did yesterday. Today I took the advice of a wise friend. Today I called an old friend and a new friend. Today I thought more about someone else than I did of myself and did something about it.

Living life one day at a time is possible when you have a program that works. Celebrate Recovery works because we can depend on God's promises all day every day. Join us any Friday night if you have a hurt, habit or hang up. Join us even if you don't think you have one. You're more than welcome.

I'm not God: the converse is also true

Step One is "Realize I'm not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable." "Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor." Matthew 5:3

In recovery it's so important to realize I'm not God, it's in the first step. When I woke up this morning I was hit over the head with the reality that the converse is also true: God is not me. I've heard a thousand times that where I am weak, He is strong, but truth of the matter runs much deeper than that.

I'm bound by time. He is not. He is the Great I Am. He always Was. Is. Forever shall Be. He doesn't just see into the future. He is in the future: controlling it, creating it. He has infinitely more power to control the future than I have in this very moment to decide what I will do and how I will do it.

I'm distracted by my five senses. Bright, shiny things take my attention away from what's truly important -- what's really real. Then, of course, my feelings sometimes or even often out vote my best ideas, my good intentions, my common sense, my education, my experience... God is not ever distratcted. His mind doesn't wander. He's not fickle or mercurial. Not manic, not depressive. He is our Rock. He never changes.

He always keeps His promises.
He never forgets.
He is the One constant in our ever-chaning world.
Thank You, God for being You. Thank You for loving us the way only You can love us.

Consider the hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness, by Thomas O. Chisholm (words) and William M. Runyan (music). Enjoy Selah singing the hymn.

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no Shadow of turning with thee;
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.

Refrain:
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed thy hand hath provided;
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto thee.

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Adult Children of Family Dysfunction: The Problem and Solution

Do you feel isolated, uneasy with other people, especially authority figures? To protect yourself, are you a people pleaser, even though you lose your own identity in the process?
We either become alcoholics or married them or both. Failing that, we found another compulsive personality, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.

The Problem
 We guess what is normal.
 We have difficulty following a project through, from beginning to end.
 We lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth
 We judge ourselves without mercy.
 We have difficulty having fun
 We take ourselves very seriously
 We have difficulty with relationships
 We over-react to changes over which we have no control
 We constantly seek approval and affirmation
 We are either super responsible or super irresponsible
 We are extremely loyal even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved
 We look for immediate rather than deferred gratification
 We lock ourselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternate behaviors or possible consequences
 We seek tension and crisis and then complain about the results
 We avoid conflict or aggravate it; rarely do we deal with it
 We fear rejection and abandonment, yet are rejecting of others
 We fear failure, but sabotage our success
 We fear criticism and judgment, yet criticize and judge others
 We manage time poorly and do not set priorities in a way that works well for us

The Solution
The solution is to become your own loving parent
 Find the freedom to express all the hurts and fears kept inside and gain freedom from the shame and blame carried over from the past
 Become an adult who was no longer imprisoned by childhood reactions
 Recover the child within us, learning to accept and love our-selves
 Move out the isolation
 Rediscover feelings and buried memories
 Gradually release the burden of unexpressed grief; slowly move out of the past
 Learn to re-parent ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect
 Learn to see our biological parents as the instruments of our existence
 Trust that our actual parent is the Higher Power, Jesus Christ. Although we had dysfunctional/alcoholic parents, our Higher Power gave us the eight Principles of Recovery  Receive experience, strength and hope to others
 Restructure sick thinking one day at a time
 Release our parents from responsibility for our actions today
 Become free to make healthful decisions as actors, not reactors
 Progress from hurting to healing to helping
 Awaken a sense of wholeness we knew was possible
 Come to see parental dysfunction for what it is and know how that affected us as a child and continues to affect us as an adult
 Learn to keep the focus on ourselves in the here and now
 Take responsibility for our own life and supply our own par-enting
 See beautiful changes in all our relationships, especially with God, ourselves and our parents.

Life through Rose-colored Glasses

Definition from an internet dictionary of the idiom, rose-colored glasses: if someone thinks about or looks at something with rose-colored glasses, they think it is more pleasant than it really is.

While writing I once described myself as looking through a dirty old window in Sun Valley. Today I'm looking through a brand-new window in Sun Valley thanks to the craftspeople who have been working all week to install new windows and doors in our house. I adore the sights just outside my window.

I see my neighbor's too-green-and-beautiful-to-be-summer landscaping. I see boys riding scooters and hanging out in the shade of their porch. I see happy hillsides and fancy houses built into the nooks of those hillsides. I see sunflowers waiving cheerfully in a precious San Fernando Valley wind on this sweaty, sweltering day. I am constantly inspired by my view whether the window is old and dirty or shiny-new through which I look.

So what?

Lately I've noticed that I've become more grateful than ever for being grateful. Being grateful is a skill I've been learning for the last twelve years, for as long as I've been clean and sober. It was presented to me as a necessary survival technique for living life on life's terms. I was directed to write gratitude lists daily as part of my morning serenity and sobriety rituals. I followed that direction without a clue about how it would eventually color every aspect of my life. As I persisted, by the grace of God, I got better at identifying things to place on my lists. I got better at finding things to be grateful for.

Practicing gratitude has immediate and long term benefits. The first time I made a gratitude list I felt kinda weird as I figured out what to write. I was learning to slowly but surely shift my perspective away from its self-centered default setting. While I was still drinking and using people and substances, I made a career out of figuring out what I could get out of relationships. I was adept at finding out how I could beg, borrow or steal a feel-good moment from the precious moments God granted me. By practicing gratitude I had to shift from what I wanted to what I already had.

I doubt even the sickest of us put our guilty pleasures on our gratitude lists. I was no different. I couldn't fill my list with things like memories of my sinful conquests. The gratitude list process forced me to think about God-given things for which I was grateful. It turned out all the best things on my list were directly from God. Acknowledging His presence, His involvement in my life, His daily blessings were inescapable steps in crafting my list. So right away I starting thinking more about God and how He was doing for me what I couldn't do for myself.

As the years have past one day at a time I've developed habitual gratitude. I don't make written lists during a discrete part of my day anymore. When I'm on my game, I'm stuck on grateful. Sure, there are times when I hold short pity parties for myself. Today they usually don't last longer than half an hour or so. Then I go right back to being grateful for every good thing in my life. And I find a lot of good things when I survey my life, gazing out my window through the rose-colored glasses God gave me. I find myself being grateful for even the trying, hard, desperate times I experience. I'm grateful for the faith in God they build in me. I'm grateful for how God shows His TLC of me in crappy times. I'm grateful for the shortest respite, the smallest favor when I'm struggling.

No doubt, there are those that say that my point of view is naive or unrealistic. Life is hard. There are new horrors all over the world every day. That is true. Maybe it's more true today than it has been for a long time. But, there is another truth that keeps me going: Looking at life through grateful eyes has helped me help others, stomped out my depression, dialed down my anxiety, saved me from self-pity, repaired my relationships, and put a smile on my face that passes human understanding.

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7

Thank you, God.

Unforgiven

Imagine...

You have a solid relationship with your best friend. You have been friends for years and the relationship has come to mean the world to you. As you experienced life together you learned you could depend on one another. When times were hard, you called on your friend and your friend never failed. It was hard to imagine celebrating any of life's special moments without your friend. Day or night, rain or shine, your friend was there for you.

One random day you did something that hurt your friend. Perhaps it was an oversight -- you weren't really thinking clearly when you made the decision that hurt your friend. Or perhaps you were careless and your judgment was faulty. You didn't intend to hurt your friend, but for a brief moment you risked the relationship and hurt the one that was always by your side in good times and bad.

When you realized that you hurt your best friend you first felt guilty and stupid for endangering such a vital friendship. Although it wasn't easy to admit you were so thoughtless, you gathered your courage, swallowed your pride and prepared to apologize. You stopped by your friend's home, a piece offering in hand, hopeful that the rift between you would be healed soon. As you knocked on the door, you were certain that you would never again make the same bad decision that led to this momemnt.

Your friend answered the door and allowed you enter. You sat in your favorite chair, your friend directly opposite. It almost felt like any other day. But your inner voice told you that it wasn't any other day. You had important business to discuss. You came to the point. "I'm sorry for what I did. I'm not sure why I did it, but I never meant to hurt you. I know I did and for that I am profoundly sorry. I hate that I risked our friendship given all we've been through. This will never happen again. You mean the world to me and I'm sorry. Please... please forgive me."

You looked deeply into the eyes of the person sitting in front of you and you realized that they were hard and cold. Your friend seemed unmoved by your apology. Suddenly the butterflies in your stomach turned to angry wasps. "I'm truly sorry," you offered again. The heavy words seemed to fall leaden to the floor before they reached their intended destination.

Your friend took a deep breath and stared. You felt yourself tearing up depsite your best efforts to hold onto any shred of hope that things would turn out OK. Again, "Please forgive me. I'm really torn up over this. I don't want to lose your friendship. I was careless. I was stupid. Please..." Hot, salty tears fell in your lap. You stared at the widening circles of moisture as if lifting your eyes to again meet your friend's stare was beyond your capacity. You would wait in this position until you heard or sensed some response other than that dreadful, steely gaze.

"I can't forgive you. I won't."

"But... please..."

"There is nothing more to say. Our friendship is over. Please leave."

The voice that meant unmatched comfort for as long as you could remember was flat, emotionless. Your heart breaking; you pretended to compose yourself, swallowed the lump in your throat and fled.

You sat in your car unaware of the passing of time or of your surroundings. You were numb and dazed. An unwelcome thought came to mind and replayed over and over. "I lost my best friend today. I lost my best friend today. I lost my best friend today." You didn't realize that you said the words out loud. Mechanically, you finally turned the key in the ignition and pulled into traffic. You didn't know where you were going and didn't care.

A couple of days ago I thought I had irrevocably damaged my relationship with my best friend. When I apologized for my carelessness, he bristled, all the muscles in his face seemed to turn to cement. His eyes were angry, lips pursed so that even if he wanted to say something it couldn't escape the determination of those tight lips. I went on and on about how I'd make up for my mistake, how I'd do whatever I could to make things the way they were before. He stared straight ahead as if I hadn't said a word. His silence spoke volumes. He didn't forgive me. He didn't forgive me. Perhaps he would change his mind later, but for now our relationship was broken. I was suddenly adrift as if it was our relationship that was tying me to the known world. This new world without his care and concern was unfamiliar and desolate.

Yesterday we repaired the rift between us and I felt light, relieved. The world made sense again and I could be hopeful about whatever life would bring next. Because I had felt the separation between me and my friend so profoundly I spent a moment or two resolving never to make the same mistakes again. But God took this opportunity to remind me that He isn't like my human best friend who wouldn't forgive me for a while. As my Divine Best Friend I can count on Him to forgive me as soon as I ask each and every time.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 American King James Version

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12 New American Standard Bible

He promised and He hasn't ever let me down. Thank You, Jesus for forgiving me wihtout fail. Thank You for being my Best Friend. Thank you for the assurance, confidence and hope that comes from your forgiving grace.