Sunday evening fellowship

At the beginning of my week, Sunday, comes my 12-step meeting. I am glad to say that I helped to begin this meeting in my community. It  will become vital and deep-rooted, with my Higher Power's help.

What a gift, this wintry day, to hear from the hearts of those attending, perspective that will help me put God first in my life. I am a hard-working person. So hard working that I constantly berate myself for all that I do not get done.  So hard working that I forget to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

My program stumbling block has been in properly discerning what is my job, and what is my HP's.  I tend to put "my" work first, because I take so seriously my understanding of, "God helps those that help themselves."  I feel like I must show up working, so that God will then find me worthy of an assignment. But I get so busy working that I don't listen carefully. I think I already know my job, and that it is God's job to bless the work I have started.  

Yikes,  listening carefully at our meeting, I heard that we show up willing and do the small part our Higher Power asks us to do, that God offers his grace to complete what would be beyond our limited plans.  I heard one member talk about how self-acceptance was allowing her to show up in important ways to perform in her sports in ways that she never imagined. Self-acceptance led her to take care of herself, helping her to answer her Higher Power's call for action,  so that she could show up to perform in her calling.  Another 12-step companion shared that he had to learn to let God be God, even as he sought to understand who or what his Higher Power was. For his recovery, he had to let his Higher Power define itself for him. How many times do those of us suffering from addictions, compulsions and misuse of Self... outright reject God because we think we have to believe a certain way?  Instead, we could let Him/Her/It reveal themselves to us in a way that will allow us belief.  For of course, how can we know what we can believe in before we know anything about Belief?   

Privately, this fellow shared with me how he does not need always to rely on faith to walk with God or to allow change into his life. Faith is for those times when we walk blindly into the unknown. But when we can see, then we KNOW we are in God and do not need to rely on faith. Ah, but to have been in the dark or in blindness gives us the opportunity to learn that faith works!

Zena