Great meeting tonight...

Particularly excellent AA meeting tonight!

One friend who I first met while doing my out-patient treatment at Hazelden celebrated his '3 years' tonight - what an inspirational transformation & journey he's had in those 3 years! He truly lives The AA Program earnestly, and has long been a shining example to me of the success that humble & sincere effort will bring. It was great to see him tonight and celebrate his 3 years!

Another long-time friend from my Thursday night group has recently started to attend the meeting once again after having been away for quite some time. It turns out he suffered a relapse during that time - but he is now back with renewed humility and determination, and he announced tonight that he was celebrating his '32 days'. Again, it was wonderful to be there and commemorate that with him - he's a fantastic guy, and it's great to see him back on the beam!

Sobriety anniversaries, both big & small, are great things to celebrate in recovery meetings - the experience, strength, and hope shared by those who are marking an anniversary always leave me with an astute takeaway - whether it's the insight of someone celebrating just 24 hours, or someone celebrating 35 years. All good things!

Tonight, we covered Step 11 - "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out"

This Step always reminds me of a favorite quote:

"Do not pray for easy lives, rather pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, rather pray for powers equal to your tasks." -- Phillips Brooks

Or, as my Mom once told me, "God will not test you beyond your capabilities." Sometimes, that can be very hard to believe! But I must believe it; I cannot persist and grow if I do not accept that truth. And the strength to do that can only come from a sincere spirituality and complete trust in God's will.

This week has seen some challenges for me that definitely relate to Step 11. Even something as 'small' as my whole house-buying effort - I must be careful not to get headstrong or greedy or too self-reliant as I move forward in this process.

But perhaps more tangibly, I've recently had an unwelcome intrusion into my personal circumstances. The details are unimportant, but what I learned from that was echoed thoughtfully in tonight's reading and discussions.

My first reaction was this recent challenge was to explain, explain, explain, and even blame, blame, blame... But that's not the right answer - that's my EGO (Edging God Out) trying to steer the course. Sure, some explanation was necessary to work through it all; but ultimately, I knew the true answer was that key to both my sobriety & peacefulness: Acceptance.

And acceptance ain't always easy, but I've found these three things help me get there...

1.) be sincerely present
2.) be willing to do the next right thing, and take positive action
3.) be truthfully and humbly accountable

When I can accept, I know I have the capability to persevere, and remain spiritually & emotionally healthy. This foundation gives me the strength to not succumb to blinding emotion inevitably resulting in debilitating inaction, or selfish & misguided maneuvering. I have, can, and still do suffer from all of those things at times - I am still only human, after all! But acceptance not only allows me to more often prevent that, but also to then recover from my missteps in a responsible manner when they occur.

This recent challenge could well have resulted in a disparaging loss for me, and I immediately prepared myself for that possibility by accepting that God's will be done, not mine. I don't know how many times I said both that phrase and The Serenity Prayer to myself that evening, but it was a lot!

Even if things hadn't ended up working out so well, I still would've trusted & accepted that it was God's will for this situation - even though it would have been very difficult (to say the least!). One thing is for certain - I would've been on the phone with my sponsor about the whole thing a heckuva lot more than I have been! ;-)

So, as I blogged about a while ago, acceptance truly is the answer - especially when things aren't as we would desire!

A work in progress...
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