Choose Not To Fear

Choose not to fear
By Ruth M.
My Higher Power (MHP) likes to keep me busy with challenges. I have learned through the program that it’s not so healthy to create my own chaos, because the challenges MHP provides are quite enough thank you very much.
I have heard over and over again, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”… blah, blah, blah. Are these people nuts? Have these people seen my credit card bill? Have they walked in my shoes and lived with my ADS? Have they met my spouse of 30 years, and have they met me? Do they know I get up sometimes three times a night to let my elderly dog out the door?
Just before the holidays this year, we had a huge drama event at our house. It took me completely by surprise, and sent me into despair. I was calling AA’s and Al-Anons all over the state so that I could get guidance and hear God through them.
One advisor told me to continue being myself, another told me to get to Al-anon and still another told me I was accepting unacceptable behavior. One Al-anon even had the gall to tell me to ask myself what was my part in it.
Wonderful support group I have. No, I’m serious they are! But finally, one morning MHP actually spoke directly to me. The message was this—it doesn’t matter who you are, you can’t run away from yourself, and you can’t hide from your higher power, no matter how hard you may try by drinking, drugging, making stupid choices, looking for geographic cures, or, Al-Anons take note, allowing another human to replace your higher power no matter how temporarily, or obsessively, you indulge in this fallacy.
This “Aha!” moment sent compassion flooding through me, compassion coming directly from my higher power, and for the first time in my life I felt a glimmer of what unconditional love might be like. I was able to forgive myself and the party who had thrown me into such a snit. The program was working for me, and God was doing for me what I could not do for myself.
We hear about unconditional love a lot. And, to this moment, as I write this, I’m not sure humans are capable of unconditional love, but I know God is. It was a mini miracle for me to feel the compassion that might instead have been well-justified anger, self-pity or even poisonous self-destructive behavior.
I am coming through this trauma, with renewed awareness, new commitment to be FREE, not FEAR-Filled. (“Wordies” take note, in the word “Fear” the vowels are encapsulated by the F and R. In “Free” the vowels are outside the F and R. I know– too much Scrabble.)
I wish I could share my experience, strength and hope and tell you Serenity comes easy after all these years, that love is a noun not a verb, and that if you adopt a spiritual life, you will no longer experience setbacks, but that is not my experience.
But here’s my hope. If you have been fortunate enough to log on to this website, and if you have questions about someone else’s addictions because you are being held hostage by them, please don’t despair. Go to an Al-anon meeting for starters. Listen and learn. There will be people who you may not know, “but they will love you in a very special way.”
More than likely you will run into people you do know. Your first reaction may be, OMG, they know my secret! But the truth is, they have lived your secret. They will become a support group that will save your life, rejuvenate your spirit and be there for you when the alcoholic, recovering or not, may be unable to assist you with your challenges. The support of Al-Anons will become your strength.
There is an adage, you can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip, and a country western song that wails the message not to “look for love in all the wrong places.” If you are trying to do this metaphorically, then come to Al-Anon, where God can help you. May 2012 be the year you decide to choose FREE not FEAR!