Blog entry for:

a HIGHER POWER supplies me with the strength and guidance that i need, the trouble i have is recognizing it. the strength and guidance that is.
i could comment on the weather as a diversion to talking about FAITH. it is cold, it is icy. it is winter AND IT IS COLORADO. i could also talk about my journey into FAITH, that however is something i have written may words about and more than likely needs not be rehashed here, except to say that FAITH for me, took a helluva a long time to grow. i could also go on about what i think the POWER that fuels my recovery is, and how IT works in my life, that is also something i have written about in the past.
what i think i will write about this morning, is how FAITH works for me today. coming from a rational, cause and effect sort of background. FAITH has been difficult and a long time coming for me. as i move with the certainty in my FAITH that the program i have been given will work for me, the implications about what is powering that program, slowly sink into my thick, oh so logical and rational belief system. truthfully, there is no reason i should be here writing this blog this morning, the path of active addiction, and its downward spiral was halted by outside influences, as i was quite content to live in that twilight world. i did not know anything different, so i could not fall victim to the trap of rising expectations.
this morning, as i awaken to the FAITH within, i see that rising expectations can be a result of naive FAITH. mine. after all, it is a miracle that a person like me could stop using, and most importantly be HAPPY that i am not using. it is a miracle, that a person like me, can allow change to happen, especially when he thought that there was nothing that needed changing. it is a miracle that a person like me can decide that just for today, i will do whatever it takes, to stay clean. based on that evidence, it is more than apparent that something outside of me is working, and that i can expect to get even more. there is the trap, the part that the addict within can use, to sabotage me. after all, if one is good a million is even better. so if i believe that a POWER will care for my will and my life today, then i can expect that care will look like i want it to look.
so where does FAITH end and unrealistic expectations begin? that is one of those questions i am sure people of FAITH have written about since the dawn of time. for me, i have come to believe that line is crossed when i expect more than the ability to stay clean today, and listen for the guidance i NEED to thrive on more day. i understand that i have been culturally trained to expect certain things, and worst of all do whatever i can to achieve those things. recovery has been a deprogramming journey as well as a spiritual journey for me. bit by bit, i am being stripped of the expectations foisted upon me by modern culture. i GET to see, how those messages affect the way in which i live, and how the effects of that fiction manifest within my life. this morning i have FAITH, that this program works, and as i allow myself to be reprogrammed by a path of recovery i GET to become more than i ever dreamed possible. i GET to actually think for myself, instead of forming opinions because they happen to be popular, or presented to me as the TRUTH. i get to have a FAITH based program that is rational, logical and healthy. i GET to form a relationship with a POWER beyond my ken and allow that POWER to provide what i need today. i have crossed through a barrier in my program and am now looking at the rest of this current journey in a whole new light, yes bad things happen. that is just part of life, and not some sort of cosmic joke. nor do i need to dismiss those events with the bromide about how GOD works in mysterious ways. life just is, and in this world of random and not so random interactions with man-made and natural forces, life happens.
this morning, i am certain that if i listen, i will be given everything i need to stay clean, live a life of recovery and grow. those gifts come through the program that has given me this new manner of living, and fuleing that program is a HIGHER POWER. set into that context, it is ceratinly a great day to be clean and to be in active recovery. so off to the showers and back to the keyboard to make my daily bread.

∞ DT ∞