Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and in preparation for this day of Thanks, I am reflecting on the past year.
God has been moving in mighty ways this year, and I feel incredibly awed by all He has done.
At the beginning of this year, I was going through my emotional roller coaster. Again. and again...and again. I had gotten to a point where I was considering seeing a professional to see about something to even this out a bit. I did not have many "normal" days. Normal to me means somewhat even keel, with no emotional spikes. As soon as I thought about that, things evened out for a while. I don't know if that was God or if that was Satan backing off so that I would not go to the Recovery ministry at my church.
April of this year, I lost a good friend, Mikee. To think about him and his antics brings a smile to my face. Mikee was in a worship band with me, and he taught me the finer points of playing a tambourine. Yes, there ARE finer points! :) Mikee was a very special man and I still miss him. I look forward to seeing him in heaven. I went to Arizona for the funeral, and the week that followed was pretty close to my version of hell on earth. There was no funeral. The family had to raise money. I was feeling empathy for the family, and at the same time trying to begin mourning a friend when no one else was ready to do that - for obvious reasons. I dreaded returning to Texas and trying to deal with his death when there was no one (who knew him) to share it with. I also did not want to burden the other with my need when they had been dealing with the enormity of our friend's passing for months. They needed a breather more than I needed to grieve with them.
During that visit, I had to confront a friend about a long term behavior that I did not like, and had not liked for a long time. It was very stressful for me as I don't like confrontation, especially if I think I'm going to be attacked for my efforts. Well, I was, but I stood up for myself and we resolved the problem, and we are still friends. That was a LOT of stress though.
The third thing about sent me off the edge. My father was in a motorcycle accident. That day we had met for dinner at a favorite restaurant of ours. After we finished we were going to back to church for a Bible study. If all had gone as normal, I would have been following him when it happened. I honestly don't know what would have happened if I had been. Thinking of that reminds me of how thankful I am that the bike stalled a few times when my father was trying to leave the place we had been. Thankfully my safety-conscious father was wearing all the right gear. His leather jacket was all scraped up, his helmet had to be replaced, and his jeans were not salvagable after the ER got through with them. He was diagnosed with 4 broken ribs. He was admitted to the hospital, and I spent the rest of my time in Arizona sitting in the hospital with my father. Unfortunately I had to leave before he was discharged from the hospital, and that was insanely hard. I did not want to leave him like that, but the consequences of staying were not ones I wanted to face when I returned home.
When I returned, it was right back into my normal life. I did not want to. My little trip had drained me. I knew I still needed to take the time to grieve and think and pray, but my week was SO busy I did not have time. I had scheduled time to deal with this.
I also realized that at no time during the week did I turn to my strength, my protector, the author and perfecter of my days to ask for help, to admit my weaknesses, and for healing and protection. Ok once...but only once. That realization broke my heart.
And that was when Daddy Dave came into the picture. I shared with him what was going on, my frustration with it, and that I don't feel grounded at all. He recommended that I check out the recovery group. It is for people who are suffering with just about anything and are not in a perfect relationship with Christ. That sounded great to me. Anything to get my life under control. Anything to help me deal with this and get back on track...and maybe even a bit better than before.
What I did not know (thank God) was that it was a 12 step program. Now there is nothing wrong with 12 step programs, I had a bad attitude towards them. I did not think that I needed a 12 step plan.
The first week a woman shared her story, and I recognized some of my life in that story. God was telling me to stay put! Over the next several months, God has been showing me that
1. I have made a mess of my life, and I make a pretty poor manager.
2. God is able to manage my life much better than I can.
3. I think i will let Him do that.
These are the essence of the first 3 steps.
Sometimes, those are just enough, until it is time to move on.
Then the work starts. You dig through your past, write down your hurts, who you have hurt, basically lay out your history to yourself.
From there, it is confession time.
It has been my experience that the time spend confessing is not easy, but my sponsor was there to help me see patterns in my life.
Now the rest of the steps are here to help me go forward and learn to be closer to God, and a healthier human being.
I can't wait to see what happens.
