Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Matthew 14:30
But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.
Hebrews 12:2
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Read more Bible http://www.bookbindery.c
My Prayer for the Day
"Heavenly Father, today I woke up with real knowingness of how important committal, follow through, acceptance and lower expectations does manifest into peace. I am 100% committed to You Father-first and foremost, so that takes a huge weight off! I am not wavering to and fro in faith. That is a wonderful feeling! Second-I am committed to my primary purpose...Steadfast and bold in how I teach, without fear. I don't have to worry Father, if somebody doesn't like or agree with me...they and I have a choice whether or not to work together...Anything forced and not genuine is not who I be anymore...I do not have to go against my soul to survive or to seek the approval of mankind...All I have to "be" is right by You. Thank you for disciplining me to my sobriety, then working with others, then emotional sobriety, then truth seeking which ultimately lead me to You Father! Thank You for teaching me how to be true to my word. To do what I say and say what I mean. Clear cut...no need for argument. Yes is yes, and no is no. Thank You for replacing seeking man/world approval with seeking You-again, what a weight off! Thank You for teaching me that it is NOT fair to put expectations on anyone...that they are humans that couldn't possible live up to my insane expectations and unrealistics demands. That burdening people with my needs and wants because of my defects or perceptions that came from my past, puts pressure on them that they don't know what to do with. They were not apart of my past....They are not me...how do I expect them to understand!? LOL
Thank You Father for showing me that I do not need a label or gimmick...I don't need to sell myself or convince others of my worth....That people feel at ease when I myself am at ease by just being me. In Jesus name-Amen"
James 1:5-8
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Today’s action
- Today I will Do what I Say and Say what I mean-Clear and percies instead of wishy washy leaving room to manipulate a desired outcome.
- Today I will fully commit to God, my purpose and to those who want to walk the walk.
- Today I chose to only work and have relationships with those who fully commit to me.
- Today I not settle for half measures
Reason, Season, And A Lifetime
People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you will know exactly what to do.
Some people come into our lives and quickly go..
Some people become friends and stay awhile...
leaving beautiful footprints on our hearts...
and we are never quite the same because we have made a good friend!!!
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.
When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season.
LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person or people involved; and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships, and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.
When you read this, just recite the following prayer.
That's all you have to do. There is nothing else attached.
This is the power of prayer at work.
May today there be peace within you.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities
that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received,
and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing that you are a child of God.
Let His presence settle into your bones,
and allow your soul the freedom to sing,
dance, and to bask in the sun.
It is there for each and every one of you.
Send this to the people in your life
and witness...
The Awesome Power of Prayer
More AA prayers http://silkworth.net/pages/aa/
Podcast of he Day
Joe and Charlie "Big Book Comes Alive"
Anyone who works with me knows how I feel about these two. When I got sober I was distracted and unable to focus...I would have been labeled ADHD for sure! I wouldn't concentrate...I had better things to "do" then read this book. I would figue sobriety out on my own! Meanwhile I continued to run around immersed in drama and fear, running a muck-sober. When all my decisions came crashing down upon me (in sobriety) I finally became willing to at least listen. I found the Joe and Charlie Big Book Comes alive...I listened to it while I walked, cleaned, before bed...I couldn't get enough. Then I finally read the damn book for myself! Old timers like these are to be learned from and passed down. I am beyond grateful for them. I STILL listen to them. Like the Big Book, Bible, or whatever else...going back a re reading stuff with a new set of eyes opens me up to a new experience each time. I am going to listen to them today while I craft!
Listen to more AA Podcast:
12 x 12 on Step Two
“Came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
"Now we come to another kind of problem: the intellectually self-sufficient man or woman. To these, many A.A.'s can say, “Yes, we were like you—far too smart for our own good. We loved to have people call us precocious. We used our education to blow ourselves up into prideful balloons, though we were careful to hide this from others. Secretly, we felt we could float above the rest of the folks on our brainpower alone. Scientific progress told us there was nothing man couldn't do. Knowledge was all-powerful. Intellect could conquer nature. Since we were brighter than most folks (so we thought), the spoils of victory would be
ours for the thinking. The god of intellect displaced the God of our fathers." pg 29-30
Hil's blah
On my best day, my intellect got me in trouble....even in sobriety. I came to believe that I am not all that in Step Two.
“As psychiatrists have often observed, defiance is the outstanding characteristic of many an alcoholic. So it's not strange that lots of us have had our day at defying God Himself. Sometimes it's because God has not delivered us the good things of life which we specified, as a greedy child makes an impossible list for Santa Claus. More often, though, we had met up with some major calamity, and to our way of thinking lost out because God deserted us. The girl we wanted to marry had other notions; we prayed God that she'd change her mind, but she didn't. We prayed for healthy children, and were presented with sick ones, or
none at all. We prayed for promotions at business, and none came. Loved ones, upon whom we heartily depended, were taken from us by so-called acts of God. Then we became drunkards, and asked God to stop that. But nothing happened. This was the unkindest cut of all. 'Damn this faith
business!' we said." Pg 31
Hil's blah
Outright defiance. I didn't want to do things their way...The harder I fought for my way the more miserable and alone I became. If the world wasn't gonna conform to me then I would be damned if I would conform to it! I was damned-by my own resistance. Resistance to change, resistance to jobs, resistance to rules, resistance to the weather! For example; When I was I cheerleader (don't judge) I felt fat on a particular day...We had to do a rally at school. I refused to wear my vest...instead I wore my sweatshirt...Of course that be the day that they took pictures for yearbook...There we all were, doing our dance and me standing out in my sweatshirt! Standing out is what I wanted of course, but always went about it in the wrong way! LOL! I looked like a totally ass.
I felt fat so the squad looked unorganized and unkempt. I took this way of doing stuff into adulthood. Outright defiance into the workplace and relationships. How Hilarie felt that day, what Hilarie wanted to do, what Hilarie was suffering from, all makes for resistance and discourse. Why my need to hold on to this??Security? Control, self seeking, false pride, the world revolves around me and my feelings attitude. The fight for my way because I felt gross or empty or sad is NOT everyones else problem...period! I have to face this stuff and fix it-not dump on others and expect them to.
Guess what remedies self pity and selfishness...."How can I be of service to you today?:" I learned that from AA. AA taught me how not to be an asshole...When everyone else either threw up their hands and gave in to "my way" or left or fired my stubborn ass...furthering my delusion of "woe is me". God gave us a simple kit, through AA of spiritual to tools to grow the F@#% up and stop over complicating my life and everyone else's! What a gift!
Read more 12 X 12 http://www.portlandeyeopener.c
Big Book There is a Solution....Cont..
"A certain American business man had ability, good sense, and high character. For years he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. He had consulted the best known American psychiatrists. Then he had gone to Europe, placing himself in the care of a celebrated physician (the psychiatrist, Dr. Jung) who prescribed for him. Though experience had made him skeptical, he finished his treatment with unusual confidence. His physical and mental condition were unusually good. Above all, he believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable. Nevertheless, he was drunk in a short time. More baffling still, he could give himself no satisfactory explanation for his fall.
So he returned to this doctor, whom he admired, and asked him point-blank why he could not recover. He wished above all things to regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well-balanced with respect to other problems. Yet he had no control whatever over alcohol. Why was this?
He begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth, and he got it. In the doctor’s judgment he was utterly hopeless; he could never regain his position in society and he would have to place himself under lock and key or hire a bodyguard if he expected to live long. That was a great physician’s opinion.
But this man still lives, and is a free man. He does not need a bodyguard nor is he confined. He can go anywhere on this earth where other free men may go
without disaster, provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude. Some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with his doctor.
The doctor said: “You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen one single case recover, where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does in you.’’ Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang.
He said to the doctor, “Is there no exception?’’ “Yes,’’ replied the doctor, “there is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. In fact, I have been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. With many individuals the methods which I employed are successful, but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description.”*
Upon hearing this, our friend was somewhat relieved, for he reflected that, after all, he was a good church member. This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctor’s telling him that while his religious convictions were very good, in his case they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience."
Read more Big Book http://www.portlandeyeopener.c
AA History
Lets Ask Bill W.
Question:
How do you justify calling alcoholism an illness, and not a moral responsibility?
Answer:
"Early in A.A.'s history, very natural questions arose among theologians. There was a Mr. Henry Link who had written "The Return to Religion (Macmillan Co., 1937). One day I received a call from him. He stated that he strongly objected to the A.A. position that alcoholism was an illness. This concept, he felt, removed moral responsibility from alcoholics. He had been voicing this complaint about psychiatrists in the American Mercury. And now, he stated, he was about to lambaste A.A. too. Of course, I made haste to point out that we A. A.'s did not use the concept of sickness to absolve our members from moral responsibility. On the contrary, we used the fact of fatal illness to clamp the heaviest kind of moral responsibility on to the sufferer. The further point was made that in his early days of drinking the alcoholic often was no doubt guilty of irresponsibility and gluttony. But once the time of compulsive drinking, veritable lunacy had arrived and he couldn't very well be held accountable for his conduct. He then had a lunacy which condemned him to drink, in spite of all he could do; he had developed a bodily sensitivity to alcohol that guaranteed his final madness and death. When this state of affairs was pointed out to him, he was placed immediately under the heaviest kind of pressure to accept A.A.'s moral and spiritual program of regeneration - namely, our Twelve Steps. Fortunately, Mr. Link was satisfied with this view of the use that we were making of the alcoholic's illness. I am glad to report that nearly all theologians who have since thought about this matter have also agreed with that early position. While it is most obvious that free will in the matter of alcohol has virtually disappeared in most cases, we A.A. 's do point out that plenty of free will is left in other areas, It certainly takes a large amount of willingness, and a great exertion of the will to accept and practice the A.A. program. It is by this very exertion of the will that the alcoholic corresponds with the grace by which his drinking obsession can be expelled." (N.C.C.A. 'Blue Book', Vol.12, 1960)http://www.silkworth.net/
1 Thessalonians Chapter 5But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.
See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
Rejoice evermore.Pray without ceasing.In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.Quench not the Spirit.Despise not prophesyings.Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.Abstain from all appearance of evil.
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.Brethren, pray for us.Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.
I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.