Weekly Meeting 4/23-4/29

[snugsnug]

hey family, just so happens i was cruising the site the other day and low-and-behold tammy snags me and has me do some service work. this kind of reminded me of the first NA convention i went to. i was about sixty days clean, still shaking from head to toe. my sponsor suggested i come and get some phone numbers, and i did. he also told me i could get a newcomers package if i did some service work, and i did. today i do service work because i want to, and it helps me stay humble and clean.

now a topic for the week, since today is my clean day anniversary i have been cllean for 1096 days and nights, i think it is appropriate for me to ask the question. why is it important to have a Higher Power, and for that Higher Power to be loving and caring?

I will share my ESH on this topic later on, and i do reserve the right to share more than once.

thanks family for welcoming me back, and it is good to be back.

[clean42day]

why is it important to have a Higher Power, and for that Higher Power to be loving and caring?

Hey (((Snug))) great toipic

for me there are a couple of reasons: first as they say in the big book -

" A lack of power is my dilemma" and it must come from somewhere - so why not a loving God?

I can remember making so many of the wrong things my "higher power" - first my parents and their approval, men and relationships, then drugs and the pipe....even guilt and shame were very controlling higher powers in my life for a VERY LONG TIME- why not try something healthy huh

but something that made sense of me early on in treatment - a counselor suggested that I give God permission to be my new "spiritual parent" - to replace the parents that I didn't get as a child. One that would love me unconditionally, but at the same time, teach me self-dicipline with spiritual principals as my guideline. This made sense to me intellectually.....learning to trust spiritually and emotionally was another story and a process of growth.

I think it is very important to have a loving and caring higher power because so much of our human experience is based on "conditional" love and unstable love - only when we are "good" do we get love and acceptance.....ect. Spiritual love is bigger than that....and the highest form of love.

for me my HP loves me and cares for me "through" my mistakes in choices and behavior. love and caring are the only things that can "heal" wounds and fear and encourage people to move forward. it is just as important to have "something" or someone believe in us as it is for us to have something to believe in. I feel that the God of my understanding also "beleives" in me....in the same way a parent would believe in their own child.


So it is important for me to have one stable unwavering power in my life that I can absolutley rely on, depend on, believe in, and trust with all my heart to not fail me. When I don't have the power in my life - I rely on his eternal and all encompasing spiritual power.

One thing that I have also found very comforting in my own concept of God is that he is not "out there" somewhere - his eternal wisdom and love are the seeds he planted inside my own heart at the moment of my birth - I can choose not to listen but I don't have to look far to find him or to hear his voice - I believe he lives within me and through me - and my part is carrying out his will for my life. He is the one "soul" that we all spring from and my life is an expression of his essence.

one quote I happen to love is:

God gave me this life as a gift - what I do with it is my gift back to him.

Turning the guilt ridden and shame based God from my childhood - into my own conception of a loving higher power that can "parent" me with kindness and devotion - has made all the difference in the world in my recovery.

light and love

Gail

to me this is not a love song to another person..... but to God:

THE LOVE I'VE FOUND IN YOU - BY JIM BRICKMAN

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN:
http://www.imeem.com/ladysilver/musi..._found_in_you/

You are the air I need to breathe
the river of life inside of me
you are the half that made me whole
you are the anchor of my soul

and you are strong when I am weak
you are the words when I can't speak
you never fail to see me through
that's the love I found in you

you are my shelter from the storm
you are the road that leads me home
and baby with you here face to face
Oh I know I've found my place

and you are strong when I am weak
you are the words when I can't speak
you never fail to see me through
that's the love I found in you

and once in every life
you find the one that's right
and when you say forever it's true
That's the love I found in you

You are strong when I am weak
you are the words when I can't speak
you never fail to see me through
That's the love I found in you

That's the love, love I found in you

[sioux]

My life before abandoning myself to this simple program is testamony for not having a power greater than myself to direct my thinking and actions. Self-will run riot leaves no room for the humility to be wrong. I had to drink over stuff like that. Today I don't.

[thereishope]

Hello
Well for me, if i dont have my higher power "i have nothing", My higher power is my everything. As long as i hold on to HIM with every thread of by being, everything else in my life follows after. Because of HIM my higher power, my life is so much better that i could ever have even imagined. I dont ever want to live my life without my higher power again.
Because my higher power is so loving and caring and showes me the way, i in turn have learned to be loving and caring towards others.
Thank you for letting me share

[noshoes]

Originally Posted by snugsnug

h why is it important to have a Higher Power, and for that Higher Power to be loving and caring?

I learned "that probably no human power could have relieved my alcoholism".
So a power greater than myself was needed to do it. I didn't have recognized access to that power for many years. I even consumed masive amounts of LSD looking for GOD. And I bounced in and out of the program for years looking for GOD. I had lost my belief in the GOD of my childhood, when I was a child. But it was the only GOD I'd ever known. So I kept looking for that white haired guy on a throne up in the clouds. Couldn't find him. I finally quit looking for GOD, and started looking for a higher power. Not a loving caring higher power, just one that could and would relieve my alcoholism. I started looking for what is out there that might be a power greater than myself.... The first one I found was music. Music could make me happy, sad, glad, mad, etc...in other words, it could control my life. So I turned my will and my life over to the care of Bob Marley and the Wailers. And I didn't drink or use.
I've gone thru many higher powers in the time I've been sober. And now I know alot less about my god than I did when I started. The best discription I've ever heard was from a native american in a meeting. He called his higher power, "The great mystery" Which made good sense to me. God is a mystery. How does god figure stuff out? On one hand, theres war, famine, child molesters, cancer...all this crap, and on the other there's, springtime flowers, summer rains, sunsets, sunrises, a childs laugh, lagsagne ....all these nice things. How does god reconcile the differences? It's a mystery to me.
So for me, a higher power was important as a source of power to do for me what I could not. I've never considered "loving and caring" as important.
Just there, was good enough for me...thanks for the topic.....neil

[admin]

Without God in my life I would be lost. It is because of God I am here today sober and clean. I can't, He can and I let Him. It gives me great comfort to know that God will always love me, care for me and be here for me. No matter where I am in life, no matter what is going on, I know I am not alone anymore because God is here with me - anywhere and everywhere. I give Him praise and thanks for all He has done for me and strive to share the goods news with others and pass it on.