Quote:
"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. `d**n this faith
business!' we said."When we encountered A.A,, the fallacy of our defiance was revealed. At no time had we asked what God's will was for us; instead we had been telling Him what it ought to be. No man, we saw, could believe in God and defy Him, too.
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Defiance a good way to seperate myself from God. For so many years it was my way or the highway. I was raised with this belief. If it wasn't done my Mother's way, it wasn't good enough. If it wasn't done my husband's way, I was less than. If it was my way, I am selfish and self-centered. As I learned to have faith and trust my Higher Power, I grew to trust myself and the faith grew.
I certainly had things happen that made me think God was not on my side. Witnessing my brother's death, my mother's early death, our house struck by lightning, the abuse and the rapes, didn't give me much faith that God believed in me. I was given so many rules and regulations and over the years I was guilty of bending them if I didn't break them. My life was so full of 'thou shall nots' that I feared that I was going to hell in a hand basket. I was surprised that I lived to make recovery. Through the program I learned to have faith in myself through trusting a Higher Power who I came to believe would guide and direct me a day at a time. He was no longer that distant being but an intricate part of my life.
In today, I always say "Thy will not mine be done." Often I have had to pray for the willingness to be willing to have God's will be done. So many times I have changed direction only to be brought back until the lesson is learned. I don't believe God tests us. I believe we test God. How many times over the years I have said, "I didnt' want a part of God, but what I didn't want was the constriction of relgious beliefs and the self-righteous sinners.
I remember my first husband didn't want me to smoke. I had a small pack of Rothman's that I kept for coffee break and when I went out with the girls. He found it and said, "I told you not to smoke." He took the pack in his hand and crumpled it and threw it into the wastebasket. I picked out the butts. This is the man who use to smoke. This is the man who ran around on me with other women and left when his son was two months old.
My aunt called my sister an angel because she was Sunday School superintendant and I was according to her a 'sinner' saved by grace. SIN means l) Social Insurance Number - I am no longer a nobody, I am a somebody who matters. 2) I am a Soul In Need who always looked outside of herself to find happiness and contentment and didn't know she could go within and connect to a Higher Power. That is why I call myself a Godly Heathen. I shared this at an out of town meeting where I got asked to share my story ten minutes before the meeting started. A young fellow came up to me and thanked me for sharing, he too was having a problems with his religious upbringing. When things like that happens, I am sure that they are of the Spirit.
So many times, I sit down to share on the computer or when I am to speak or share at a meeting, I ask for the words, direction and the knowingness. I often have to read what has come out because it seems like the fingers did the walking. People have come up after me and said, "I like what you shared, but I have no memory of the words that have come out." For me I am a channel, and that is why I quit smoking. I wanted to be a clear and clean channel to carry the message of recovery.
To be continued...