Breathe Easy

For the past three months, on my morning commute to work, I have been hitting the same wall over and over again. Do not worry, my car has survived the trip every day with ease. However, my poor nose has taken a beating day after day.
     
Every morning Monday through Friday I travel on I-40 East towards Midwest City and every morning my poor car hits a “wall” of a very fragrant aroma. The first couple of trips I assumed my car had somehow come across the carcass of a skunk or some other small animal and the smell would soon dissipate. And the smell would go away for a while, but every morning it would come back again.
       
After the first couple of weeks of these smelly episodes, I was starting to become annoyed because I thought someone needed to do something about the decaying body that was causing this potent tang. The next couple of months I figured there had to be a nearby landfill or factory of some sort because the stench only penetrated my car after the first seven to ten minutes of my drive. The weird thing is that the smell always seemed to be around the same part of the city near the Agnew exit.
       
Finally I called my husband one morning after cruising with my windows down and I began to waft in the all too familiar stench. I asked him what it could possibly be. “Stockyard City,” he told me.
All along I had been driving right next to a very large cattle-trading arena and did not realize it until someone else brought it to my attention. My “denial” of the issue, trying to ignore it and make excuses as to what could be causing, prevented me from reaching out sooner to discover the root cause.
       
I will be honest: it was almost a year after my first visit to Celebrate Recovery before I decided to truly face my denial and seek help for my addictions. The constant rationalization of behaviors and inability to acknowledge faults prevented me to seek help when the “stench” of my compulsions continued to hit me in the face.. It wasn’t until I fully committed myself to God and to my recovery that I was able to reach out and ask for help.
     
With the help of my sponsor and accountability partners, I was able to acknowledge my own denial and accept that if I continued to take that same path of denial then I would continue to drive into the same wall of cologne. Instead of aimlessly driving into the fragrant aroma of denial, with God and my forever family, I can roll up the windows in the car, turn on the A/C, and breathe easy.

Grateful Believer,

Gabby

I Celebrate Harmony

For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed making music. I have always loved to sing, but not just by myself. I need to find harmony in any song that I’m singing. When I was growing up, my older sisters were in a band. Sometimes, during practice, they would ask me to help find a harmony part in a song. I can’t remember if I was able to help, but I felt very special, being 10- years-old, to be asked to help find harmony in their music.

Later, when I was in junior high, two friends and I loved to sing together. We had a brief moment of small-town fame, appearing on a local TV show, singing our three-part harmony together. I began learning more about how to sing with others, learning that an important part of singing harmony is blending.  Blending means that my voice isn’t sticking out or calling attention to me by myself. My voice part adds to the group’s sound, and our harmony blends to make one beautiful sound.

In my years of recovery over my compulsion to overeat, and my depression, I have had periods of time where I decided to go it on my own. I was still attending my Celebrate Recovery meetings, but I was not enlisting the help of my accountability partners, my friends in recovery who are ready to encourage me.  I was not being completely transparent in my small groups; I was choosing to hide and keep secret the vulnerable and deepest parts of myself. I also was not asking after my accountability partners about THEIR struggles, choosing instead to isolate myself.
I was like a choir singer who decides to sing louder than the rest of her group.  The singer may be out of tune and off-beat, but she stubbornly sings on.

I think of the times my recovery has been on a healthy upswing, and how in those times I am in constant contact with my sponsor and accountability partners, my friends in recovery. We don’t just talk “recovery” to each other; we share light-hearted and fun times together as well as the rough stuff. In 1 Thessalonians 5:11 we are told to "…encourage one another and build each other up…"

This reminds me of my friend Connie, with whom I sang in college and afterwards.  We sang together in quite a few groups; so we intuitive blended in harmony no matter where we were singing. In fact, when we were sitting together, worshipping at church, we would catch ourselves breathing at the same times, and improvising things together that we had not rehearsed.  In the same way, when I am in tune with my recovery friends, my accountability team, we anticipate each other’s needs. More than a few times, a precious friend has unknowingly texted, called or emailed me right in a crucial moment when I needed to hear that word of encouragement.


God has given us each other to make harmony together on this walk.  There are no soloists here. 

Grateful Believer,

Angi

Be wise.

Fifteen years ago, I began making decisions based on my own selfish ambitions and desires.  Instead of making wise decisions, I decided to live the life of a fool.  Listen to the apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:15-17: “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”    

On Sunday evenings, we are in the middle of a sermon series titled, “Fool Proof: The One Question that Works for Every Decision.”  As a part of our recoveries, we make important decisions every day.  We decide to stay sober or not.  We decide to indulge in that dysfunctional behavior or relationship or not.  We decide to allow our hurts of the past or present to engulf us or not.  We make our decisions and then our decisions make us.  This is why it is vitally important to pray for God’s wisdom and strength so that we can understand His will for our lives and then carry that out.

So, what is that one question that always works?  Before we get to that question, it is vitally important that you seek wise counsel to help you adequately evaluate your past, present and future.  Then, with the help of your sponsor and accountability partners you can ask the one question that works: in light of my past experiences/failures, my present circumstances and my future goals, what is the wise thing for me to do?  What is the wise thing for you to do…in light of God’s will…making the most of every opportunity.

If we will run every decision we make through that filter, we can avoid living the life of a fool.  Be wise my friends.

Grateful believer,

Micah