Lesson Learned

I learned a lesson last Saturday. 

A friend of mine, well a relatively new friend of mine, wrote a book.  I met her during the summer of 2011 when my daughter was lifeguarding at the pool in her neighborhood.  At the time, my daughter was in graduate school, and it was an easy job, where she could read her books and still be outside. Anyway, every morning this woman came and would swim for an hour, then leave. She and my daughter were usually the only ones there at the time, so they would talk and eventually, struck up an acquaintance.  She told my daughter she was writing a book.  My daughter referred to her as, 'The Writer.'  She asked my daughter and me to read her manuscript as she would finish the chapters and find any mistakes, or make any suggestions.  So, we did.  Two weeks ago, the writer sent me an email inviting us to her book signing and the first of several workshops she is having that deal with the subject matter of the book.  It was two Saturdays, ago.  I wasn't going to go, though I sent her an email congratulating her and telling her I would try to come. Really, at the time, I had no intention of going.  My daughter hadn't been drinking, but there was still a sadness or cloud that permeated our house.  It had nothing to do with my daughter or me.  I think it was the lingering presence of the fear of what the addiction would do next and the memory of what it has done.

That email from The Writer, caused some internal shifting within me.  I don't really know why, but I started dialoguing with myself on why I should go and why I shouldn't go. 

During that week, my daughter started drinking, again.  I don't know why, and since then, she has told me that she didn't intend to drink, but did anyway.  All I said to her at the time was, "Aren't you sick of this, yet?", as I walked out of her room and closed the door (She has since, stopped, again.  I am hopeful she finds the inner strength to continue).

I have said this before, here, but I want to restate it.  I look at everything as a spiritual battle.  During the week before the book signing, when my daughter was drinking and the atmosphere here became so heavy and thick with hopelessness, I had a thought.  I'm not sure if it was that inner voice (that is never wrong, in my opinion), Divine Intervention, or just a  struggling idea finally breaking through the fog in my mind, but the thought was this:  "I have given addiction more power than God."  I repeated it, "I have given addiction more power than God."  I kept repeating it, like you would when talking to someone who has fainted to try and wake them up, I kept repeating that thought to myself, and slowly felt my own mind starting to wake up.  A mild revelation on my way to an epiphany.

I remembered what I had heard, here, reading other blogs, as well as at the Al-Anon meetings, that you have to detach.  I was resistant to that idea because I always thought it meant detaching from my daughter.  For me, I realized it meant detaching from the addiction.  Not giving it power, anymore.  And especially, not giving it more power than God.  Understanding that was like the morning sunlight starting to break up a hovering fog.  That Saturday, I freely, went to the book signing.  I did not drag along the addiction and all of it's cohorts with me.  The workshop was lead by a woman who's profession was as a  Christian counselor.  She talked about a lot of bits and pieces from the book.  One was the idea of fear. My ears perked up.  I live in fear.  Fear is what is clogging my brain half of the time. Fear walks with me and taunts me.  Reminds me of all of my mistakes and memories I'd like to leave behind.  Fear is the conductor of this orchestra of dreadful music that never seems to stop playing in my mind.  I drank in her words. She mentioned the bible verse:  2 Timothy 1:7 where it talks about God not giving you the spirit of fear, but of power, love and self-discipline.  WOW, how powerful is that!  The spirit of power, love and self-discipline.  God does not give you the spirit of fear.  So, obviously, I've been allowing something other than God to be in charge of my life. 

I left that workshop with a new attitude.  As I listened to everything that was being discussed, I finally admitted to myself that I can no longer whine (internally and with God) about my circumstances.  I can't play victim.  I can't be weak in my conviction and understanding about my spiritual life.  I believe in God and that requires work on my part.  There is another bible verse that I heard at church one time.  During one of my frustrating, 'why me' conversations with God, I demanded a 'formula' because obviously, since life wasn't going in the direction I had planned, I was missing something.  The verse in church that Sunday had been Philippians 4:6 where it talks about not being anxious for anything but come to God in prayer, supplication and thanksgiving.  An equation that I have been adhering to when I decide to pray. 

How did I apply that to what I heard here and at Al-Anon?  I learned what it means to live your life.  YOUR life.  It's important not to lose yourself in someone else's life because there are different perspectives and needs with each person.  You can live with someone and beside someone, but you can't live for someone.  Our lives are too unique and individual to be able to live another's life for them.  Or visa verse.  I get it now.

So, that is my new conviction. Live my life, remember that God does not give the spirit of fear, and apply the equation of prayer when I pray.  For me, they are three pieces to my puzzle that I discovered two weeks ago. Though I don't have a clear picture of where my life is now, I can look at different sections of this puzzle it has become, and make out familiar shapes and figures.  Ever since, I have been actively applying that to each day, and only the day.  During that same week, I heard someone say that regretting the past and worrying about the future robs you of your present.  So true.

One last thing.   My friend's book is entitled, "I Want a New Life."   What a great title.