Honesty, Openess & Willingness: Part Two Honesty With Others

Honesty with others...I love this part! For me it was such a freeing experience to know that my past, what others might think of me and my own personal image no longer define me. Today it is my faith in Jesus Christ that truly sets me fee from these things, I realize today that my weaknesses and strengths all come from how he created me. I no longer have to fit in this framework of what the world tells me I should be, what I should have, or what I should think. Its just to hard just to much maitenance, no matter what expectation I try to live to or what next best thing I try it all fails me.  I have found that when I can embrace who I am in Christ and how he created me to be I am the most service to him and my fellow brother and sister.

Today I really try to remember that my past life of drinking, drugging, partying, etc...is not what makes me who I am today nor does it dictate to me the kind of future I have in front of me. My past is for Jesus a tool for me to relate to and have empathy for the person who is also in the same spot. My colorful past is just a testimony to how the love, grace and salvation that comes from the gospel changes the worst of sinners heart righting them on a path of life they never thought imaginable. I share my past openly and honestly today with anyone, I have found that it not only releases any power those things have over me but it also leads to people feeling comfortable enough to share about victories and obstacles in their lives as well. It creates a transparency with another person that allows me to take the relationship to a whole other level of openness.

Perhaps the hardest part of openness with others for me is the whole admitting when I'm wrong or struggling part. My pride and ego hate this, but its a good thing to be humbled and I have pretty much gotten comfortable being in the humbled state, I am not saying that to brag but because it feels like I have to apologize quite a bit. See, I have a brain, and I have a mouth and sometimes the filter between the two doesn't work fast enough. I often find myself apologizing for saying something I probably shouldn't have, usually the other party is like what are you talking about? But I gotta share whats on my heart...I do not like carrying that stuff around in there...it sucks! I gotta get it off my chest, pray for forgiveness and awareness and keep moving forward. Now not only do I have to admit when I am wrong but I have to also admit when my butt is falling off onto the ground, for me this doesn't just mean struggling with some aspect of life but I have to let people know when I feel hurt or feel upset. Again for me these things tear me up inside and if I don't handle them properly they lead to me dwelling and constantly thinking about them which then leads to resentment. The same is true with struggling, if something has got me down I am quick to offload it first to Jesus and then to someone else in my network of friends and family. It releases all power its holding on within me and I keep moving forward...sometimes I am back in prayer or on the phone again in an hour but I just cant hold onto that stuff...its spiritually draining.

Anyway thats my experience with openness with others, I thank God for the relationships I have today which the other person and I share this kind of openness. I really think that it was how God designed them to be and in the middle of them is a deep relationship that is beneficial to both persons. I Love It!

Honesty, Openess & Willingness: Part One Honesty With God.

It is said in the rooms of AA and CR all the time and I really believe that they are a key to sobriety and even life in general. I have been away from the keyboard lately...wedding planning is crazy! Not to mention life is really good right now and I rejoice in that because so often the hard times are all we talk about but the good times should be celebrated also. In the next couple of blogs I will spell out what this statement means to me one word at a time, and hopefully at the end there will be a beautiful set of three well written and thought out bloggs that may be a point of experience, strength and hope for another person. Ha! Okay just the experience, strength and hope part then! I think I will start off with honesty.

Rigorous honesty with God, myself and my fellows is the only way that I can be happy in sobriety and in life in general for that matter. I have tried living a life full of lies and have found that it was completly exhausting and a terrible burden no one should have to bear. This was the first thing Jesus addressed in my life after turning to him. His truths that I read in the Bible were like a searchlight to my soul revealing all the lies I had bought into, this continues still everyday. I find myself today just as I was three years ago as a new believer in Christ constantly going to Christ seeking his forgiveness. Martin Luther said a Christians life is one of repentance, I think this is absolutely correct and it is the path in which I open myself up to God in honesty. Im not repenting because I broke some rule but because I realize that I am in no way perfect and that I am costantly dealing with issues related to my pride, ego, anger, etc...etc...Its in this honesty with God that I am built up in faith because I feel and know that he is a God of grace and he casts my sin as far as the East is from the West so that its shame and guilt well not be there to pull me down. This in turn builds my faith and the reassurance in knowing that I can live in this world but not be conformed I am only formed by my relationship with Christ. This is the freedom I gain in walking honestly with Christ, its foolish to think that I can hide anything from him anyway but in doing so I am also carrying the burden of that lie with no one to give it to which gives all the power and control to that one lie and no worldly power can relieve me from that, forgiveness and rightousness only comes from Christ.

Fellowship: Part II

Well fellowship again has been on my heart over the past few weeks and I figured that meant it would be a good time to wrap up my thoughts on fellowship. Its probably about time because the topic has been left open for a month or so now, not that people are nit hanging on the edge of their seat to get it because I think only five people read this. Which is perfectly fine by me, I started the blog simply because it was on my heart for a long time, until one day I acted on it and now three months later hear I am. Pretty cool, anyways I should probably get on topic here. Fellowship, over the past few weeks it has been amazing to me to think about how much fellowship means to me and how it has gradually and sometimes suddenly changed my life. As you will read in Fellowship I my whole idea of fellowship was based around partying and belonging. I didnt want anyone too close I always kept them at a arms distance never opening up who I really was for fear of failure or rejection.

Today I see fellowship as a much more different thing...I love being in the rooms of A.A. or C.R. and seeing new comers or people who ask for help being swarmed after meetings by smiling faces and open arms. A place where true relation happens, hopefully this happens not because the person offering feels obligated or is forcing it but because there is a understanding or apathy for where that person is, because they have been there worked through it and came through stronger with more understanding.  I truly believe that these things are the scars and thorns we have to be willing to share and open up about to others to show the glory of Christ's work within us. This is why personal testimonies are so powerful, we can relate to and meet these people sharing about their lives exactly where they are. We can share with them about those emotions that they are feeling during those really hard moments because we have those emotions and feelings too! Yet they have overcomed and have actually come to terms enough with their past to be able to share about it in hopes that another wont walk down their road. I see this everyday in the rooms of A.A. and C.R. and what it creates is a breeding ground for fellowsip to happen and be facilitated. There is true beauty in seeing someone who is broken and beatdown realize that they are not alone and in fact many others struggle with the exact very same thing and have moved on from it...being able to see someone who has what we have and be willing to do what we have to do to get it. The first step: Realizing that I have a problem.

I have a big problem and the problem is me. It truly is a miracle of God that I am where I am today because in all honesty I should have died quite a few times in my life. I had problems, problems I thought were mine and only mine, well thats not true they are God's all God's because he has taken a life full of darkness, sadness and despair and shone a light and given a reason and a will to live within me. Part of life for me now is living like an open book, I have to admit my mistakes, when I am wrong and quickly make ammends to those I have hurt. Not only do I do these things but I also stay open about my past and where I have been because I believe that fellowship with another human being begins with honesty and relation. These things cannot happen without me being willing to share who I am....who I really am with another human being. As a Christian, sober person, recovery person, it is in these times when I do the aformentioned things I feel God's transformative work in my life being used to bless another paerson...Its amazing!!

So Much to be Thankful For!

I love Thanksgiving, it is probably my favorite holiday because of the simple fact that it is based off of gratitude. Its not selfish...besides stuffing your face, its not commercialized and it is simply families getting together to enjoy one another and eat some great food. For me personally I love how the holiday always sends me internal reflecting on all the things I am grateful for in my life.

I am thankful for our Lord Jesus Christ, his whole life dedicated in his love for us so that we may know life and life eternal with him. I am thankful that not only has he saved my life, but he is also transforming it daily, shaping and molding me into a man fit to serve him and those around me. I am thankful that God has given us things like the Word, prayer and fellowship, all vital to my spirtual formation, the building of Faith, and understanding of Him and his ways. The past three years of walking with Him has been the most amazing, crazy thing ever and I look forward to a future of serving and loving Him.

I am extremly thankful this year for being blessed in finding a wife!! I am so thankful for my fiancee, she is an amazing woman who has stepped into my life and captivated my heart! Her love is amazing and I am so thankful that I am a the man who gets to experience that, it truly is a blessing. I love how being with her pushes me to want to be a better man, to move forward spiritually, to open my mind to other things. She challenges me and I love it, Christ is clearly using her to grow me and I hope I have the same effect on her. I am thankful for her son and my soon to be step son Andrew. It is amazing what a grown man can learn from an 8-year old boy, he has shown me soo much, specifically on what it means to love unselfishly. He has brought much joy in my life and oddly enough its the little things that have the largest impact on me. It is my hope and prayer that I will be a good man for him in the future and a good example of a spiritual man.

Lastly but not anywhere near the end of my thankful list is family and freinds. There is no question that I would not be where I am today had I not been blessed with the family I have. My mother and father have supported me through amazingly dark times in my life, when I couldnt even believe in myself they did. They continue to support me today and I know I can go to the with anything and they would be there for me, that is truly a great feeling. I am thankful for my brother and sister in law, my brother showed me what it means to be a man, to work hard, to be a good husband and father. He is truly a great man and he and his wife put up with me for quite awhile and I am thankful they loved me through it. I am thankful for all my family they are great people who I love very much, who believe in me even when I cant. Also, for my niece and nephew who prayed for me long before I knew the Lord, it worked! I am thankful for y sister because she is an awesome woman!

There is much to be thankful for in my life, it has gone through a reconstructive surgery the past three years, it truly is amazing. I am thankful that Christ is there and working when we cant even see or detect him because I have found that he has been working a mighty thing through subtle variances in my life and for that I am thankful. 

F.E.A.R

Face Everything And Recover, I heard this the other day at my home metting of Alcoholics Anoynomous for the first time ever since being in the rooms of alcoholics anoynomous. Of course I have heard many other acronyms for the great feeling/reaction of fear, one that I used to live my life by is Forget Everything And Run. Fear or my lack of ability to handle it properly played a huge role in my life and continues to be a huge part of my spiritual formation today. When I was drinking and in the depths of my alcoholism fear is what drived my  lack of motivation to try and help myself. When I was drinking I was fearless, alcohol allowed me to escape from my fellings of worthlessness, low esteem, shame and guilt, into another realm of existence where I did not have those things pulling me down. In a sense I had a fear of my feelings, I had no clue how to manage my own feelings in a natural beneficial way, the only way I knew to handle them was to get wasted. So as you can imagine this made it very difficult for me to succeed in trying to stay sober on my own accord. Everytime I tried to get sober the feelings would just come crashing back in, all the fearful thoughts like "what if I am alone?", "what if I cant mix with a non alcoholic crowd?", "what if I fail again? Just like I always do?", What if someone finds out about my past?" These and a million other thoughts and fears would come crashing in causing me to run straight back to the party life in order to escape my fears yet again. After the cycle repeated itself again and again I thought it futile to even try and fight and figured I had been doomed to this life I had chosen for myself.

This was as far from the truth as could be and in fact it was at this low spot in my life that for the first time in my life I was at a place where I realized I was completely powerless over my ability to do the right thing. This is where God needed me to be in order that I may fully trust him and his work in my life...It was like in the movies where the hero comes in and says, "If you want to live, come with me." Only with Jesus it is "If you want to live have faith in me," from hope came faith and through faith came the ability to face my fears and actually do the right thing when faced with choices. I didnt even realize it, but this faith carried me through prison crashing through fears and adversity, things that would normally make me crumble were being faced and dealt with, the beauty of it was all I was doing was walking in faith and doing the next right indicated thing. It wasnt until I was out of prison and on my sixth step that I would have my first realized bout with facing my deep fears. I had many small bouts before this one but this one would be the one that changed my life, where I would learn the lesson face everything and recover.

Step 6 says: "We were entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character." At this time I had my defects of character listed and fresh on my mind from my fouth and fifth step, I was praying to God daily to help remove these defects and reveal to me any others that I had missed. However in the midst of all this I felt very unhappy and depressed about recovery, it was like I was at this point where I was either going to buy into this thing fully or do it my own way. I think I feared completly letting go of the old Richard, there was a big part of me that feared where this life would lead me, what it would turn me into and who I would become.  My character defect fear reared its ugly head and again I was allowing my own understanding and perceptions to govern what I thought was right. It was at this point where God came pounding through in my heart and prayers showing me that I had to crash through the fears and TRUST!! He was not letting me go and I felt this overwhelming feeling that I just had to step out yet again and trust God and his direction and care. I did then and I contnue to do the same thing everyday, I have learned that in facing my fears my faith in Christ is bolstered and through those encounters something is always revealed to me about who I am.

So today I dont walk in fear I walk in faith, knowing that whatever life throws at me isnt an opportunity to run but an opportunity to embrace and grow with Christ. One of my favorite books in the bible is 1Peter and my all time favorite set of verses which I'll end with that relates completly to this topic is 1Peter 1:3-10, in verses 6-9 Peter says:

"⁶In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

A Fellowship: Part I

I love being happy, today is just one of those days where I went to work and nothing crazy happened, everything was smooth operating. I was able to pause at work during lunch and have a fantastic conversation with someone very close to me. Then after returning to work I had a great conversation with my boss, who always gives me a good laugh and inspired attitude...and no I dont think he reads this! lol! Not to mention its Friday and I look forward to a night spent with good fellowship and food...which to me is always a great thing...I like food! I think the real kicker has got to be this action packed fun weekend planned, filled with family and freinds just hanging out and enjoying each others company. I am so thankful for the fantastic people God has placed around me the past couple of years, all of which have been so instrumental in bringing me where I am today and have all pitched in in teaching me about life.

There are two things that are always said in AA and Celebrate Recovery one is that the programs are programs of action and two the programs are not "I" programs but "WE" programs. The founders of these programs realized in the very beginning that recovery cannot be had on our own will power, we had to put our faith in God and the people in these programs that had what every broken person wants...freedom from the results of that brokeness. I find this extremely true because I cant tell you how many times I tried to abstain from a variety of things on my own accord to quickly find myself failing yet again. When I came into these programs I quickly found fellowship among those who were alot like me that I could relate to in a variety of ways. I started to call these people and to hang out with these people and by the grace of God and strong relationships they showed me how to live a different way...a more fantastic fulfilling way might I add...really beyond my greatest idea of what the good life was or would be. I came to find out that one of the main reasons I felt the need to go out and do the things I did was because I was lonely or feared being alone, well that fear was replaced with love from God and another human being. The coolest thing about it is, now that I am on the12th step I have the great blessing of being that for another broken person just through living out my transformed life.

Ramblings of a Sick Man

I hate being sick. Today I have one of those head colds, you know the type, where your head feels like its in the clouds with earmuffs on. The kind where when you swallow your ears pop like you've driven up the face of Everest, yeah its one of those pressurized doldrums head cold. I think its kinda funny because I sort of liken myself as a fairly tough guy...I mean I can handle some pain and don't fear too many things, but when it comes to being sick I turn into quite the sissy. I know I am not the only guy who does this though, not that it makes it justified or anything...I am just saying I have seen the way some men act while being sick. Its like it gives me a reason to drop my man card and open myself up to compassion, nurturing, and loving, is this a bad thing? No, I think its okay to put the guard down and accept that someone can take care of me and that I need help and actually desire that from another human being. Is it bad that I and other men have to be in a state of weakness and discomfort before we ask for help? 

I think the answer to the question has to be yes, I dont know when or where I got this idea that I had to do everything on my own and to ask for help or to need help was somehow failing as a man. It is the most idiotic idea and it really has gotten me into some tough spots along my journey through life. I have been quick to deny help from God, family and friends in some kind of attempt to prove that I could do it myself, when in the end I was just flailing about foolishly while I continued to drown. Is this how it was all designed to be? For me, in my drowning and all my flailing about, it revealed to me why I need God and those around me all the more.

Since walking with God I see that I cant take the world on my shoulders, thats an expectation no person can bear. In the past I would see the need for help as weakness or try to place my worth as a man on whether or not I succeeded in doing on my own. In truth the weaker man is actually the one who thinks they can take on the world by themselves. It is a true test of integrity and character in a man to be able to humble himself and ask for help. Not to mention I have also heard that its pretty attractive, so just a little bonus! lol!  

I have to have humility and humbleness in all things, leaning on those around me, who in turn lean on me as we persevere through this thing that is life. In hopes that we can be a blessing to one another, while loving, singing praise and bringing Glory to our Father.

Embracing Me:Part II (Actually Embracing Christ)

I am so thankful for God today! His grace, mercy and love has brought me to a point in life I really never thought possible for me. Totally free from having to feel as if I have to live up to some standard that is impossible to live up to. Free from having to over compensate in my personality and life in order to be accepted by my peers and those around me. Through God's grace and transforming love I no longer have to put on the fronts, I understand the beauty of living life genuinely I no longer have to feel as if I am hiding something because that something is no longer there it has been cast as far as the east is from the west. In its place my identity is now solely in my relationship with Christ, not of the things of this world or the people in it, but in the one who sustains it all. All those other things fail me, let me down, produce false images of who I think I should be when in the end it is just a masquerade of lies. No, I must put my faith in Jesus and allow him to define who I am, to allow his truth and his word to transform my life, daily giving my life to him as he did for me in an attempt to not serve myself but rather serve him. Not in a heart a slavery but in  a heart of love, obedience and gratitude because today I know a small piece of life and who I am through him. Prior to Jesus I was mearly existing but now I live, this has only been possible through the transforming love, grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. I have learned that it is really okay for me to be me, because it is only when I am truly embracing who he created me to be that I am most useful to him and those around me. The only way I can do this is by living openly and honestly with God, myself and those around me practicing humility, love and obedience as I continue to persevere in trying to understand life and who I am in Christ, always hoping to be more and more like him everyday.