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.

By His Grace

What a great Christmas! Its a crazy time of the year, this year was especially crazy for me as I got the blessing to be able to spend it with my fiancee and step son as well as her family. I have been meaning to get on and blogg for quite sometime now but just havent gotten the opportunity. I am happy to finally be back at the keyboard to report that on the 17th of Decmber I celebrated three years of sobriety. Sobriety birthdays are always fun and for me the whole month surrounding them is just kind of a rollercoaster filled with thankfulness, gratitude and deep reflection. So...throw this in with the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the only reason I am where I am, it makes for one humbling gratitude filled month! Its crazy to look at where I was just three years ago and where I am now thanks to Jesus and his work on the cross and in me.

Its always easy for me to remember that Christmas season three years ago and I never want to, because it always humbles and fills me with faith and love for Jesus. I was arrested on the 17th for my fourth DUI, bailed out on the 19th, then had to immediately go turn myself in on a probation violation in another county, g to court the next morning then get bailed out for that. so by the 20th of December I was out of jail until my hearings. I was so fearful, so hopeless, I remember celebrating Christmas...if you want to call it that. I was in a deep depression, full of despair and fear not really wanting to leave the house as I tried to figure out what a life without alcohol looked like. I just remember stting with my family not really knowing when I would spend Christmas with them again.

These feelings went on for the next five months until I found myself in a jail cell with a Holy Bible in my hands seeking anything that resembled an answer. It was when my heart was in that condition when my mind was filled with nothing but lies was my soul awakened to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Truth came beaming in and permeating everything I did...I was being transformed just as I am today. I was with my family the very next Christmas rejoicing and celebrating in the glory of Christ coming to die for us so that we, so that I may know life away from the bondage of sin and lies.

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."

I am this big and God is THIS BIG!!

One of the greatest things I have experienced in my Christian walk is when I am humbeled by the Lord.  He is so gentle and so subtle in the ways in which he shows me that just when I think I have something figured out I will learn the opposite. For instance, I used to always be skeptical of people who would meet someone, date for awhile and then be married within a year. Then, when you would ask them about it all they would say is, "when you know," I what does that mean! right!? Well...here I sit engaged within two months and scheduled to be married before a year, 10 months to be exact. All I can say to this is when you know you know lol!! It is just amazing how the Lord will use real life situations to show me exactly how things are and how little I am. Another favorite of mine is when I am reading a book like the bible or listening to a preacher or speaker, when some little bit of truth cuts through all the stuff rolling around in my head and reveals to me this path that God has been tenderly leading me on. Eventhough along that path I had faced some really hard times, in the end it worked for the good. Its like a whole other aspect I didnt even see is revealed to me about a situation and I am reminded again at just how BIG! God is. Yet in his omnimpotence and omniprescence I still significantly matter to God and he loves me. I find such comfort in being able to trust God in that way, I know that through whatever I can hold onto my faith knowing that in whatever trials or storms I face I can find peace, serenity and rejoice in him.

Anyway I kind of got off the thought I really wanted to try and get out here. When these situations arise in my walk I notice on really major theme, I relied on my own understanding. Who am I to say that God could not bring two people together and place an amazing love in each of their hearts to a point of marriage. Who am I to allow my own perceptions, my own feelings about a situation govern my thoughts and ideas to a point where I have already come to a comclusion on how its all going to end or be. The answer is I am not God. When I allow myself to do this I am no longer trusting in God but I am trusting on my own understanding, then you know what happens to me? I, whether I know it or not, react in a way that is totally orchestrated with how I view or perceive the situation being or ending. Which is totally ridiculous sometimes because I am human I can only see things as they are right now, I do not have the ability God does to be able to hold life like a jeweler would a diamond and see and understand all the any facets of it. It is at these times where I can be treading in deep water if my motives and spiritual condition is not focused on the kingdom but is focused on Richard. It is where the dance of spiritual practices such as scripture, prayer and fellowship come in to try the best I can enable my will with that of God's. To be singing in the same tune of the spirit, so that God doesnt have to reach out and hit me with a 2x4 but instead just guides and finds me obediently following not thinking.

"So Abraham rose early in the morning . . . and went to the place of which God had told him" ( Genesis 22:3 ). Oh, the wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not "confer with flesh and blood" ( Galatians 1:16 ). Beware when you want to "confer with flesh and blood" or even your own thoughts, insights, or understandings— anything that is not based on your personal relationship with God. These are all things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.

-Oswald Chambers

My Utmost For His Highest