From Hopeless To Fatherhood

Things I am not:

Perfect, young, free of sin, worthless, damaged, bad, pessimistic, loveless, selfish, stupid, lazy, unmotivated, careless, angry, abusive, hateful, an addict, unwilling to learn, better than anyone, ignorant, racist, rich, always right, lonely, inexperienced, void of empathy or mentally ill.

I’m aware I could’ve added more to that list, but you get the point.

Things that I am:

Full of faith

I believe that is all I have to be and everything else gets taken care of. I believe that because I have experienced it. You won’t catch me freaking out about the Coronavirus, not because I don’t think it’s serious enough to be concerned with but because I know with my whole heart that God is sovereign. God is in control, you guys. My faith in God is at a level where I am completely convinced that everything in God’s world is happening under His say so.

I don’t have all the answers. Don’t @ me with “Then why did God let all these people get sick and/or die” because I don’t know. Just like I don’t know how/why God creates the feeling I get when I’m holding my daughter and she smiles at me. I don’t have these answers.

I do know that if you are a man/woman of faith, this is a very good opportunity for you to demonstrate to others what your character and your faith is like.

Are you participating in the mass hysteria? Are you being proactive to protect yourself, your family, your friends/co-workers and even strangers on the street? Are you doubting that things are divinely under control?

I spent a good part of my life living in fear and making bad decision after bad decision because of that. I was gracefully granted freedom from that and the Coronavirus certainly isn’t big enough to sway me from my beliefs.

Maybe you haven’t knocked on deaths door as many times as me and you don’t have a big tolerance for fearful things, that’s ok. I’m glad you didn’t have to live like me. But take a second and look at things in your life that you were convinced were earth shattering while they were happening. Remember that time when you were facing that seemingly life changing event when you were 100% certain things would be different for the rest of your life because of it and 6 months later you could barely even remember it happening?

I am not minimizing things at all. Please don’t think that. All I am trying to do is say, God has our back, you guys. That doesn’t mean that people won’t get sick or die. That doesn’t mean that we won’t have to push through storms and rough seasons in our lives. It just means that when everything is all said and done, we will be ok. I am being careful, I am taking precautions against the spread of COVID-19. I want to do everything within my power to protect my family…but I am not scared.

Do not be plagued with the virus of fear. Do not let faith slip from your grasp in time of tragedy. Be strong and confident that God is protecting His people in the way He sees fit.

I love each and every one of you reading this.

There’s a special place in my heart for children of broken homes, sons and daughters of addicted parents, abused kids, children who grew up in poverty, basically any little boy or girl who had to face more than most have to. I know there’s problems in every family. I know we all had to get through stuff. I’m not talking about the average person. I’m referring to the kids who were placed in a position to internalize their parent’s bullshit. The kids who got hit by their father’s belt and walked away not thinking “Man, I’ll never do that again. I don’t want to get hit by that belt anymore” but instead were plagued by self doubt and insecurity. The ones who walked away from a beating thinking “Why am I not loved enough to be talked to instead of hit?” Or “I wish my dad believed me that I just don’t know why I did that” or “I’m such a bad person that I am being hit with a belt and I bet I’m the reason mom and dad are getting a divorce.”

There are so many kids that believe they were the catalyst for their parents getting a divorce. They walk around with that. Some never think otherwise.

This is why I was so selective when I decided to be with my wife, knowing that even tho she didn’t birth my boys, they would potentially feel the same thoughts as any kid of a broken home felt if her and I didn’t make it.

This is why when I decided to cross that line with her, I did so under God’s direction. When me and their mother went in different directions, I watched my kids, both of them…cry themselves to sleep every night for a very long, uncomfortable amount of time. I can promise you that it was not easy to be strong in those moments. It was not easy to hold my tongue. I did it, and continue to hold my tongue because I don’t want my children to suffer. Truth always rises to the top. I know this to be fact.

My current wife, my boy’s stepmother is more of a rock to this family than I am a lot of the times. I feel completely safe with her as a parent to these children. It is a sense of security that I have always longed for. It is the result of God reliance from the two heads of the household. It is a perfect scenario for a child to be raised in…and we have 3 kids that have the potential to be free of unnecessary pain.

I wonder if lack of God reliance is the reason people do what they do? I wonder how many children suffer because their parents are too proud to surrender to the idea that maybe they are not as strong as they think.

I am not saying that someone who isn’t God reliant can’t raise their kids in a healthy manner, I’m not saying it because I believe they can and do. I’m not contradicting Proverbs 13:24 either. I’m talking about more than that. I just know who I am and I know that if my wife and I weren’t God focused, our children would suffer and I am so grateful we are giving them the love they deserve.

One thing that was always lacking in my life prior to walking on a God focused path was my ability to put my family first before myself.

I want you to go back and re-read that before casting judgement.

I am not saying I didn’t have the desire, which I had so much of, I said I lacked the ability. I wholeheartedly believe that too. I’m not making any excuses for being absent from my family for all that time. I know why I did that. It was because I was being an asshole. But why? Did I want to be an asshole? Absolutely not. I wanted to be there. I even had the wherewithal to connect happiness with being connected to people. I just couldn’t align my desire with my ability.

So I would imagine that if anybody walks that way for a substantial amount of time they lose people. People (family included) start to distance themselves from assholes. I know I do and I know I will continue to. In any case, what happened to me was that I was convinced after years of only being concerned with myself that no one really wanted to be around me or cared what I had to say or enjoyed anything about me. The only talking about me was that of disdain and ridicule. I convinced myself that not only did my family not want anything to do with me, but that even if they did I was of no use to them.

That’s what untreated alcoholism can do. It can convince you, a person of great talent and intelligence, with countless examples of people loving you, pulling for you, praying for you, crying for you, searching for you and yearning for you…

…that you are worthless.

Untreated alcoholism sounds like something else, doesn’t it?

On my path I have changed how I view things slightly. I say slightly because I believe that the principles that afforded me a life of freedom are the same commandments that were divinely provided to all of us.

After years of self torment, self imprisonment, self destruction and a self driven path to loneliness I found myself riding solo and parked right in front of God.

Unbeknownst to me I was shown how to walk a path towards God and shown how to be of service to others. There were commandments/principles surrounding me and I didn’t even know it. I was becoming less lonely, less depressed and more interested in others. I actually grew to a place of feeling useful, sometimes even sought after by others for my experience. It’s a really good feeling coming from where I was before getting sober to that.

There was one thing missing though.

I felt compelled to be back in my family’s lives at whatever capacity they would accept me and I wanted to do that for 2 reasons.

1. I was newly convinced that they did love me and want me around so I wanted to give that to them. In some ways, that’s really all I have to give at times. Unfortunately, I don’t have as much of that as I’d like to give.
2. I believed that by me being recovered, God wanted me to be there and God had a plan for my presence. I also believe that my example may be the catalyst for my family to maybe look at the world a little differently. Maybe my journey towards God reliance and service to others would offer a splinter of hope in a dark time to someone in my family when they really need it. Maybe that is right now while you are reading this. Maybe not.

So, how do I desperately try to connect this now? It may be a stretch, but here it goes.

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 NIV

Here’s the connection part:

So I started walking as close to God as possible, or another way to put that is, I decided to stop being an asshole and started to be as Christ-like as possible. [disclaimer: didn’t know that at the time, I was just following directions] Then, I started naturally wanting to be with my family. To share God orchestrated victories with them. To show up. To try my best to be grateful and giving. I say “try my best” because I occasionally suck at this, just ask my parents or my wife. But I know that Jesus is a perfect model for me. The more I read His word, the more connected I feel. The more I pray, the closer to my Creator I become. The closer I am, the better of a brother I can be to you. The more useful to my family I am.

Now, I only have to consistently persevere and my family will always have the best version of me. If I try to align myself with what I believe to be God’s will, I am permanently protected and my family will be there to witness what God has promised.

There has always been something in me that automatically pushes away ideas that I don’t agree with. Sometimes, or rather more often than not I am scared on some level of what you’re pushing on me so my reaction is even more defensive. In my past life, or pre-God days, I would be willing to fight over these things.

Things like the idea of sobriety. Or how to be a good parent. Or how to treat people with kindness.

I would push away ideas about how to be a good, decent member of a family.

You want to tell me that I would be better off forgiving someone? We can fight.

But….the biggest point of contention was always over God. DO NOT under any circumstances try to push your concept of God on me unless you want to be met with complete resistance. I did some research. I actually did a lot of research and it always felt like the teachings of Jesus were more of a shaming thing. A “If you are a non-believer you are a lesser human” type of thing. Never did I feel welcomed because never was I a believer in Christ.

I still feel like a lot of “Christianity” isn’t for me. What I mean by that is, there’s a lot of people who call themselves Christians that conduct themselves in ways I don’t think Jesus would embrace. This is true for any group of people, I get that. I’m not just pointing a finger at one sect of religion. I consider myself a believer in Christ. I feel that the relationship I have with Him is what’s most important, not the label people attach to me because of my beliefs. You want to call me a Christian? That’s ok. You want to call me a heretic? That’s ok as well. Ultimately, I want to grow closer to God, to tighten my relationship with Him and to treat my brothers and sisters with love.

Check out this quote:

“If the gospel isn’t good news for everybody, then it isn’t good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, then the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the “un” and “non”, they work against Jesus’ teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, “God shows no favoritism.” So we don’t either.”
― Rob Bell

I have recently been on the hunt for understanding. Not strictly for Bible knowledge, but exclusively to understand Jesus teaching better. Bible knowledge will be (and started to be) a bi-product of that.

I can’t describe why this is happening, but it’s happening. I have very little free time, but I seem to have been able to carve out 15-20 minutes a day to study. That’s extra weird for me. I am trying to study. I have several different books I am involved in right now. One obviously being the Bible. The other two are Bible related.

Any other time, if I’m studying something, it’s because the knowledge I gain from the study is going to be used as a weapon. In this case, I have no other motive than to be closer to God. I do hope that He changes me to be a better person than I am currently. I hope by doing this I will be a better husband. I want to be a better father and a better son. I hope that by studying scripture with the intent of understanding it better, I can help more people.

If you would’ve tried to push this idea on me, shamed me by pointing out that I am uninformed, positioned yourself as better than me because of your knowledge or understanding… you’d be down one less believer in Christ. I hope that you think about that. I hope that you can apply this idea to your life, with all your beliefs.

When it comes to it, sobriety for me has been easier than you might think. (This time at least) Staying sober is not difficult when the right Solution is in play. Staying sober being directed by my own thoughts and desires however is without a doubt, completely impossible.

On January 2nd, 2009 I walked into my most recent treatment episode as a patient. I was lost, broken, alone, void of love in all aspects and hopeless. I had nothing and felt like even less than that. I was dark spirited and suicidal.

I made a last ditch effort of an agreement with myself to try sobriety…

…one last time.

This was it. If I failed, I would end my own life, just as I was about to do before making the decision to try sobriety again. I am a unicorn in the recovery community based on what the majority of people will tell you. I have always heard “You have to do it for yourself. You can’t get sober for anyone else.”

No, actually that’s not true at all. I didn’t get sober for me, I got sober for Canaan and for Canaan alone. I had no other reason to stay sober or to even inhale another breath.

I was in a car, ready to end my life. That couldn’t be anymore true. I had a plan. I had the means. I was 30 seconds from making it happen.

The thing is, what I know now, is that even with the gift of free will, God still has the ability to perform miracles for people against their own will. That is what happened to and for me.

God intervened divinely and projected the most vivid image of my son’s face inches away from mine. I could not see anything else for a few seconds. Typing this literally brings tears to my eyes because it was that powerful, that real and that life changing. The little blessing from God was the catalyst to me even being alive right now.

Everything after that point was a result of me submitting everything, my whole self and entire life to God. Everything I have is a gift as a result. My life couldn’t be anymore full of love now. There’s tight moments, of course…but I haven’t gone through a single season that has been powerful enough for me to be swayed from my path towards my Father.

I have a beautiful family that loves me, looks at me like I’ve always yearned for and supports me. I have a career I couldn’t be more in love with. I have a host of friends that would do anything for me. I have a wife that stands next to me in every way and walks towards God along side of me, motivating me when I need it.

But more than anything, I have Love for life. I have freedom. I have Protection.

I have God in every second of every day and I have had that for the last eleven years.

If you played a part in my recovery on any level, “Thank you.”

There’s a bunch of really, and I mean REALLY cheesy sayings out there. You’ll find them on “inspirational” memes, kitchen plaques, removable vinyl stickers in people’s houses, tee shirts, coffee mugs, bumpers of cars, etc…

They read things like “Too blessed to be stressed” or “Live, Laugh, Love” and occasionally you’ll come across the motherload of cliche sayings “It’s not the number of breaths we take, but the number of moments that take our breath away.” Terrible, I know.

The thing about these little quotes is, they are usually all true. I’ve done a lot of changing over the years. I changed my behaviors. I’ve changed how I dress. How I cut my hair, how I speak. I have changed where I say I’m from. I changed how I view people and how I view God. I have changed what my definition of happiness is and I have changed what I put value in. I changed the type of people I choose to be around, what I think about myself, how smart I think I am, my openness to seeking guidance and direction. I have changed how responsible I am. I have changed how honest I am and I have changed how I talk about people. I have changed my understanding of how to resolve conflict and how I give and receive love. There’s a long list of how I have changed. Disclaimer: There’s also a decent sized list of how I haven’t, I’m a work in progress.

I have also changed how I view the validity and merit of the cheesy, cliche saying “Nothing short of a miracle.”

I have gone into great detail about who I was as a father before I got sober. The years that my eldest son was alive until he turned 7 years old. I was a monster. An abuser. An absentee dad. A complete loser. My son has every reason in the world to hate me. To never forgive me. He has every reason to never speak to me again and if he chose that, I would have to take it on the chin and deal with it.

In fact, that is how I planned on my sobriety going. I thought that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to really parent him daily. Maybe like every other weekend I could see him or something. I decided to get sober and seek God despite these possibilities.

Once I made that decision, the decision to get close to God strictly because God is good in every way, despite what I may want in life…I believe God performed something that was nothing short of a miracle. Not only did God change me almost completely in many ways, but He also appointed me to be a trustee for one of His kids. That in itself was miraculous enough.

Trust me.

He then went further. He gave me the wisdom, the love, the kindness, the softness, the patience, the determination, the guidance, the hustle, the lack of desire to ever drink or use drugs again…and He gave all that to me so that I could show my son what God could do and who God is. He changed me so that I could be a daily example of how big God truly is.

The relationship I have with my son today is nothing short of a miracle. It is a tangible example of how God has the absolute power to heal. To mend relationships. To shape people. To provide the power to love again.

Acts 3:16

By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.

“And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

There are two ways to look at those who are lost. I think I learned this thoroughly due to my time spent lost vs my time spent trying to be who I think God wants me to be. I can judge them as being a bad person or I can judge them for being distant from God and try to help them. And to be clear, when I say lost I mean completely void of the true comfort found in the love of God. You may have whatever understanding of God that you want. I can’t imagine where I would be right now if my sponsor judged me for my lack of God when we first met and distanced himself from me instead of pulling me in closer.

Prior to getting sober, I spent a lot of time judging others. It was a practice that not only prolonged my misery but did so by delusionally convincing me that I was justified in my actions. My problem at its core is disconnection and/or lack of love, so judging others only instigates my problem more.

So I strategically used the phrase “prior to getting sober” because it describes to you that I am referring to me at my worst, but my judgement of others didn’t stop when I put down the bottle down and threw the needles away. I continued. I furthered my misery by feeding my separation from others.

In the first words of this writing I referenced scripture that states that we will see a distinction between people. It says we will judge. I think for me, in this context that is a good thing. It just boils down to what I am using the judgement for? Am I using it to put myself in a higher position than others or am I using it to recognize who needs my help?

I think we all judge. I think that’s ok. I just think it’s important to use the judgement to help people.

I can certainly do this, um….better. I look at social media, a platform that only encourages judgement. “Oh, Sally just had a baby, look at her and her beautiful family!”

That’s a judgement. A healthy one.

“Oh Sally just had ANOTHER baby. She can’t even really handle the kids she has now. I feel bad for her.”

That’s also a judgement.

I feel fairly trapped in social media and it is a topic I feel very weak in. I don’t think I’m using it for the best reasons most of time and I yearn to separate myself from it.

I think for me, the less I judge, the better off I am, but I don’t think it will ever go away. I prefer to notice things; to see the distinction between those who serve God and those who don’t because I want to seek direction from those that serve God and help those who don’t. Both of which I can be doing better.

My preference is to align my needs with those who have weathered a similar storm before and to listen, but filter out direction from those who give direction based on speculation sans principles. You don’t have to have gone through the same season as me to direct me to principle. This is why I absolutely love my sponsor. He has given me stellar direction every time I went to him because he always reverts to the following principles:

Am I being my brother’s keeper?

Am I doing something that will help me grow spiritually?

Am I causing harm or not?

Am I seeing where I can give rather than what I can take?

Am I sowing seeds of love or of fear?

My sponsor and I don’t see eye to eye on everything but we do both share the same views of how to serve God and my belief is that is why we are both still alive and happy today. He’s the reason I understand a lot about God and I am forever in his debt. He’s the catalyst for me relying on God. He started me off with understanding that service to others is the best way to maintain a relationship with God. He instilled this in me by showing me over and over and over again how to put your live on hold to help your brothers and sisters. Oh, and guess what else, with your judgy little self? He’s helped more people than you and 25 of your friends combined. I’m being very conservative with that number too.

And he is not like me or you in many ways. He doesn’t share the same views of God that I do. He doesn’t share the same views of homosexuality as I do. I’m pretty sure we don’t share the same political views either, but we don’t really discuss that.

But he is free.

Even with all the differences between us.

He. Is. Free.

Everyone walking this planet has a gift. My belief is that each one of our gifts have been divinely given to us. You may be skilled in working with people directly. Your neighbor may be gifted with the ability to build houses. Your little cousin Ricky might be an amazing soccer player. I think we all possess the ability to do something more effectively or better than the average person.

Then there’s some people that are gifted in more than one area of life…and they are gifted at such a level that even a non-believer who sees them wonders how that person can pull off what they do. They can clearly see there is something bigger working in or for that person.

That’s my wife. She is gifted with many things, but I am going to focus on one for now.

My wife has an ability that is God given and God gifted. She has something that is scarce in my experience. She carries a love for her children that I don’t see all the time. It’s natural. It’s pure. It is absolutely beautiful. It’s a clear demonstration of what a God reliant woman can offer the world. I knew this about her for years prior to Sunday. In fact, seeing the way she loves our kids was one of the biggest catalysts for me being able to love her.

But Sunday God blessed us again and took that love and increased it even more, to a level I don’t have the capacity to put words to. For me personally, since getting sober I have always attributed the love parents can tap into as it relates to their newborn children as the purest form of love we can feel for each other as humans. Nothing higher. For me, that is the closest manifestation of the love God has for His children that we will touch while walking this planet. I think it’s all there, at least for certain parents. Love takes precedence over pain. Sacrifice beats out ease and convenience. Commitment reaches a level that can not be comprehended. I am prepared to give up my life for my children and I know my wife feels the same way.

I believe that every event, every hardship, every lost relationship, every win, every loss, every moment that I have lived through up until Sunday morning at 5:16am prepared me for that next moment. I believe I would not have been emotionally, mentally or spiritually ready to fully witness the love that came at 5:17am.

Time stood still for a moment and the only thing present was true love. When I witnessed my wife give birth to our daughter and I saw the emotions in my wife as a result, man… I seriously just don’t have the words.

Find that, please.

It’s available and not just through child birth.

In any case, I know I am failing while typing this. I know I’m not capable of describing the admiration I have for my wife as it relates to her natural gift of mothering our children. Candidly, I am envious of it. I strive to be more like her in that respect. I feel like the birth of our daughter is going to provide me that opportunity in a way that I didn’t latch onto fully with my boys. I certainly can’t love a child more than I love my boys, but I can love our daughter equally. I already do. What I’m saying is, I think having a girl was orchestrated by God. I think meeting my wife was orchestrated by God. The timing in itself was divinely written. I think this was all His plan and I am so happy to be fully present to recognize that. I can look back at my life and see that clearly. It’s absolutely amazing. I have already had my heart softened by my daughter and she’s only a few days old. I fully embrace the rest of the changes God has for me and my family and I’m just so thrilled to share them with you.

When I was growing up I never prayed. Well, I never prayed for anything I should have at least and that wasn’t because of my age and it wasn’t because of ignorance. It was because of disbelief and nothing more. I never believed in the power of prayer because I never had a reason to.

I prayed for mercy. I prayed to get out of trouble. I never prayed for anyone else. I never prayed for guidance. I prayed to be relieved of misery and I prayed for relief from the pain associated with heroin withdrawal. I prayed to prevent the lights on the cop car behind me from turning on.

I have experienced some very dark times in my life, most of which self induced. I drank myself into some of the darkest, scariest moments you can imagine. I have been as close to killing myself as you can get without actually pulling the trigger or yanking that steering wheel into oncoming traffic. My spirit has been so dark that there were times in my life when I actually liked it. I felt comfort in my distance from God (not knowing I was distant from God) because in that darkness I felt like it couldn’t get any worse. My life getting better wasn’t an option, I knew I was doomed to a life of discomfort and misery, so knowing that I was to live in a demonic-esqe (I just made that word up, you’re welcome) lifestyle actually soothed me.

Until it didn’t. Until I realized I was wrong about it not getting worse.

And then… I just was consumed by hopelessness.

Eventually I was exposed to a way of life that offered a Solution strong enough to insert a splinter of light into me and clear cut directions to turn that splinter into a light so bright that it has brought me to my knees, both figuratively and literally, both in good ways.

Prayer was a big part of that. Prayers followed by consistent action.

I recently went to a worship event at church. For the folks who don’t know what that is, it’s a night to praise God through music. I never knew this was a thing either, don’t worry. Through a friend, I ended up with a spot close to the front, but in between two strangers. The person on my right was a 8-10 year old boy playing Nintendo Switch the whole time and to his right was his mother. I could be wrong, but it appeared that she was a single mother.

To my left was a young man holding a brand new baby. He held her for the first two songs until he handed her off and took a seat in a room full of hundreds of people standing and he sat there and prayed for basically the rest of the night.

I spent the rest of the night taking note of these two families. This in turn had me thinking of my family. It had me thinking about worshipping God and my approach to it. It had me reflecting on all the good God has done for me and my family. It had me recognizing that the light in my life in contrast to the darkness that I lived in for so long was nothing short of miraculous.

Since getting sober, I never prayed with anyone other than at the beginning or the end of a meeting. People drone through the serenity prayer and the Lord’s Prayer with little to no enthusiasm. It appears to be a chore to most. Occasionally there’s some energy to it, but mostly its just part of the format as opposed to a cry out to God.

I pray crying out to God. I pray crying out with gratitude, praise or requesting direction and I have always done that alone. Not necessarily in private, but always alone.

During this night of worship, something in me called me to try something different. After the music was all done, I felt completely consumed by what I believe to be the Holy Spirit to pray with others. I requested some help with that from my friend. He gathered 4 others and the 6 of us formed a circle and prayed together.

This was completely foreign to me but felt completely right at the same time.

We prayed that my family be touched by the God in me. We prayed that I be changed into a man that is so full of God’s love that the light in me becomes infectious to them. That they experience what I am experiencing.

Now my wife walks with God. Her light is already bright and it is clear to anybody she comes in contact with through her kindness, compassion and selflessness. I have never witnessed a human (alcoholic or not) that is capable of being who she is to this family without being filled up with God.

But the prayer is still valid. I want everyone, including my family to feel what I have been feeling lately. It’s not that I am floating around just constantly pumping out love 24/7. I have my flaws, and I have a lot of them, but I have recently experienced God inside of me in a way that I have NEVER experienced in the past and man, I want them and you to feel that more than anything else in the world.

So we prayed.

It’s a prayer I have been praying consistently for months and a prayer I will continue to pray for the rest of my life if that’s how long it takes. And it may not ever happen, only God knows for sure. I believe this story has already been written, I’m just flipping the pages, but I also believe that God hears me crying out and that night he heard those other men crying out for the same thing.

Since that night, I have had an uptick in opportunities to be of service to others affected by alcoholism. I have been called to help and I know what that is from. God wants me to help His kids. 3 different men asked me for help with their alcoholism in the last 3 days and I was willing and able.

I believe these two topics are very connected. I think that was God’s way of telling me that He is handling what I need, and reminding me that I am handling what He needs.

 Matthew 18:19-20 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.“

I haven’t always been a deep thinker. I believe I have always over-thought things, or thought more about things than what is normal, but I would never consider myself a deep thinker. I don’t ever recall looking for symbolism in things or seeing a deeper reason for things happening.

There was a point in my life where I looked at having to buy food as an inconvenience. Even food for myself. I would always rather spend my money on coke and dope. Oh, I gotta buy food for other people because they’re counting on me? Complete madness.

I took for granted the blessings of my life. I overlooked things in such a heavy fashion that I missed so many beautiful moments. I looked right passed the most valuable parts of life because I was so consumed with myself.

I want to make something clear here while I’m thinking about it. When I say things like I just did, I’m not beating myself up. I often hear people who are resistant to the 12 step model of recovery that they were turned off by the perceived self deprecation that these approaches promote. That’s not what’s happening here. I’m telling you these bad parts about my previous life to highlight why I am so grateful for my current life. When I say I was a scumbag, it’s because I was a scumbag. It’s not because I was taught to beat myself up in order to feel better later.

In any case, let me get back to my previous thought.

So prior to getting sober, anything that wasn’t about me getting high was a complete chore. Not 100% of the time, but most of the time. Gotta give my kid a bath instead of shooting dope? Chore. But a lot of the times giving my son a bath was the highlight of my day. The only pure example of love I experienced. But basically I didn’t look at it in any other light than I was giving my son a bath.

Yesterday my wife was making broccoli and cheese soup. We discussed when going shopping for the ingredients that we would have bread bowls with them. (that was my brilliant idea, hold your applause) So after work, I stopped at the store to find some. I called the store ahead of time to ask if they had any because the other day when we went shopping they didn’t. So the lady in the bakery department on the phone said they didn’t currently have any so I figured I would just go buy some other bread to eat with the soup.

When I got in the store I walked passed the hot bar and out the side of my eye I saw exactly 4 individually wrapped bread bowls. I grabbed them up and went home.

On my way home, out of nowhere, I started thinking about that. Why? I’m not 100% sure, but what I am sure about is that I invite God into my heart everyday. I know He’s already there, but this is my process so if you don’t like it, kick rocks. So I’m driving and thinking about the fact that even though I was told “No, there aren’t any bread bowls” I still found exactly 4. By the time I pulled into my driveway and realized that the 4 bread bowls available were for the 4 members of my family (including me) it carried over to the thought that any day now my daughter will be born.

I thought “By the time she is old enough to eat soup in a bread bowl, Canaan will more than likely not be in this house.”

It stung. It hurt. It made me feel a little bit empty. In that moment, hundreds of memories flashed through my head. Years of difficult memories and years of beautiful memories flashed through my brain as if I was watching them in a movie. It was powerful.

It also filled me up with joy. My son is almost grown enough to be on his own and that is possible because of the relationship that my wife and I have with God. There’s no other reason for it. If Kelli wasn’t God reliant, there would be no Kelli. If I wasn’t God reliant, there would be no me. That’s not dramatic, that’s very real. Canaan would not be who he is today.

The acknowledgement of that spiritual truth had me stop what I was doing and pray. Ok, ok, I know to the average person that sounds like stupid or something, but lately I have been praying all day…every….single…day. This wasn’t out of the ordinary. I said thank you to my God and I asked him to use me to carry His Spirit into my house and to help me share that Spirit with my family.

So back to the bread bowls. I’m having a daughter, which is one of the most exciting things in my life. My son who escaped through a very rough upbringing is becoming a man…and a good man. I went inside and carved up 3 of the 4 bread bowls (because my wife opted out) and we all sat at the table and ate a simple meal and talked and laughed. We laughed a lot. It was the perfect medicine for a very difficult day up until that point.

So yeah, I may have over thought my purchase, but it changed my perspective right before walking into my house and if that didn’t happen, I may have walked in there with a completely different attitude.

The blessings in my life are not taken for granted. I certainly don’t speak about them all, but I definitely feel them. I take note of them. I don’t forget them. I love them and the Reason behind them. I look at them as gifts. I share them with you in the hope that maybe your perspective shifts just a little bit.

Oh, and one last thing I want to mention. Disclaimer, this is both unrelated to the content of this entry but also very related to the content of this entry.

Today I received an email from Canaan’s school that he made the honor roll this semester. This is the first time in his high school career that he has done that because of several reasons (which I won’t get into) but just know it was big. Very big. A direct result of the Love for God that my wife and I try to carry into our doors everyday.