Service Station

I do precious little in this world outside of seeking my own pleasure and gratification; very little outside of getting out of my own pain. Obviously. I’m an addict. Even though I try to be a better person, to be more considerate of the needs and wishes of others, even though pray for guidance about what my Creator would have me do and ask for the strength to do it, I regularly miss the mark. Often severely. Occasionally I shoot exactly the opposite direction of the mark. That used to happen about 85% of the time. Now that I’ve been clean and sober a couple of days that only happens about a quarter of the time, a dramatic improvement by any measure, but I digress. Sometimes I hit the mark dead on. When that happens the fullness of Creation fills and surrounds me and permeates my heart and mind and spirit with sudden and overwhelming knowledge that God loves me.He does. God loves me.

Like so much of what I’m learning about living a principled and spiritual life, the line between this knowledge and the event that gave it to me is not straight. Rarely is the path of least resistance the most direct path. Thursday morning as I was about to get in the shower my roommate asked me what I was doing on Saturday. “Hmmm, I don’t know,” I replied. She was going to Burley to an AA function, a district assembly, and wanted to know if I’d like to come along. Area assemblies and district committee meetings and regional service conferences are just the kind of thing that I hate. My impulse was to say no immediately. Instead I asked I could let her know my answer later.

Later turned out to be sooner because as I was showering and praying (I pray allot in the shower) I realized that all the ‘reasons’ I had for not going had something to do with me getting what I wanted. The fact that she was getting up at five in the morning to travel 200 miles to be of service to her AA group and then turning around to come home that night, and might need some company or someone to share the driving, had not even occurred to me. When I got out of the shower I told her that I’d love to go.

Yesterday we got up at 5. My roommate was making us some breakfast for the road and I was in the shower, praying; praying and crying it turns out, and completely overcome with the most incredible sense of peace and of joy. I suddenly realized in that moment, like I have never realized it before, that the Power that Created me is present and loves me.

It turned out that not only was it the right thing to do for the sake of my roommate, who really did need the company, it was the right thing to do for the other people at the conference and for myself as well. I was asked to sit in on one of the speaker panels (the person who had committed to be there failed to show up). I got to spend a little time with the counselor from the treatment center I attended that called me last week to asked if I would come as a guest speaker later this month. I got to see some other old friends from that part of the state and catch up with them. All together it was a very pleasant day.

But the pleasantness of the day pales compared with the feeling I still have knowing that God loves me. And always has loved me. I was just to blind or too self absorbed, to see it.