[bluidkiti]

May 7

Daily Reflections

RESPECT FOR OTHERS

Such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand, yet be
unaffected. The rule is we must be hard on our self, but always
considerate of others.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 74

Respect for others is the lesson that I take out of this passage. I must go
to any lengths to free myself if I wish to find that peace of mind that I
have sought for so long. However, none of this must be done at
another's expense. Selfishness has no place in the A.A. way of life.
When I take the Fifth Step it's wiser to choose a person with whom I
share common aims because if that person does not understand me, my
spiritual progress may be delayed and I could be in danger of a relapse.
So I ask for divine guidance before choosing the man or woman whom I
take into my confidence.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

It's very important to keep in a grateful frame of mind, if we want to
stay sober. We should be grateful that we're living in a day and age
when alcoholics aren't treated as they often used to be treated before
Alcoholics Anonymous was started. In the old days, every town had its
town drunk who was regarded with scorn and ridiculed by the rest of
the townspeople. We have come into A.A. and found all the sympathy,
understanding, and fellowship that we could ask for. There's no other
group like A.A. in the world. Am I grateful?

Meditation For The Day

God takes our efforts for good and blesses them. God needs our efforts.
We need God's blessing. Together, they mean spiritual success. Our
efforts are necessary. We cannot merely relax and drift with the tide.
We must often direct our efforts against the tide of materialism around
us. When difficulties come, our efforts are needed to surmount them. But
God directs our efforts into the right channels and God's power is
necessary to help us choose the right.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may choose the right. I pray that I may have God's blessing
and direction in all my efforts for good.

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As Bill Sees It

Persistence in Prayer, p. 127

We often tend to slight serious meditation and prayer as something
not really necessary. To be sure, we feel it is something that might
help us to meet an occasional emergency, but at first many of us are
apt to regard it as a somewhat mysterious skill of clergymen, from
which we may hope to get a secondhand benefit.

<< << << >> >> >>

In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are
beyond question. They are matters of knowledge and experience.
All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their
own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability. And
they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in
the face of difficult circumstances.

12 & 12
1. p. 96
2. p. 104

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Walk in Dry Places

Did I have a dysfunctional family?
Healing the Past.
We hear much about the long-term effects of growing up in a dysfunctional family. Many alcoholics, in fact, have bitter memories of their own parents' drinking, and may feel this caused needless deprivation and misery.
Whether our families were dysfunctional or not, we must agree that most of our parents did the best they could. We cannot bring back the past---- nor can they, ----and it is best released, forgiven, and forgotten. Our wisest course is to use the tools of the program to reach the maturity and well-being that will bring happiness into our own lives. This will not happen, however, if we believe that growing up in a dysfunctional home has left us permanently impaired.
In our fellowship, we can find endless examples of people who used the Twelve Steps to overcome all kinds of emotional and physical disabilities. Just when we start thinking something in our past is a permanent handicap, we meet other people who survived the same bitter experiences and are living life to the fullest. They've cleared away the wreckage of their past in order to build wisely for the future.
I'll remember today that I am not bound or limited by anything that was ever done or said to me. I face the day with self-confidence and a sense of expectancy, knowing that I am really a fortunate person with many reasons to be grateful.

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Keep It Simple

So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.---Will Rogers
Secrets help keep us sick. In our drinking and using days, we did things we weren't proud of. We lived in a secret world we were ashamed of. This part of the power of addiction. Our behavior and our secrets kept us trapped. Recovery offers us a way out of this secret world. In our groups, we share our secrets, and they lose their power over us. There may be things we're too ashamed to talk about in our groups. When we share these things in our Fifth Step, they lose their power over us.
We have a new life that we're not ashamed to talk about. When shame leaves, pride enters our hearts. We know we're good people!
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me live a good life.
Action for the Day: Do I have any secrets that get in my way? Do I need to do a Fifth Step? If so, I'll pick a date---today.

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Each Day a New Beginning

We tend to think of the rational as a higher order, but it is the emotional that marks our lives. One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment. --Merle Shain
Pain stretches us. It pushes us toward others. It encourages us to pray. It invites us to rely on many resources, particularly those within.
We develop our character while handling painful times. Pain offers wisdom. It prepares us to help other women whose experiences repeat our own. Our own pain offers us the stories that help another who is lost and needs our guidance.
When we reflect on our past for a moment, we can recall the pain we felt last month or last year; the pain of a lost love, or the pain of no job and many bills; perhaps the pain of children leaving home, or the death of a near and dear friend. It might have seemed to us that we couldn't cope. But we did, somehow, and it felt good. Coping strengthened us.
What we forget, even now, is that we need never experience a painful time alone. The agony that accompanies a wrenching situation is dissipated as quickly and as silently as the entrance of our higher power, when called upon.
I long for contentment. And I deserve those times. But without life's pain I would fail to recognize the value of contentment.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 9 - The Family Afterward

Alcoholics who have derided religious people will be helped by such contacts. Being possessed of a spiritual experience, the alcoholic will find he has much in common with these people, though he may differ with them on many matters. If he does not argue about religion, he will make new friends and is sure to find new avenues of usefulness and pleasure. He and his family can be a bright spot in such congregations. He may bring new hope and new courage to many a priest, minister, or rabbi, who gives his all to minister to our troubled world. We intend the foregoing as a helpful suggestion only. So far as we are concerned, there is nothing obligatory about it. As non-denominational people, we cannot make up others’ minds for them. Each individual should consult his own conscience.

pp. 131-132

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Three - "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."

To every worldly and practical-minded beginner, this Step looks hard, even impossible. No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can he turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? Fortunately, we who have tried it, and with equal misgivings, can testify that anyone, anyone at all, can begin to
do it. We can further add that a beginning, even the smallest, is all that is needed. Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some more. Though self-will may slam it shut again, as it frequently does, it will always respond the moment we again pick up the key of willingness.

p. 35

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Whoever seeks God . . . has already found God.

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age,
which means never losing your enthusiasm."
--Aldous Huxley

"A happy life is made up of little things . . . a gift sent, a letter written, a
call made, a recommendation given, transportation provided, a cake
made, a book lent, a check sent."
--Carol Holmes

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by
the attitude you bring to life."
--John Homer Miller

We need to let the old go, so the new can emerge.
--Peggy Bassett

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

SUCCESS

"There is no failure except in no
longer trying."
--Elbert Hubbard

I produced the failure in my life. For years I would blame everything and
everyone - my parents, the job, my health, low income, a cruel world,
thoughtless friends, the weather! Today I am able to own my failures
because they are mine.

Today I am also able to see my successes - and this makes me a winner.
I am able to see the things that I have achieved, the character defects I
have confronted, the happiness that comes with an acceptance of self.

I may not be perfect but I am certainly not worthless. I may make
mistakes but I am not evil. I have a heart that needs to love and also
needs to be loved. Today I am able to reveal my vulnerability and
discover its strength.

This underling is learning how to fly.

Master, may I continue to seek Your power and glory in my life.

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For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light
shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:6

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting
away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and
momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far
outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what
is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

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Daily Inspiration

Right now is a good time to free yourself of the burden of that which needs to be done, but has been put off. Lord, little by little, help me remove my procrastinations so that I can fully live in the present.

Live a God-filled life and it will be only natural that you will express enthusiasm for life, joy, laughter and happiness. Lord, may the way I live always express my love for You.