Faith - Day 3

I first learned about having faith for today in my early years of sobriety.

My life felt uncomfortably odd. Even though I was doing what people told me to do—taking responsible care of myself—it felt like something was wrong. I heard about a good therapist. He lived far away. I didn’t have a car, but I was determined to go see him. I thought he could tell me what I needed to do to make my life better and right.I made my appointment and eagerly waited for that day to arrive. “My life will be better then,” I thought. “It won’t be like it is now.”The day arrived. I got on a bus, transferred, got on another bus, transferred, then rode another bus to his office. Then I sat down and told him everything that was wrong.He listened patiently, then leaned back. “I’m about to hear the missing piece that will change my life,” I thought.“Sounds to me like you’re right where you need to be,” he said.The missing piece was faith.Sometimes when things aren’t working, it’s a warning that we’re heading in the wrong direction. But we can still believe in today and where we are now. It’s the only way to get wherever we’re going next.

Challenge: It’s easy to tell other people and ourselves what we’re doing wrong. It’s easy to give advice. If you’d just do this or that or these other things, then your life would be right. Yes, we need to work on issues, solve problems, try new approaches. And sometimes we need information about how to do things, including living our lives, that we don’t have now. But it doesn’t take much faith to criticize other people or ourselves.

It takes a lot more faith to look at others and ourselves and believe that we are doing the best that we can—and that what we’re doing is good enough.

From the book: 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact