Readiness Control

I just posted a journal entry from 2013 to the Look Back page... it "got me to thinking" about how long I'd waited and tried to get sober and stop smoking. Chris was really, ultimately the straw that broke both camel's backs, so to speak. I am so grateful!

I was given an old tiny black - battered Twenty-Four Hours a day AA book by a client. Her mother had been sober 40+ years when she passed away and had used this little book for years. It survived a recent downsize and sort round on my bottega and attained relocation to prime real estate in the bathroom reading nook. It reminds me of a prayer book that I inherited from my Great Grandmother as a child: yummy, musky, crinkly pages that are thin and slightly discolored. An old bookmark was included with this verse:

The More of everything you share
The More you'll always have to spare...
For only what you Give Away
Enriches you from day to day! 
Helen Steiner Rice

The page per day includes a Thought for the Day, A Meditation for the Day and a Prayer for the Day. I read the entries for yesterday and today... nice. The one for today dovetailed nicely with the look back from yesterday... and my musings this morning. Wink!

Meditation for July 19th: To God, a miracle of change in a person's life is only a natural happening. But it is a natural happening operated by spiritual forces. There is no miracle in personalities too marvelous to be an everyday happening. But miracles happen only to those who are fully guided and strengthened by God. Marevelous changes in people's natures, happen so simply, and yet they are free from all other agencies than the grace of God. But these miracles have been prepared for by days and months of longing for something better. They are always accompanied by a real desire to conquer self and to SURRENDER one's life to God.


I was inspired to look at the entry for my birthday, June 7th and found, once more, an inspiring and nicely complementary message: Meditation for June 7: You not only can live a new life but you also can grow in grace and power and beauty. Reach ever forward and upward after the things of the spirit. In the animal world, the very form of an animal changes to enable it to reach that upon which it delights to feed. Your whole character changes as you reach upward for the things of the spirit - for beauty, for love, for honesty, for purity and for unselfishness. Reaching after these things of the spirit, your whole nature becomes changed so that you can best receive and delight in the wonders of the abundant life.

​Oh, BTW, did I mention that I'm remembering how to BREATHE?! That story for another day! Who knew I'd been holding my breath for 50 years!

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