The Wretched And The Weary

I don't know how I got here...

I really don't know what set of circumstances, some flash of light perhaps a collision of separate situations, stars aligning to bring me to this moment, right now this very...second. I'm here.

I don't know how I got here...

What did I want to be when I grew up? An alcoholic...no. Addict, ditto. Did I want to learn most of my life lessons the HARD way? That certainly wasn't the plan. Of course now that I think about it there was no plan. There really wasn't...I was just winging it.

I was not one of those young people that got into high school and started to put some ideas together about my future. I never really thought that way. I wasn't a lazy person, no I was always working but I liked to play as well. That usually meant drink, once I was in my teens. I worked hard at and got to be a world class drinker...er, drunk.

But I'm not trying to tell THAT story...I suppose the story on my mind this evening is an eternal one. Why did I believe in something as a young boy...not believe, then actually hate the whole notion of a GOD or Savior. I rebelled with a FURY...why was I so angry at Christianity. And Christians WERE the target...I had no venom for those of the Jewish faith and frankly in the 1970's Muslims were all but ignored in America...I never even considered that religion at all...out of sight, out of mind.

I suppose the easy answer was anger. I was angry and I was hurt. Yes, I put myself in certain situations that ended quite frankly in heartache and disaster. I was scarred for life and though I know I blamed myself, deep down inside...I wasn't prepared to admit that responsibility to myself outwardly. No...GOD was to blame and all of his followers as well. It was MY fault, it had to be something else...

I think that my whole entire life up to the moment I was saved actually lead me to that place and that time. I cannot see life today w/out GOD. I can't think of my recovery from alcoholism and addiction on a day at a time basis as anything except a GOD given reprieve from this disease. I am NOT cured...it never leaves you and simply waits for a time of spiritual relapse to re-assert itself and fulfill it's mission: to KILL me.

I may not know HOW I got here today. But today, for the first time ever...I know why I am here. Today I know, for the first time in my life WHAT I am as well...I am a FOLLOWER. I am not God, I don't know what is best for me or anyone else...I don't even know what's second best. All I know today is that Jesus saved my retched a** from self-destruction and today I find great joy from being nothing more then a plain, ordinary FOLLOWER of Jesus Christ.

That is why I am here....the rest, well it will happen when it happens and I no longer dwell on those things that I have no control over. Not my job...not my concern...I no longer fret and no longer worry. Well, for the most part, nobody is perfect....

When I was dying, a slow, agonizing death at my own hands, GOD reached down, scooped up this shivering denizen of hell on earth and breathed the very life of the Holy Spirit right into my lifeless, beaten down body and soul. And everything now is different...