The house is a-hoppin' this morning with house guests here and everyone is heading over to the Nursing Home to sit in on the Bible reading thing we do. I always enjoy the Saturday's when K-Sue is here because we can "double-team" the volunteer stuff...it is really fun to do together. I get a big kick out of the fact that two things I get a lot out of doing are so polar opposite: Mondays at the Branch County Jail and Wednesdays & Saturdays at M-Ville, the nursing home. Talk about a contrast!!
Usually I am the only one who is up early Saturday around here so it is really kind of cool to have the company. I still crack myself up when I think about the contrast between my life today and my life just a few short years ago when I was still a practising addict/alcoholic. If you even tried to suggest that I'd be doing some of the things I'm doing today I would have thought you were nuts...and told you so in no uncertain terms.
Trust me folks...I had MAJOR ISSUES with God, church, religion, the Bible...brother you name it, I stood firmly and proudly against it, all of it. Thing is...I was afraid. Yep...looking back on this now I realized that I felt so different inside, so inferior that I was afraid that maybe it was true, that I wasn't good enough for people to like me. That perhaps if there were a God a Jesus...He didn't want anything to do with me. I was extremely sensitive...even defensive about it.
Now being a student of war and war strategy, I have always heard and understood the maxim that a good defense is an good offense. So I took that strategy to heart and attacked Christians and Christian Ideals...I also lashed out verbally at those parts of society I didn't understand or feel a part of. Acting of course like I would never want anything to do with such things when deep down I really did want to belong somehow...to fit in.
I see all that clearly today but I didn't have a clue about any of this back then. But this is the reason it is all so shocking, even today finding me going at 8 am on a Saturday morning over to read the Bible of all things to Senior Citizens. In the past I'd still be intoxicated from the night before!
But when I talk about a new life or having made major changes to how I CHOOSE to live my life today...these contrasts are important to look at because they dramatically illustrate the difference between the old life and the new.
So time is short and the Train is leaving the station so i need to get moving. Until next time...
