THE LAST LAUGH

I have often said that I tend to be better at living life, my life when there is crisis involved. I usually "rise" to the occasion...it's the boring, everyday stuff that I've never done well. And there is some truth in that statement, no doubt about it. Hey I HAD TOO deal well with trouble and crisis...because that was the story of my life at one time. And I had a tenancy to turn the smallest issues into a crisis anyway so that CHAOS became my norm.


Today is completely different. I don't have all that constant turmoil, that churning negativity ALWAYS present. No...life can still move at times but events no longer control the direction I take in my daily journey to FOLLOW the Creator and live according to his will, not mine.


But don't get me wrong, I do not do this perfectly or really even well. I am still very much a work in process, learning from day to day how to stay "GOD centered" or focused solely on HIM. I've learned that when I do that everything else seems to fall in line...uncanny isn't it when I am NOT in control things seem to go smoothly. 


But "LIFE" still happens and even bad thing go down, I get through those situations more focused, more positive and in a better more positive state of being then I ever did before. And so much of that maintaining contact with the Creator depends on me sharing myself, my time, my experience and strength with others. That is GOD does most of his work with me...when I am sacrificing for someone else.


Of course now a days it never really feels like a sacrifice...nope...it is just business as usual and frankly that is how I actually knew for sure that there was a GOD and he was operating in my life. I knew myself well enough to realize that the TRUE me was self-serving, self-focused, selfish and did not really care to be involved in the lives of others. So when I started doing all these things to pass on my experience, strength and hope...I just KNEW ultimately that I was NOT capable of doing that...I just couldn't! So that was finally how I knew for sure but really by that time I was already convinced, I could feel the SPIRIT working in me.


It's hard to describe but there was such a drastic change in my outlook and behavior in life that something other then ME was motivating me. It's funny how service to others, serving GOD, being committed to do HIS will at all costs ultimately is how I gained my FREEDOM from the prison of SELF I had built for myself. That's just how it is.


I remember a good buddy saying to me about his spirituality and recovery that he really wanted to get clean and sober but he hoped it would be ANYTHING BUT GOD that would get him there. That is exactly how I felt as well: "I'll do ANYTHING but please let it be something OTHER then GOD that saves...ANYTHING! But guess what, haha! He had the last laugh and I couldn't be happier!




(Photo: Kathy Tomson)