The Pain of Growth

I've had the most amazing Thanksgiving holiday. I've spent quality time with my husband and son, I've participated in a lot of AA meetings, I've worked hard on completing orders for Serenity Sacs. I am grateful for God's hand in my life.

The past couple of days, however, have presented me with a couple difficult and narrowminded people. One lady who saw my link on a friends facebook page wrote and said that the idea of writing things down and putting them in a bag was a "dumb" idea. After reading the bantering of she and my friend awhile, I wrote and told the story of how they came to be and the effectiveness of them. Found out later that this lady is an Aethiest and she finds the whole God thing pointless and stupid.

Yesterday I gave a lead (told my story) at a meeting. It went well and I received positive feedback from many in the room. However, one gentleman came to me and said "were you here to give a lead or to sell God Bags?" I just about hit the floor. I talked about recovery for 50 minutes and shared the story of my Serenity Sacs for less than two minutes. I find it very sad that what he took from that meeting was not a message of hope, but rather anger because I included the story of my little ministry in my story. My ego took a blow and I left there angry myself instead of uplifted like in the past.

I get very angry at myself for letting people get into my head and cause me anxiety. I've gone over those two situations in my head over and over so many darn times, but I had a revelation this morning. I'm going to pray for those two individuals whose narrowmindedness caused me upset and embarrassment. I pray that P be able to accept me for who I am and see the quality program I practice daily. I pray that M finds God in her life because there is so much peace to be had if you just open your heart and let him in.

As for me, I've grown because of these two individuals. I still believe that this little ministry was God driven. I never intended to sell these, they were just gifts for my sponsees last Christmas. I feel in my heart that God is who brought the sales to me so that I could create a spiritual tool to help others develop their relationship with Him. And dag gone it, I enjoy making them! I've had the opportunity to really look at my AA program and be grateful that God led me to AA. I've realized that I'm a garden variety drunk/drug addict who still has much work to do. I've realized that my dependence on others to make me feel worthy and ok is still a big problem. My dependence must be on a Higher Power.

So thank you God for putting M & P in my holiday weekend and for opening my eyes. Even though it was painful, growth occurred and for that I'm grateful.