From Daily Reflections for September 8.

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"WE ASKED HIS PROTECTION"

We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 59

I could not manage my life alone. I had tried that road and failed. My "ultimate sin" dragged me down to the lowest level I have ever reached and, unable to function, I accepted the fact that I desperately needed help. I stopped fighting and surrendered entirely to God.

Only then did I start growing! God forgave me. A Higher Power had to to have saved me, because the doctors doubted that I would survive. I have forgiven myself now and I enjoy a freedom I have never before experienced. I've opened my heart and mind to HIm. The more I learn, the less I know - a humbling fact - but I sincerely want to keep growing. I enjoy serenity, but only when I entrust my life totally to God. As long as I am honest with myself and ask for His help, I can maintain this rewarding existence.

Just for today, I strive to live His will for me - soberly.

I thank God that today I can choose not to drink.

Today, life is beautiful!

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I keep forgetting to keep our spirituality thread going and first I found the little image I put in, and then I read todays meditation and it fit perfectly into the steps 3&11 thread.

This reminded me of when I opened myself up to the possibility of a higher power. I was in the first week of sobriety, talking to a guy after a meeting and I said, "I don't know what made me go to an AA meeting, it must have been God." When I said that, I shocked myself. I didn't know I believed in anything. After that, my concept of my higher power began to grow and evolve.

About a week ago, in the throws of depresion, I finally got into enough pain to make a God box. I took an empty coffee can and covered it with cut pieces of a paper bag. I taped the brown paper to it and then drew on it, drew the circle triangle on it and wrote "God's In Box". I included the Serenity Prayer and my little prayers that I say when I'm in doubt or confusion. Now I can write my problem on a slip of paper, fold it up, and drop it in there. I also write my charactor defects that flair up when I write an inventory. I've taken to kissing the piece of paper, don't as me why!

I had written employment on a piece of paper and put it in God's In Box. A few days later, I was trying to get my old job back. I said to my sponsee last night "its like that box is magic!" LOL!!!!!

I love this feeling of being spiritually fit. I know this too shall pass and the hard times will come again, but as long as I keep surviving each hard time sober and alive, I know I can take the next hardship as well.

So, the next topic for our spirituality thread is, do you have a God box? It took me over 2 years to follow people's suggestion and make one. And now I love it!