Despite the fact that I often find myself putting myself down for prayers, the way I seem to wander off, while saying them, the truth is that I find that prayers are one of the most important factors in my life in sobriety. In fact it was a prayer which started my life in sobriety. I never want to forget that.
Today, as I still stumble and bumble my way through this way of life, I had to stop and think about my prayer life. That was probably due to a number of things. One of which was reading a passage last night before sleep about the subject of prayers. And then today, as I began my day by prayer and meditation, and then in the meeting, when I closed my eyes and stepped aside in meditation and prayer.
Then, in talking with a friend, I was reminded of the fact that I’m faced with some hard questions and I’m going to have to go back and ask my Higher Power for the strength to get through these things. I have no answers at the moment, but I know I still have the hope that things can work out, if I can just hang in there.
One of the things I was reading about was the forms of prayers available to us. One of them was to learn how to talk to the God of my understanding in a conversational manner. To just have a simple talk. Nothing formal. I think I do that more than I would guess. It’s probably one of the ways, which has evolved over the years. Another is to repeat simple, short phrases, when asking for help, especially when having to deal with things like anger and worry, or just something like impatience, which popped up this afternoon. Something like, Oh, God, come to my aid. Oh, Lord, make haste to help me.
It’s amazing to look back in time in here to see how all of this has come to pass over the years. How resistant I once was and how willing I can find myself today. I know I did not want to lead a spiritual life at an early point in my sobriety, but the warning I found in the BB changed that. That I would either lead a spiritual way of life or die and alcoholic death. I had already faced that in my bottom and didn’t want to go back there again and became willing to surrender and follow instructions.
And that’s what brought the change in me about. Surrender. Surrender and acceptance brought about by inner pain. It’s what I’ve had to go through in time in order to keep moving through the Steps and working this program. I can look at all of this with gratitude that I was given the opportunity to do this. And prayer and meditation played a big part.
Some of those moments in prayer still stand out for me. I can still see what happened and what was said and how it turned out. I sometimes go back and think about these moments. Often they encourage me to proceed, when I find myself stalling with reluctance.
Anyway I was thinking about prayer. How it came about in my life in this program. I need to think this way to give myself the encouragement to proceed. To go ahead and continue to live this spiritual way of life. To stay sober a day at a time. It’s worked for me and so many others I know and I’m truly grateful.