Fearful -- that described me for a period of time in my life. Just a few years ago, I found myself fighting this awful specter of dread, wondering about my future, regretting the past yet unable to run into the future with free and clear hope.
Fearful and angry -- describes the lives of many people in AA and other Twelve Step programs. Even though individuals have found a "way of life" which get them away from officious substances, they do not find the "life and that more abundantly which every person craves yet often fails to find.
Man does not need one more reason to puzzle over his emotions.
Frankly, our memories do not give us the problems that we think they do. The harsh condemnation of "should have" does more damage. We hold ourselves to a standard which no one can meet. We expect ourselves to protect ourselves.
We respond to our feelings without realize that our thoughts create our feelings. Our fallen bodies have quite a tendency to remember terrible traumas.
In fact, harsh times and hardships may not leave our memory, but the pain can go away.
When we look to the Cross and find our new identity in Him, one who grants us all things, one in whom we can trust that he has all things taken care of for us, then we can let go of all the hurts that afflict our minds and our bodies.
When we are established in righteousness, when we distance ourselves from any shame that we may feel about how we feel, when we receive the unconditional love of God the Father, beyond time and space, we walk in victory, more than conquerors, coming over and overcoming all setbacks.
I met one beautiful lady. She had endured abuse and neglect as a child. She grew up with an overwhelming sense of alarm about her. She often took on the care-take spirit with other people. She had shared with me that she worked in crisis counseling.
Yet for all of that counseling, for all of that helping, clearly she had not yet been set free from the pain that remained in her frame. Proper counseling does not turn us back into ourselves, does not engage us to look at ourselves, at or feelings, but rather to identify with the truth of who we are in something greater. Only God has supplied this ever-present need for us. Righteousness which has nothing to do with how we feel or what we think. Righteousness which declares to the universe through the Son of God, who is seated at the right hand of the Father as our justification. Righteousness which we are called to keep receiving.
A member of AA cannot receive this gift of righteousness, as the Twelve Steps are outlines in such a way that a man or woman never rests, but merely lives with a "one day at a time" reprieve.
Jesus Christ did not come so that we could live the "barely get by" life. He came that we may rest assured that as our Daddy, He will never leave us, forsake us, or abandon us. Our flesh, thoughts and feelings, may communicate upset, fears and tumults. The truth does not stay on ignoring our feelings, or in denying them, but rather identifying with the Truth who sets us free.
The more that we see Him, the more that we receive who we are in Him, the more that we allow Him to live His life through us, the more that we are set free from all sin, and we receive the glorious grace of His blood, which cleanses us from all sin.
When we stop expecting to find what we are looking for in this life, in this fallen world, and when we respect the full gifts of His righteousness and grace, then we will reign in life, in His life, overcoming every fear, anger, and hurt in our lives.
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