Wash In The Pool

Often when I mow my grass I end up with a ton of black dirt in my eyes, nose, mouth and ears. My back yard is a weed fest, littered with dirt. I am a scary sight after I get done. But when I wash up afterward, what an amazing feeling. Nothing better than getting clean after a time in the dirt. It's the same way in my recovery. For so long I walked around with my heart stained with blackness. Everything I breathed in, consumed, listened to, and even allowed my eyes to see brought blackness into my life. I was walking blind with no purpose. In the book of John we see a man describing what had happened after his washing from the Father. Someone asked him, "how were your eyes opened"? Then the man said, "(glad you asked!)Jesus put some anointed clay on my eyes and then... told me to 'go wash in the pool'...So I went and washed and I received sight"Jn 9:11 Did you catch that? He was a blind mess and then in obedience, he "went" and then "received". Wow! That hit me between the eyes this AM. My recovery is messy, life is messy, but in order to become clean as freshly fallen snow, to "gain" and then "keep" the right sight, I must follow His plan. He wants to wash me clean daily. Is He calling you to the pool today? What is holding you back? Recovery is worth the messiness. He turns ashes into beauty. It just takes one step, the 1st step to get going. I am grateful that I finally listened to His voice.  There is nothing like being cleaned up after a time in the dirt.  Rodney Holmstrom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do we introduce ourselves?

One of the things that might confuse a newcomer coming into this great ministry is the way we introduce our self and do so every time we meet in a Step Group and/or Open discussion group. The question that often comes up is; “Why in the world would we have to introduce our self every time we come together? I mean, we all know each other don’t we? We all know what the other is struggling with right? So why should I have to state my main issue I am dealing with? These are all logical questions and I think the below content from Tina at Saddleback might help shed some light on this. As you may already know, in our small groups we ask our Leaders to introduce themselves with this statement: “Hi my name is _______; I am a believer who struggles with________.” We ask our leaders to keep it short; to stick to one or two primary areas of recovery. We ask them not to state a host of recovery issues and character defects, etc… especially because we do not run recovery specific groups for cha...
Read more

12 Days Of CR Christmas

Image
One of our great leader Monica rewrote the lyrics to this old Christmas song to tie into the 12 steps. We had a lot of fun singing it and love that it keeps the focus on the 12 steps thru Christmas. Great job Monica! On the first day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the notion it’s not about me; On the second day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the third day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fourth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my inventory, will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fifth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me On the sixth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, desire to be humble, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the ...
Read more

Guidelines are there for a reason

Anyone who has participated in a Step Study or a small group through Celebrate Recovery has heard the five small-group guidelines. They’re supposed to be read aloud before each meeting starts, just to remind everyone or to inform any newcomers. Most of the guidelines are obvious and make perfect sense on the first reading. Anonymity is vital and as people who are submitting to God as our Higher Power, we should realize that we are in no more a position to “fix” each other than we are to “fix” ourselves. There’s one guideline that puzzled and even annoyed me at first, that pesky no. 2. “There is NO cross talk. Cross talk is when two individuals engage in conversation excluding all others. Each person is free to express his or her feelings without interruptions.” At first I really didn’t understand the guideline. “Did they seriously need to tell us not to talk to each other while someone was sharing?,” was my thought. But as the guideline was explained further, I better understood. We ar...
Read more