Day 616
My fear of limiting how God manifests himself (including to addicts) gives me pause in describing my Higher Power. As a life-long Christian, I am deeply steeped in the belief that God (my Higher Power) is a personal personality that somehow manages to know His children in this world. I believe He has touched me and nudged me, even during my darkest days of addiction. The fact that I'm alive suggests it was especially during those days that His hand cared for me. We could go on to debate the various roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this equation, but for the sake of this context, I'll stick with referring to Him as God.
My God.
The older I get, the less likely I am to require other people to agree with my version of God in order to believe that they are in touch with the divine. In fact, as broad a definition as I give to God, I'm beginning to think that I think in much too small of terms to catch His essence and what He can do, and wants to do, for people like me.
I read a book last year that brings God, or perhaps god with a little 'g,' into the lives of atheists. That bothered me a lot at first, but my resistance waned as I listened to the voices of my fellow addicts talk about how their Higher Powers guide them. I'm convinced that some of them are simply in rebellion against some paternal version of the Almighty. I'm also convinced that some of them are in touch with an aspect of my God that I have not yet found.
I am also convinced that neither of these possibilities is a description of how broken people reach God; it's about how God reaches we broken people.
Last I checked, we are all broken people. Thank you, God, for finding us where we are and caring for our lives. And thank you for responding to the many voices that may only know you as their "Higher Power."
–JR
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