Day 143: The Good Shepherd

I stray. I’m a stray-er.

Not in the cheating type of way, but, in that I get distracted and drift off from the rest of the sheep type of way.

As an only child, I was alone a lot of the time by default. But, as I grew up, I did that isolating all on my own. A loner in high school, though, not an introvert. A latcher-on-er in college. A co-dependent in my long term relationships. I was always guided by my own mind, despite its flawed, sometimes masochistic, misguidance.

Even today, in sobriety, I like to be alone. And, while I love the recovery communities of which I am an active part, I have real difficulty turning my whole self completely over to their hands, however capable.

AA, while it will never be the hoppin’ social scene for me that it is for some, has provided me with something far more profound than the group itself. It’s given me back my shepherd. My God.

Long forgotten, lost to me, my God was waiting. As I trotted in empty pastures, void of grass, wondering why there was nothing to sustain me, I never thought to look to the man with the staff. I wandered still, further out. I walked where I wanted to walk, and at a certain point, I accepted that being lost was my lot.

One thing I learned alone in that pasture was: I am strong. Even in my moments of absolute isolation, lost to the herd, hungry and tired, I stood. I can stand on my own. And, that’s something, just to survive. And that knowledge is not something I’ve written off. To survive what I survived, alone, is a testament to who I am. But, it’s not what I am. That’s what I failed to see. I failed to see that we are not meant to survive alone. We are meant to be sheep amongst sheep, workers amongst workers, kin amongst kin. If we were meant to scrounge for nibbles of grass, we would. But, why? Why scrounge when there is someone intended to, made to, lead me to what is meant to be my sustenance?

How had I forgotten? How had I lost him? I still do not know for sure. There are many reasons. But, these days, the one thing I do not question is how I returned to the rest of the herd. Because, I did not find my way back. The shepherd came looking for me. As if I’d been lost too long. He worried. He’d allowed me my freedom. Allowed me to stray. Perhaps, he did this so that when I did return, I would truly see. See what I’d left behind. See what I’d chosen for myself. And, I did choose it.

As I’ve sat under the weight of the depression that’s descended on me the past few days, I’ve turned to God. I’ve asked him to reveal something to me, something that I’m supposed to take from all this. I know that this low is not for nothing, because nothing is for nothing. But, my eyes have always been fairly quick to see my faults and my errors. I have made many missteps, but, have always been fast to right my footing and walk onward. A quick study.

After leaving bible study tonight, I still felt without God. Without that sign that I so wanted to see. As I returned home and threw a pan of brussel sprouts in the oven to roast, I heard my phone ding. A text message. It was was from my good friend, and a fellow AA. Someone who has taken me on a strange spiritual journey that I still don’t fully understand. He told me that Romans, Chapter 8, might be what my soul needed. He sent this without prompting. I had not told him how down I’ve been.

My sign. And not the subtle sign that God will often present me, quietly. But, verse. Bible verse. Unsolitcited. Perfect.

A Good Shepherd, waving his staff, that I might not drift any further from the outskirt of the pasture.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.

Romans 8:18

Day 93: Be Not Afraid

Finding some spiritual peace can change a lot of things, if not everything.

Having found some relief from the clutter and debris that’s been swirling in my head, I find myself playing the chicken and egg game.

Did my higher power help me find my sobriety or did my sobriety help me find my higher power? There’s no way to know. And, at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter. Having them both, I can attest that my life is so far from whatever I’d imagined and planned for myself, before either showed up.

As time goes by though, my spiritual journey seems to grow and grow, taking some strange and unforeseen precedence. It seems pretty epic, this path of grace that seems to have unfolded before me. And, the more I focus on it, tend to it, the more intricate and mysterious it becomes. And, as a result, I want to go further. I’ve taken a dive into the bible, at first, purely for academic reasons. To read the text. To observe it as a moral guide that’s been spread across the ages. To see how both the professor and the devout Christian can be completely ensconced in it’s pages, lessons, and historical heritage.

But, as I read, I find myself falling into it, and not in the academic spirit with which I had approached it, now it’s turned into something different. A pull that I find difficult to verbalize. And, I’m not sure what that means. I grew up in a household that on one side scoffed at religion, and the other could take it or leave it, but, it was an option should I want to explore it. Of course, growing up, I didn’t. I was too busy with other things, other problems, attachments, and obligations.

But here I sit in the thick of it. And, in my interest, have decided to join a bible study with another AA member who has seen something in my spiritual side. Someone who, for some reason, understands my desire to go even further. He is an oldtimer. Not your traditional bible thumper. He’s a man with a keen wit and a off-color sense of humor. Before ever discussing religion with him, I knew that in the program of AA, he had something I wanted. A peaceful, knowing,  and wry tongue. A sense of comfort and ease I admired. I only hope I can talk and carry myself the way he does when I am an older woman.

This whole plan, a bible study, traversing a new landscape with a fellow AA member, discovering something uncharted…it feels almost magical and, above all, right. In all my days, I’ve never had the feeling that something that’s laced with such mystical divinity would feel so true and so concrete.

My beliefs, they’re changing. And whether that’s a result of my sobriety or something even larger at work, I still don’t know.

But, I’ve already learned the lesson that stepping out of my comfort zone onto a path that challenges me, this time maybe even the core of who I thought I was, may very well be worth it.

And, for whatever reason, I am able to step out onto this new, uncharted path, unafraid.