This is a hard time of year for many of us. I know I’m not alone when I share that someone we love very much has crashed and burned again. One drink is all it takes. Fear grabs hold of me and I worry. I wake up in the middle of the night and feel the cold and hear it raining. Is the one I love warm and dry? Probably not. This pain has opened my eyes wider to the number of people out there wandering, struggling with addictions, hurting, in despair. And we’re not the only ones who have to fight our enabling tendency which makes everything worse. Anyone who has ever been in Alanon will understand what I mean.
“Let go and let God” is one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn – and am still learning. I must live my life and focus my energy on what God wants me to do in order to correct my thinking, correct my way, stay on the path, do His will. I must let God work on the one I love, no matter how much pain or confusion I see. Or feel. “Hands off,” God whispers. “Let ME work. Let ME draw the one you love back to ME.” My helping doesn’t help, it hinders.
So I whisper back my litany: I love You, Lord. Worry is a sin that reveals my lack of trust. I repent! I trust You. Whatever happens, Lord, I trust You.
The first three steps of AA apply to me as well as the one who wanders in the dark and sleeps in the cold. I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let Him. The Alanon Waltz. Steps one-two-three-one-two-three, God with His arms around me.
To those of you out there with similar trials, you’re not alone. Two words in my Bible reading this year have stayed with me day after day. God’s unfailing love. I’m holding fast to that right now; the unfailing love of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God and His only begotten precious Son, Jesus, both of whom love the one I love more than I do.