Peace and Prosperity

I am so grateful this morning to be fully aware of my presence in this body and my prosperity on this earth. I am thankful to have just returned from a walk with my loving dog, through my safe and diverse neighborhood, where I was able to connect through nature to a world much larger than myself. It's a world that whether hot or cold, wet or dry, flat or hilly has something magical to offer, a reminder of the perfection of an otherwise chaotic universe and its constant availability for my peaceful connection.

I am grateful to several years ago have had a Native American sponsor who taught me the beauty and connection of praying outdoors. I am grateful that I can say words like "prayer" and "God" and know that they are limitless expressions of my heart, unbound to the definitions others hold of them. I am grateful today to be working with a sponsor who is helping me to grow in areas much larger than the mere cessation of acting out, rather in the complex, but beautiful ways I connect with my fellow human beings, myself and my Higher Power.

I am grateful to have sat around a table in a small church last night, with six other sex and love addicts, from all walks of life, and shared our challenges and triumphs, and to read from our literature. I am grateful to have watched that fellowship grow from one to two, to three, and now a regular crowd of 5-7. And I'm grateful for a fellow addict there who I can love, support and pray for heartfelt peace, even though he incested his own stepdaughter, just as I was molested by stepfather. He is a gift, as are the beautiful women I sponsor in this fellowship. They inspire me and teach me and fill me with love, and I am humbled beyond words to have the opportunity to be one small part of their immense lives. And I am grateful for each and every person who has read this blog -- you've been with me in sickness and health.

I am equally grateful that I awoke in the night and couldn't go back to sleep because I was too warm -- not too cold like so many people who don't have the money to pay their heat bills, or who in the lower regions of the U.S. were without power last night because of an ice storm. And I was grateful to have the energy to get up and get a few things done before I had the privilege -- unlike most of the rest of the world who had to go to work -- to lay down and complete my rest. It goes without saying that I am thankful for a husband and a marriage that I disrespected, ignored and almost gave away in favor of living in my addiction, but which thrives today in friendship, acceptance and love.

I don't share any of this to brag. I share it because I feel it in my heart and I'm so very grateful to feel thankful, to feel present, to not be mired by a numbing and isolating depression just for this moment. And I share it because if an overweight, out of work, depression patient, raised up on a small town farm, where she was regularly molested and abused, who grew up thinking her only worth was sex and sought that worth with more men than she can count, who almost left her husband for an abusive alcoholic who she thought she loved can make it here ... can make it to this place of feeling fully aware of her presence and her prosperity ... you can too.

What will you do today to seek it?