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Saturday, December 27, 2014
The big list of public figures who came out as gay in 2014
Indiana drafting 'religious freedom' bill to allow businesses to deny services to gay patrons
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Dec. 27, 2014 - Today's Gift from Hazelden
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Saturday, Nov. 27, 2014
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Love-ability
A friend of mine recently told me how he met his wife. He had watched her walk by his store every day for a year with her young son. She also happened to be a friend of his neighbor.
"Fix me up," he suggested to his neighbor. "We'll go on a double date. I really want to meet her." Unfortunately, the neighbor never got around to setting up that first date.
Finally my friend devised a plan. Every day when she walked by the store, they said hello to each other, but she never stopped to chat. This day, he was ready. He had his store keys in hand. "Would it be all right if I walked with you for a while?" he asked when she walked by.
"Don't you have to mind your store?"
"I'll lock it up," he said.
"You don't have to do that," she said. "We can sit here and chat."
That Friday, they had their first date. She was nervous.
The next weekend, they went out again. She was still nervous. He turned to her, "You can relax," he said. "I'm not going to try anything inappropriate. I just want to enjoy your company." As time passed, she did relax, and they continued to become friends. Three years later, they were married in a small ceremony. "I didn't want to overwhelm her son," my friend recalled.
He wrote his wedding vows. He promised to love her and care for her all of his life. He promised to love her son and protect him, as if he were his own. She lit up his life, he said, and he was grateful for her promise of companionship for the rest of their lives.
My friend is a lucky man, but not just because he found someone he truly loves. He is lucky because he is able to recognize the gift of his wife's love. Most of us have the ability to see when we have been harmed, hurt, or slighted, when we're not loved or treated the way we'd like to be. But we can learn to see those acts big and small when someone shows us love. They are the greatest gifts of all.
Call it believing we deserve love, lovability, or love-ability, the value is opening our eyes and hearts so we can see and receive love from others, friends, family, romantic involvements, and God.
Love-ability
A friend of mine recently told me how he met his wife. He had watched her walk by his store every day for a year with her young son. She also happened to be a friend of his neighbor.
"Fix me up," he suggested to his neighbor. "We'll go on a double date. I really want to meet her." Unfortunately, the neighbor never got around to setting up that first date.
Finally my friend devised a plan. Every day when she walked by the store, they said hello to each other, but she never stopped to chat. This day, he was ready. He had his store keys in hand. "Would it be all right if I walked with you for a while?" he asked when she walked by.
"Don't you have to mind your store?"
"I'll lock it up," he said.
"You don't have to do that," she said. "We can sit here and chat."
That Friday, they had their first date. She was nervous.
The next weekend, they went out again. She was still nervous. He turned to her, "You can relax," he said. "I'm not going to try anything inappropriate. I just want to enjoy your company." As time passed, she did relax, and they continued to become friends. Three years later, they were married in a small ceremony. "I didn't want to overwhelm her son," my friend recalled.
He wrote his wedding vows. He promised to love her and care for her all of his life. He promised to love her son and protect him, as if he were his own. She lit up his life, he said, and he was grateful for her promise of companionship for the rest of their lives.
My friend is a lucky man, but not just because he found someone he truly loves. He is lucky because he is able to recognize the gift of his wife's love. Most of us have the ability to see when we have been harmed, hurt, or slighted, when we're not loved or treated the way we'd like to be. But we can learn to see those acts big and small when someone shows us love. They are the greatest gifts of all.
Call it believing we deserve love, lovability, or love-ability, the value is opening our eyes and hearts so we can see and receive love from others, friends, family, romantic involvements, and God.
From the book:
52 Weeks of Conscious Contact © 2003 by Melody Beattie
Dec. 27, 2014 - Step by Step
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Step by Step
Saturday, Dec. 27, 2014
Today, the first word in hopelessness is hope; the first word in helplessness is help; the first word in senselessness is sense; the first word in powerlessness is power. Within insanity is sanity; within fear, fearlessness; within pain, strength; within anger, reconciliation. This is our Program: from hopelessness to hope; from helplessness, help; from senselessness, sense; from powerlessness, power; from insanity, sanity; from fear, courage; from pain, strength; from anger, forgiveness. And from them - recovery. It's that simple. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2014
Dec. 27, 2014 - Twenty-Four Hours a Day
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Saturday, Dec. 27, 2014
AA Thought for the Day
I need the AA principles for the development of the buried life within me, that good life which I had misplaced but which I found again in this fellowship. This life within me is developing slowly but surely, with many setbacks, many mistakes, many failures, but still developing. As long as I stick close to AA, my life will go on developing, and I cannot yet know what it will be, but I know that it will be good. That's all I want to know. It will be good.
Am I thanking God for AA?
Meditation for the Day
Build your life on the firm foundation of true gratitude to God for all His blessings and true humility because of your unworthiness of these blessings. Build the frame of your life out of self-discipline; never let yourself get selfish or lazy or contented with yourself. Build the walls of your life out of service to others, helping them to find the way to live. Build the roof of your life out of prayer and quiet times, waiting for God's guidance from above. Build a garden around your life out of peace of mind and serenity and a sure faith.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may build my life on AA principles. I pray that it may be a good building when my work is finished.
Hazelden Foundation
Dec. 27, 2014 - A Day at a Time
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Saturday, Dec. 27, 2014
Reflection for the Day
"The central characteristic of the spiritual experience," wrote AA co-founder Bill W., "is that it gives the recipient a new and better motivation out of all proportion to any process or discipline, belief or faith. These experiences cannot make us whole at once; they are a rebirth to a fresh and certain opportunity."
Do I see my assets as God's gifts, which have been in part matched by an increasing willingness on my part to find and do His will for me?
Today I Pray
I pray for the wholeness of purpose that can only come through spiritual experience. No amount of intellectual theory, pep-talking to myself, disciplined deprivation, "doing it for" somebody else can accomplish the same results. May I pray for spiritual enlightenment, not only in order to recover, but for itself.
Today I Will Remember
Total motivation through spiritual wholeness.
Hazelden Foundation
Dec. 27, 2014 - The Eye Opener
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Saturday, Dec. 27, 2014
The average person has so much trouble in finding a satisfactory faith simply because the mind has difficulty visualizing a force so powerful as anything but a very complex thing. He thinks he must understand it in order to acquire it and use it.
When we eat a meal, we believe that we shall digest it and that we will be strengthened and sustained by it. Yet few of us know the mysteries of the digestive functions, but we get just as much sustenance from our meals as those who do.
We, therefore, eat our meals on faith, and we would probably ruin our digestion if we tried to figure it out.
Hazelden Foundation
Friday, December 26, 2014
French tabloid fined $24,400 for outing right-wing politician
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| French party VP Floridan Philippot outed by tabloid mag |
Black men have reason not to trust police, but should they fear them?
Dec. 26, 2014 - Today's Gift from Hazelden
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Friday, Dec. 26, 2014
Today's thought from the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Working today
As we approach a new year, many of us feel fear. We look back on the past and worry about the future. But if we remember we only have today, we can work to make that future better. We have found true friends in our fellowship, and this is a time to be with them.
Am I ensuring a fruitful future by working with all I've got today?
Higher Power, I pray for guidance for today and for freedom from worry about tomorrow.
Working today
As we approach a new year, many of us feel fear. We look back on the past and worry about the future. But if we remember we only have today, we can work to make that future better. We have found true friends in our fellowship, and this is a time to be with them.
Am I ensuring a fruitful future by working with all I've got today?
Higher Power, I pray for guidance for today and for freedom from worry about tomorrow.
From the book:
Day by Day © 1974, 1998 by Hazelden Foundation
Dec. 26, 2014 - Step by Step
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Step by Step
Friday, Dec. 26, 2014
"When I try to reconstruct what my life was life 'before,' I see a coin with two faces.
"One, the side I turned to myself and the world, was respectable ...
"One, the side I turned to myself and the world, was respectable ...
"The other side ...was sinister, baffling. I was inwardly unhappy most of the time. There would be times when the life of respectability and achievement seemed insufferably dull - I had to break out. This I would do by going completely 'bohemian' for a night, getting drunk and rolling home with the dawn. Next day remorse would be on me like a tiger. I'd claw my way back to 'respectability' and stay there - until the inevitable next time." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, "They Stopped in Time," Ch 16 ("Me an Alcoholic?"), p 432.
Today, give me faith and security in my recovery to know that there does not have to be "the inevitable next time." The AA Program encourages us to live in the solution of sobriety and not in the problem of alcoholism, and I am in the latter if my focus is on fighting off "the inevitable next time." The threat of a "next time" is weakened if I practice with diligence and integrity the program's steps and principles and accept intuitively that drinking now, for me, is a choice and that I will be held responsible to the consequences of that choice. Today, "the inevitable next time" may be less so if I stick to the program and the understanding that I have a choice and the choice I make will have consequences. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2014
Dec. 26, 2014 - Twenty-Four Hours a Day
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| The Serenity Prayer |
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
Friday, Dec. 26, 2014
AA Thought for the Day
I am glad to be a part of AA, of that great fellowship that is spreading over the United States and all over the world. I am only one of the many AA's, but I am one. I am grateful to be living at this time, when I can help AA to grow, when it needs me to put my shoulder to the wheel and help keep the movement going. I am glad to be able to be useful, to have a reason for living, a purpose in life. I want to lose my life in this great cause and so find it again.
Am I grateful to be an AA?
Meditation for the Day
These meditations can teach us how to relax. We can be of service to other people in a small way, at least. And we can be happy while doing it. We should not worry too much about people we cannot help. We can make it a habit to leave the outcome of the things we do to the Higher Power. We can go along through life doing the best we can, but without a feeling of urgency or strain. We can enjoy all the good things and the beauty of life, but at the same time depend deeply on God.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may give my life to this worthwhile cause. I pray that I may enjoy the satisfaction that comes from good work well done.
Hazelden Foundation
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