A Prayer & Some Thoughts - January

[bluidkiti]

January 1

New Year's Prayer

As the dawn breaks on a new year, let us give thanks for all we hold dear: our health, our family and our friends.

Let us release our grudges, our anger and our pains, for these are nothing but binding chains. Let us live each day in the most loving ways, the God-conscious way. Let us serve all who are in need, regardless of race, color or creed.

Let us keep God of our own understanding in our hearts and to chant God's name each day. Let us lead the world from darkness to light, from falsehood to truth and from wrong to right.

Let us remember that we are all one, embracing all, discriminating against none.

May your year be filled with peace, prosperity and love. May God's blessings shower upon you and bestow upon each of you a bright, healthy and peaceful new year.

~ Rev. Marcy Sheremetta

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Just a Thought

In following the A.A. program with its twelve steps, we have the advantage of a better understanding of our problems.

Day after day our sobriety results in the formation of new habits, normal habits. As each twenty-four-hour period ends, we find that the business of staying sober is a much less trying and fearsome ordeal than it seemed in the beginning.

So ............

Do I find it easier as I go along?


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Just a Contemplation

Blame

Which is worse: blaming ourselves or others for things that go wrong? A better question might be, Is anyone to blame?
We're really better off, in 12 Step living, to begin dropping the idea of placing blame for our thinking altogether. Even if someone's responsibility for a mistake or wrong is fully evident, we get nowhere by pointing the finger at him or her. What often happens, in fact, is that the person becomes defensive... just as we do... And retreats into denial or anger.
Another problem is that placing blame quickly becomes the sticky business of taking another person's inventory. Let's leave such matters to courts and prosecutions and focus instead on solving our own problems. I'll not waste time today thinking about who's to blame. My focus will be on what can be done for general improvement.

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Faith

To me, this means a belief in a Creator who is all power, justice, and love; a God who intends for me a purpose, a meaning, and a destiny to grow, however little and haltingly, toward His own likeness and image. Before the coming of faith I had lived as an alien in a cosmos that too often seemed both hostile and cruel. In it, there could be no inner security for me.

As Bill Sees It Page 51

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Just a Quote

"It's humbling to start fresh. It takes a lot of courage. But it can be reinvigorating. You just have to put your ego on a shelf & tell it to be quiet." ~ Jennifer Ritchie Payette