Tuesday 4/27/10 - "EXPLANATION!"

"EXPLANATION!"

I have not blogged since Sunday because I have been so very busy and most of it has been working with my sponsees and some new Al-Anon women reaching out for help by phone and in meetings.

I described my Sunday in my 160 as completely as I could in those few characters. There was much more. Among other things, I tried my luck at planting a tomato plant in a Topsy Turvy that daughter gave me for Christmas. I have a brown thumb, but I'm working on turning it green. I didn't hit the pillow till 11:00 after I had seen the movie, "When Love Is Not Enough - The Lois Wilson Story". I am glad I stayed up to watch it. It was powerful. Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon.

Monday was just as busy with many sponsee conversations - some women in crisis, others putting the program to use in challenging situations, and women methodically working through the steps to change their lives. Monday began with a downpour just at the time I got up and was getting ready to go to the hospital. Dog would not go out in the rain to do his business after a long night asleep. Finally I was out in the rain with my umbrella, dog on a leash, and he was trying to get at a cat in the driveway. I walked him under a tree as if we were taking our daily walk and getting wet just standing there. Eventually he lifted his leg on a palm tree like he does when we take a real walk and we could get back inside out of the rain.

After volunteering I met with my sponsor at a coffee shop in the brand new Hazelden treatment facility that has opened here in downtown Naples. We spent about two hours together and it was a blessing. I received a call from a girl who is doing 90 meetings in 90 days in Al-Anon. She is depressed and having a lot of trouble coping with life. She's looking for a solution. She approached me after the Sunday Al-Anon meeting and I told her the steps are the way out of self-defeating thinking and behavior patterns and the path to change. I also told her there was no greater gift she could give herself than to work those 12 steps. She called me Monday night and asked if I would take her through the steps. God has blessed me so much by allowing me to take many women through the steps. It is an opportunity to live a miracle over and over. We will meet Friday night to discuss it. I did warn her that I have many sponsees and might not be as available to her as someone else might be. I also told her that I am hard pressed to say "no" when someone asks me to help them and are serious about it. I believe these are God-inspired happenings.

When daughter got home from work Monday we were off to Petco and Target to do some doggie shopping at the first store and baby shower gift shopping at the second. I was shopping for a girl I sponsored years ago in AA. She lived in a city just north of Naples when I first met her at a Naples meeting. Her story is she got sober, drank, got sober, drank again. But the day came when she surrendered, got a sponsor where she was living, and got sober for good. She is a completely different person than the woman I first met. She is happy, a positive thinker, fulfilling her dreams. She got married about a year ago and it is a shower for her first baby I will attend Saturday. Miracles abound all around me.

Today, I chaired an Al-Anon meeting and then sat and prayed with an Al-Anon friend who has reached out to me for support and prayers in a most difficult time. I was happy to give her some of myself. After being with her I went back to the gym after three weeks of staying away. When I had a cold three weeks ago I didn't go. Once I was away for a week it was very hard to get myself back. I am relieved I went. I came home then and took a two hour nap and I feel wonderful. I'll be watching American Idol tonight.

Life is good.

Prayer Girl

(Photo credit: Water Tulip by Georgeanne Mcliveene - Kodak picture of the day)