Tag: Healing

Inspirational

Why Jesus is my Sponsor

Jana Greene8 Comments
Sculpture at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, NYC (photo by Jana Greene)

One of the first things that one is encouraged to do in Alcoholics Anonymous is to get a sponsor.  Webster’s dictionary describes a sponsor as:

a)      A person who vouches or is responsible for a person or thing.  Or…

b)      A person who makes a pledge or promise on behalf of another.

Although I attended many meetings, I never did find a sponsor in the halls of AA.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want one initially, but asking someone to sponsor me seemed a cruel thing to ask of anyone in those early days.  Kind of like asking a stranger to donate a kidney.  And I surely didn’t want to sponsor someone else, even after some time in recovery, because I am a messy and flawed human being.  Being responsible for myself is about all I can handle (and some days that’s a stretch).

At one of the first meetings I went to, one member told the group that your “higher power” could be just about anything.

“It could be a lampshade,” she said, nodding toward the light in the corner of the room.  “As long as you admit that believing in it can restore you to sanity.”

I looked at the lampshade, which admittedly appeared to be more sane than I at that moment.  But it was not a “higher power” and I didn’t believe in its holiness. I didn’t believe that I could save myself, or that Buddha could save me or nature or another person.  I believed in Jesus Christ and His power to get me through this thing called sobriety.  It would have to be an act of God for me to stop drinking.

You see, for three days prior I had been on my knees, sick and begging for help.  Three days of detoxifying sweats, shakes, and hallucinations – the penalty of denying my body alcohol.  In my weak and lonely state, I had called out to Jesus Christ.  A fill-in-the-blank deity did not carry me through that – it was nothing short of supernatural.

When I was at my worst, sprawled out on the bathroom floor heaving and shaking, I screamed at the Lord and called him to the mat.

“You said your grace is sufficient,” I yelled, fist punching at air.  “Well, where are you?  Help me!”

Help me.  Help me. Please help me.  You SAID you WOULD!

And he did, moment by moment, bit by bit, comforting my sick body and tortured mind.  In that dark time, he became my closest friend.  The kind of friend you would give you a kidney.  The kind of friend that would give up his life for me.  Because you see, he did that, too.

Ever since that day, I have felt that I HAVE to tell other people about him, that he is still in the miracle business.  I have to show other “beggars” where I found bread.

I love the 12-steps and believe in the practicality that they offer.  I pull them out of the “toolbox” constantly, because they help me to do life on life’s terms instead of my own.  In the rooms of AA meetings and Celebrate Recovery gatherings, I have met the bravest people on earth.  Every person in recovery has something to bring to the table that another person in recovery needs to know or hear.  But for me, the program itself and the wonderful people I met at the meetings were just not enough to maintain sobriety.  They could not save my soul.

Life kept happening…the good and the bad, and all along, Jesus stayed. Jesus made the pledge, the promise – and he is still vouching for me today.  Any sanity I have had restored in these past eleven years of sobriety?

Given to me by my Sponsor, Jesus Christ.  He is the Highest Power of all.

Inspirational

I’m ALL in! A Reintroduction to the Beggar’s Bakery

Jana Greene2 Comments

Hello, and pleased to meet you – or meet you again!  Today I’m re-posting the first piece from The Beggar’s Bakery as a reintroduction.  God bless you, and thanks for your readership!

By:  Jana Greene

Welcome to my little piece of Real(ity)Estate on the web! It took a long time for me to create one; I could not imagine anyone would read it.  (I hope it turns out that I’m wrong, but if not – I get LOTS of writing practice!)

I also hope that you might take something away from it each day.  I am going to try my level best to keep it real (probably too real at times).

So what you should you know about me?

There are the usual stats and facts:

I am happily married to Bob Greene, whom I don’t write about in the public forum often at the risk of sounding like I’m bragging.  He really is – cliché not withstanding – my best friend, and I’m so glad to be doing this crazy life with him. We have been married over five years and have blended a family that contains three teenaged daughters; two mine, one his. (Yes, they all live with us, and yes….He IS practically  a Saint!)  The blending is harder and sweeter and more challenging  and more rewarding than I could have imagined.

I gave birth to two daughters, now 16 and 19, and I  mother my lovely stepdaughter (nearly 20) when she lets me.  They are my heart walking around outside of my body, if my own heart chose to drive me absolutely crazy (which it has on occasion). I love them fiercely and will try to respect their respective privacies here, although you can expect a good many pieces about my frustrations as I learn to let them go. If they get bored enough, they might read this one day, in which case I have TONS of chores for them to do.

I’ve worked at insurance and real estate agencies, mortgage companies, law offices, and as a day-care teacher. As a single mother I worked several at a time – including a hardware store paint-slinger and as a part-time hotel maid.  All were character building.  But I’ve been a writer – legit or not – since I could hold a crayon.

I am imperfect all the way.  As a writer,  I use the forbidden “three dots”…too often and cannot bear to part with the text-forbidden smiley faces 🙂 and sometimes use run-on sentences because I think they convey stream-of-consciousness better and yes, I know all of these are against the Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” guidelines.  I have written for a small  local paper,and although I couldn’t make a living at it, it was the best job I ever had.  Also, I have a terrible “wordi-ness” problem, but I’m working on it.  Sort-of.  I write for the selfish reason that it helps me productively process the pain and pleasure in life when I pour words onto a page.  And for the selfless reason that I cannot help anyone else find the “Bread of Life” if I don’t show them where I found it.

Because, all of these things I tell you about me, are true, but none define me.  I am a Christian and a beggar.  That is my most accurate self-description.

Over eleven years ago, I came to the end of myself and all of my delusions of put-together-ness, which is to say – I got sober.  If you know me even casually, you know I am an alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink in that long, but I am still – forever – in recovery, something that keeps me humble and coming back for more of what got me clean in the first place.  Every single day. I keep it “out there” because there is somebody, somewhere who is hiding bottles and drinking that “two” beers just to stop the shaking and who is so, so, ashamed. I know shame.  Or maybe he/she is addicted to drugs, or porn, or the approval of others –  it’s all the same to your soul – or cannot seem to find a reason to wake up in the morning.  I can’t tell you how to fix it, but I can tell you who can.  I can tell you that I 100% expected to die during that hard time, and sometimes would have considered it a relief. I still have bad days (that “One Day at a Time” thing…) but I have the clarity to enjoy the GOOD ones, of which there are many.  Faith and humor are key.  Oh, and boundaries, on occasion.

One Day at a time, by the Grace of God. Even if I might have bad days, or whine a little.  You know, just to keep it real!

One beggar showing another beggar where she found food. When I couldn’t love myself enough to lift myself up, I crawled back to Jesus, and He  said “You look hungry… come to the table!”  Redemption is the best feast ever.

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Spiritual

Flexing the Faith Muscle – Frankenankle Style

Jana Greene2 Comments

photo: 3dimensionallife.wordpress.com

By:  Jana Greene

My leg, which I had surgery on in March, is healing very nicely.  Frankenankle, as I affectionately refer to it because of the hardware that now holds it together and the scar that holds in the hardware, has become a bit of a lesson to me about various things.  One of those things was a reality check on my faith.

Two days before the injury, I’d had faith that all would be okay.  My plans to do projects around the house get in shape and find a new job had been carefully crafted for weeks.  I thought I was really flexing my “faith muscle” in believing my plans were foolproof!  “Lord, bless my plan,” was what I had prayed, essentially.  And believed, foolishly, that it was a reasonable request.

Many weeks later…..

When the surgeon first assessed the damage, he declared that the surgery “shouldn’t put you back all summer….”

Excuse me?  This could take all summer to heal?  That’s just not ok! 

But it would have to be.

But I’d had faith!

I found out what the doctor had meant about the time-frame when I had healed well enough to come out of the “boot”.  Even after graduating from the boot to the support bandage, Frankenankle would be weak.  I mean   very, very weak.   It looks puny and pale, and although I can walk on it for short bursts, it is painful when I’ve put it under too much pressure, flexed it the wrong way, or stepped out of a normal pace.  It revolts, “Oh no you DIDN’T!”

I am so over it – over my injury – in my mind.  My leg, however, has to regain strength.  By not moving it for months, it atrophied – plain and simple.

And I’d had so much faith in my plans.  Sigh.

My plans.  Hmmmmm.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, we are told by Jesus that “My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”

Which of course, having had years in active recovery from alcoholism, I know.  I’m familiar with the verse; I just forget that His grace is all I need in relation to all of my weaknesses.   In having faith in my plans, I wasn’t using my faith muscle at all.  Faith in myself is puny, pale and usually results in pain.  It atrophied my faith muscle.

But looking to His plans with great expectation?  Supernatural strength.   It takes some stepping out, and sometimes my flesh – wanting my way – revolts…”Oh no you DIDN’T!”

Oh yes.  Yes, I did.

Today, my prayer is “Lord, bring me into your plan, your will.   Stepping out of my normal pace, I am expecting His strength to be manifest in my weakness, and I have plenty of weaknesses.   My faith is again being strengthened again by Him.  He is so patient and  awesome that way. “I’m at your disposal, God….”  I pray.

I’ve got all summer (plus a lifetime) to be present for His plan, and authentic faith that yes – all will be ok.

 

Inspirational · Recovery · Spiritual

To Thine Own Self be True?

Jana Greene8 Comments

 

We’ve all heard the old adage

“To thine self be true”

But I say NO to that baggage…

I’ve seen what My Self can do

I love the verse in Romans that asks the simple question, “With God on our side, how can we lose?”  It reminds me that God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for me, exposing Himself to the worst of humanity in order to save me.  What could possibly even attempt come between the love of God and me?

Me.

I cringe when I think of some of the things I’ve done in the past.  You see, I am my own worst enemy.

In my life as an active addict, I used alcohol as a numbing agent to quiet my anxiety.  It started off innocently, but ended in the near-destruction of my body  and mind.  Yet the worse byproduct of my drinking was that it anesthetized the  quiet, divine stirrings that  my Father in Heaven was sending.  He was loving me, trying to tell me He loved me.  I chose numbness over relationship in order to keep my sickness alive.  In countless small ways, I shut God out, preferring to get “my way”. 

Before long,  there seemed to be a pattern with “my way”.   It always ended in destruction, and then surrender to God.  What if my pattern were to become taking all matters – big and small – to Him, and bypass the whole “destruction” phase altogether? 

I’ve been sober 11 years, but I’m still a work in progress.

“To thine own self be true,” ends, ironically, in my self-destructive behaviors.

People ask me sometimes when I knew it as time to stop drinking.  I’m never quite sure how to answer them, because I knew the first time I took a drink and thought, “If I can feel like this all of the time, I’d be crazy NOT to stay drunk”.  That warm buzz?  I loved that sensation….I really loved it.  At first, I tolerated the destructiveness because it felt so good.  Years went by, and by that time I realized it didn’t help with the anxiety anymore,  I needed it in order to stop the shaking in my hands.   The shaking in my spirit. 

And prayer?  I’d stopped praying altogether, because of the mess I’d made of my life.  I was embarrassed before God Himself, ashamed that I couldn’t control this thing, this one thing.  That is how insidious my disease is.  I was turning yellow, sick and retching, but I just couldn’t let it go.  I wanted desperately to be a good mother, but that facade was breaking apart.  I couldn’t get sober for my kids, for my job,  or for my life. 

One cold January evening, I walked to the harbor near our house, and sat on the bulkhead.  I always felt the Creator a little closer near the water.  I told God that I couldn’t do this anymore, that I’d made a mess of everything.  I shouted at Him for not saving me from myself, and warned him that if I had to live without drinking, He may as well take me home now because I couldn’t give it up.   I cried for my children, who were four and seven at the time.  For two hours, my cares and worries spilled out in racking sobs until I had said everything.  I ended the rant of my soul by telling the Almighty that He had to meet me in that place because I couldn’t take another step. 

Essentially, I said, “Ok, God….You said you are enough to get me through this.  You said your grace is sufficient.  Show me your grace, then!”  I’m not proud that a challanged God, but thats what I said.

The sun had set by this time,  and all was quiet.  I half-expected a light to beam from heaven, but instead, something better happened.  I felt His Spirit gather me into the lap of his unfathomable grace and hold me there.  I felt so incredibly small, like a much beloved child.   I cried for a long time in the lap of Jesus.  “What took you so long?”  He seemed to say.  “I love you so much.”

It was January 3rd, 2001.  I was a captive set free.

Of course, it was no easy task to get sober, or to stay sober.  It was very hard work, but every day, God extended His help, His supernatural-ness to me as I needed it; not ahead of time, mind you.  But enough for each day.  He is faithful every day, one day at a time.

My addictive personality didn’t change, although I have a healthy dis-trust of it now.   I ask God to use the good stuff within me to tell others what He did for me, and to help me overcome the bad stuff within me so somebody might actually listen and receive his help, too.  

 Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us?  Theres no way!  Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins found in scripture

That’s  what God says about it.  Still not convinced? 

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us.  I’m absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing dead or living, angelic or demonic – today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely NOTHING can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. – Romans 8:31-39 (The Message)

I tried to drive a wedge, but I failed.  He loved me still.  Now I ask for His will for my life, and try to get out-of-the-way of it. 

“Lord, your will…not mine,” is my prayer.

I’ve seen what “myself” can do.