I couldn’t tell you exactly what the catalyst was for me. For true change. For recovery. Sometimes it feels like luck. Working in behavioral health, I’m confronted with tragic outcomes and end stages of addiction and mental illness consistently. It can be remarkably easy to subconsciously internalize these harsh realities and become infected with cynicism, depression, hopelessness, or even indifference. I’ve been guilty of this. You want to run away. Distance yourself. You start believing the lie that people can’t escape their circumstances, despite contrary evidence suggesting otherwise, even if it appears on the surface to be the minority.
I’ve gone down that cynic rabbit hole. The pessimist’s trail of shadows. I’ve found God, strayed from the path, returned, and questioned and faltered yet again, despite everything He’s accomplished in my life. To reconcile our suffering, the world, and all of the things in it, with spirituality, is a challenging thing. But it is worthwhile, always.
The fact of the matter is I am probably lucky. I am blessed. I had things done for me that I could not do for myself in any way, shape, or form. I don’t deserve all the credit for that. The consequences of my use and the way I lived mounted up. They towered over me precariously and gave me a modicum of strength in a desperate moment that enabled me to fight. I had to fight every day, even the worst days, no matter how I felt.
I wish I could give people that experience. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make their bad days go away. Luck notwithstanding, I’ve come to believe fully that the bad days, in the end, are the days that make us. The tests of faith. The adaptation. The willingness. The acceptance of our faults, our powerlessness – they’re much easier to find at the bottom of a hole than a mountaintop.
When I suffer from depression, anxiety, self-doubt, and negativity, when I get low – I try to remember this concept. The psychic pain is just the whetstone for me to grind away the dullness, the chafed scraps of cold steel swept away. It’s the way God shows us how to live. There is deep purpose and meaning in these experiences and feelings, but it takes discipline and perspective to see them. It takes a willingness to accept the truth – that it’s always darkest before dawn, and the most meaningful growth we experience in our short time here is often through hardship.
Every second of your life counts. Every seemingly mundane task of daily living, every loss, every win, every smile, and every tear. It’s likely that in 500 years, people standing on the spot I sit now as I write this will have no idea who I am or that I even existed. Make your days mean something. Ask God to show you. Every moment we are alive is a moment for gratitude. For learning. And most importantly, for the utilization of these tools, forged in fire, to lift up the people around us.
Praying today for you, your hard times, your good times, your loved ones, and your mutual restoration. Anything is possible. Every second counts.
With love,
Sean, In Recovery
