Time: the Four Letter Word
Hi Ladies, Jennifer here, definitely and alkie and a grateful one despite the pain I am in today….was thinking about a topic and decided to read in one of my meditation books as this is a new assignment that my sponsor has suggested to me *winks* and it was perfect as usual…. the reading is not from an “AA approved” meditation book, not sure the protocol here so going to take a chance that I posting this is ok. If I have broken tradition, I apologize ahead of time:
This is from “A Women’s Spirit” published by Hazelden
September 25:
“We can trust in the constancy of one thing—TIME will always move forward, taking us away from the old and gently guiding us to the new”–Amy E. Dean
“It’s human nature to want the pleasurable experiences to last forever and the painful ones to leave immediately. But we can’t move through anything faster then the hands of the clock will allow. A better response to our circumstances, regardless of their flavor, is acceptance that GOD/(HP) has put a lesson in them for us and we can’t adequately judge the long term value of any of our experiences. Nothing lasts forever. The slogan, “This too shall pass” promises us the emotional relief we need when times are hard. Time is our friend, always, even when we don’t like the lesson. We do get what we need, when we need it.
Wow, when I read that I was like….whew…. and it is true. For me and everything that I have endured, the happy, sad, good and bad…has to be to allow time to have its allowance…and to turn it over the HP and know that it will pass….maybe not when I want it to…but it will pass.
This passage is Timely (eh see how I got that in there….) as many of you know and recently read everything and that wasn’t even everything, that I have gone through in sobriety…. especially my recent emergency back surgery….which was sorta like 2 months in the working…it just wasn’t until my last fall and almost 2 weeks later of agony that I chose to accept I needed to see what was going on. I knew something didn’t feel right and entered the hospital on Aug 31st….surgery a week later, 20 hours after surgery, released out of the hospital to a nursing skilled facility where the average age was ppl in their 80’s smiles…but it was the best and cleanest in the area and I didn’t care… I thought my doc was drunk when he released me 20 hrs after surgery, however, it was a blessing…and I got on the road to recovery as I needed….not my timing…but what HP knew was best for me…
As I do believe in lessons also…this has been a lesson in accepting the things I can not change for quite some years now…haven’t been good about it….but things happen for a reason and I am blessed that these falls happened and I got a chance to have one of the best surgeons operate on a disc that has been deemed inoperable for 19 yrs. This fall was a lesson and a blessing. I am not angry at HP at all….this whole process of my body changing and my health and having to learn to change my way of living is an ongoing lesson and process. I have had to accept HP’s time not mine with everything that has happened in life.
NOW: With this surgery, I have nothing but time….I don’t have a choice, and if I do something that I am not ready for …believe me, I feel it, so I have one choice….to accept that my rehab from this surgery is going to take time…maybe even up to a year… that I can not bend lift or twist for the next 6 weeks and possibly no bending or twisting for life…lifting is going to be in time… TIME…time….. and I would be lying if I am making it look like things are peachy and rosey…trust me…I am going through depression, frustration, anger, frustration, screaming at times when something as simple as something dropping I can’t pick up…and I am reminded by my mom or others around me, “This too shall pass…in time…things will get better”…heck…I am only a little over 2 weeks out of major surgery and I am somewhat mobile…ppl say I am doing better then anticipated…and with that, I must be reminded to take it easy….
This did not happen overnight, acceptance, working this program…turning it over…however, it does happen, with time.. The promises are promised to us, in time….and if I am lucky…this thursday I will be celebrating 19 yrs of continuous recovery…ironically, 19 yrs ago when I walked into the program, I was recovered from my first back surgery (Jan, 92), same disc, same procedure, other side of the disc and it failed..this time it, so far, is deemed successful…how is that for time and full circle!!
Please share what TIME means to you…or anything else you might have gotten from the reading….again, apologies if I broke tradition and look forward to hearing your ESH!! Thanks for allowing me the honor to chair with that I pass…. Hugs