Why Can’t Things Go According to Plan?

One of the larger struggles in my life has been battling with the gap between what I think is supposed to happen and what actually happens. This was most frustrating when I was just coming out of addiction. A resentment set in, and it was fueled by an unmet expectation that everything should be grand now that I wasn’t acting out all the time. Thankfully I was in an AA Big Book Study Group at the time and learned that an expectation is just a future resentment in embryo, and resentments lead to relapse, since acting out almost always makes that frustration, abandonment, and emptiness go away…at least for a short while. Of course, then those feelings come back with added anxiety, demanding to be soothed again.

Today, however, was one of those markers of successful advancement. We had a plan to get the family out of the house by a certain time but the time came and passed. Those I asked to help disappeared. No doubt because they were used to the way I was when they were growing up - NOT a pleasant guy to be around when packing up for a trip or unloading the car - so I couldn’t blame them.

A former sponsor shared about a time early in his recovery when his family was shocked that he never yelled or got irritated as they prepared to go on a family vacation. They were used to steering clear of his path on packing day, but when they all got in the car, they mentioned to him how nice it was to not have all the pre-trip drama. That account stuck with me and I’ve been working on it ever since. And today, I drove my family away from the house in good spirits without a single cross word being said.

But these examples are small potatoes. What about all the stuff that happened to us when we were kids? And all the oaths we swore that things would be different when we were parents? That our kids would not suffer as we did, that they’d be light years ahead?

For some, those desires become reality. For others of us, to quote about the only thing I recall from high school English, this passage from Robert Burns’ To a Mouse … “The best-laid schemes of mice and men, Go oft awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain for promised joy!”

Recently our family has had some heartache. Despite my best plans and efforts, one of my kids did something akin to what I did at the same age. Oy vey, the frustration and hurt and pain. Frustration because I thought by sharing my life stories they wouldn’t have to experience the same heartache and pain. But alas, we each have our agency and some of life’s lessons must be learned by running straight at a brick wall despite all the warnings given.

So then, why can’t things go according to plan?

In my life I’m learning that my plans aren’t all that great despite me thinking so. I’m learning to submit my will to God’s Will, instead of praying for the desired outcome as though God is my servant. I’m learning to pray for the desired feelings of connection with Him, and leaving my mind open to inspiration of what to do to get there. It has taken a lot of practice and I still have much more to learn and experience, but I have seen it start to remold my life. When I co-create with God, the outcomes are far more amazing than the original concocted plan of mine.

So rather than having a plan with prescribed steps all the time, on important things, I’m learning to “let go and let God.” I’m seeking His advice, seeking to create my life with Him. I’m learning to not have much of a plan other than to humbly surrender my will to God and seek inspiration and then get to work on implementing what is shared with me through the Holy Spirit.

By Pete, Writing Team

Spelunker of the Soul

Have you ever discovered a part of yourself that you never knew was there before? In my life this has been a rare occurrence, but it has happened a few times, and each time it’s been a surprising and beautiful thing.

This occurred most recently about half a year ago when I was full of New Year’s resolutions, trying to throw myself anew into living a healthy, disciplined life. One night I was making my plans for the evening when another voice spoke up from within, encouraging me to keep my resolution to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I started up a conversation with that other voice, and was astounded to find that it seemed to have a mind of its own. I had never experienced anything like this, at least not outside of dreaming.

Like anyone else, I’ve had plenty of debates with myself where I provided both of the voices for two competing feelings, but this time I really didn’t know what the inner voice was going to say until I heard it say it. I could ask it questions, and it would come back with answers I’d never thought of before. It was like the voice was part of myself, but a part that was outside of my conscious perception. And best of all, this voice was positive, encouraging, and full of confidence in me. It was like my own personal life coach!

The voice expressed confidence in my ability to keep my commitments, it told me that not only could I succeed, but that I would. It was relentlessly bright and positive, a stark contrast to my usual outlook on self-improvement which had been dour and pessimistic. And that voice didn’t just show up for me that one night and then disappear, it has readily answered my calls for all the months since. I even spoke to it just last night.

I’ve decided that this voice is the part of God that lives in my heart, the part of me that is fashioned in His own image. And that part of me must have always been there, but I simply had never found the room where it lived until that one special night.

This really changed a key perception that I had had of myself. All my life hearing God’s voice had been very, very hard for me. I had always wanted to, but I never knew how to make it happen. I had assumed that daily discourse with God just wasn’t in the cards for me, and I would simply have to do my best without that gift. But then, with the discovery of this part, that belief was completely dismantled.

And this isn’t the only time that I’ve made a new discovery within myself. Over a year ago I had a moment where I suddenly found myself capable of loving absolute strangers. I’d walk into a convenience store and really, genuinely, care about the person behind the counter, whoever they were. I can also clearly remember the first time as a kid I decided to go and confess to my parents about a wrong I had gotten away with. I didn’t know I had that honest streak in me until one day when it just showed up all on its own.

As I’ve meditated on these discoveries, I’ve come to view my heart as a massive cave system. In that cave system I spend most of my time circling around the same, familiar chambers, but now and again I find a secret crawlspace that leads to a massive cavern I’ve never seen before. And this cave system is very large and very complex, which means I haven’t nearly discovered all that there is to find. There is a great and wonderful mystery within myself, and I’m the one who gets to plumb its depths!

I try to remember these notions any time I get caught up wishing that I could have a breakthrough in my self-improvement, or that I didn’t have the flaws that I have, or that I could be more like someone else. Maybe I haven’t seen those good parts in myself yet, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. I do not know what I may yet find. One day I may very well notice a narrow passageway that I’d never seen before, and when I shimmy down it I may come out into just the sort of quality I’ve always longed to have. What was impossible every time before might suddenly become possible. The person I could never be I might suddenly become.

So might you.

By Abe, Writing Team

The beauty left behind addiction

I’m at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon as I write this. The family is still asleep, and other than a young family with three rambunctious children I’m pretty much alone with my thoughts. I’m sitting at the end of a trail on a solid rock and staring down a drop thousands of feet deep with millions of years of geological history exposed.

I came here seeking God. A member of our family is going through a rough patch that felt quite overwhelming a few days ago and my wife needed to get to her happy place and this is it.

I’m also here seeking inspiration from God on my next step in life as taught most recently at bootcamp. I’m praying for connected-ness with God instead of treating Him as a cosmic vending machine for a list of orders but with no way to pay.

The message He is giving me is that He loves to create, and rather than give me some new opportunity He wants to create with me.

At first I thought this may be the wrong spot. The Grand Canyon is nothing without millions of years of destructive erosion. But this morning, as I sit perched on a rock at the end of a lookout point, I instead see millions and millions of years of sediment stacked one layer at a time and then the sculpting of wind, water, cold, and heat to carve away the miracle beneath.

All around the Grand Canyon is flat ground. What makes it amazing is the carving, sculpting, cracking, and weathering. It is the removal of what isn’t necessary that reveals what is inspiring and beautiful.

Not lost on me is the irony of my first name, Peter. In Greek, Πέτρος (Petros) means rock or stone. ‘A foundation’ is a common translation in the Christian world. What I see in the rock here today is what life clings to. Trees intertwining their roots into small crevasses. Small plants finding a way. Squirrels, insects, birds, and humans all exist here because of the rock left behind.

About 12 years ago, I canoed the Green river which leads into the Grand Canyon. The water is a murky brown-green and full of silt. To use it for drinking we had to let it sit for a long time and then use our filters for further refinement. That’s what the water looks like coming in. I haven’t seen the water coming out, but assume it is removing even more things as it goes through the Canyon, given the deep channels where the water has done its magic.

And so I return to the title. Addiction isn’t fun. It is baffling, confusing, and a misery for those it affects.

But in hindsight, I can see how the weathering in my life is leaving the essentials. And I find beauty in what has been constructed with all the carving away.

God, please continue to carve away that which is not necessary. I give everything and everyone to You to do as You will. I seek to create new beauty from ashes, and I trust You in that process in Jesus Name, amen.

By Pete, Writing Team