“Religion is for people who fear hell. Spirituality is for people who’ve already been there.”
The first time I heard someone say this in a meeting, it really spoke to me. Since getting sober, I’ve been on a spiritual journey. Underneath all the labels I’ve given myself through the years, sobriety has opened up my heart to the possibility that maybe my only label should be “Someone who just wants to live simply and be kind and tolerant of others.” Within all of this, my higher power, the one whom I choose to call God, continues guiding me on my path.
I was raised Lutheran. Not a super strict Lutheran, but a member of the church no less, baptized and a follower of Jesus. It wasn’t the teachings of Jesus or the way he lived his life that remained in question for me. It was some of the other stuff, like how Adam and Eve were the ‘first humans on the planet’ and how some people in the church put on their Sunday best, but acted completely different every other day of the week. Something didn’t add up for me.
I do enjoy a heartfelt sermon. Every time I attend a church service, I feel God’s presence. As I listen, I get those chilly goose bumps all over, and I’m usually moved to tears. I know God is at the heart of my being. I think the stories in the bible are wonderful examples for how we live a good and decent life. Going to church hasn’t always been the biggest factor in strengthening my relationship with God, though. What has strengthened my relationship with God is simply taking the right steps back from the hell I was living in during my addiction, starting with getting honest with myself and others.
If you’ve never experienced it, living in addiction is like living a painful double life. By the time you realize what you’re doing to yourself, it’s too late. It eats you up inside. It takes away your dignity and your spirit. As I fed my addiction, I grew further from my God. This seems to be the case for many like me. But luckily, I have a really great God that didn’t give up on me, instead he led the way home.
I wouldn’t be sober today if he hadn’t worked his magic throughout all the different dark points in my life. From the gift of the dove after my brother’s death when I was 15, to the moment of my surrender at age 30, then during the beautiful birth of my son. Call it coincidence, but I choose to believe that the signs of a power greater than myself have been there all along.
Since I was a child, God was in everything around me. I didn’t need to be taught what God was. I felt him. During moments I can’t explain, the chills, the feeling of a gentle presence that came and went. That was what I’ve always associated with God. It is still how I connect to this day.
I don’t know for sure if there is a perfect place called heaven, that if we are ‘good’ and ‘believe’ we get to spend a blissful eternity in, or if there really is a fiery inferno filled with demons called hell, that we go to if we don’t make right with our maker. Believing in these things is what we call faith. We choose it or we don’t. But what I do know for sure, is that both of these places can exist right here on earth, in the life we are living right now. I know this, because I have been to both places.
I don’t consider myself religious as much as I consider myself spiritual. I know that in the darkest of places on earth, in the depths of pain, a light can be found, if we just choose to just look up, and open our eyes. That light is God, and his grace is how I managed to dig myself out of my own hell. It took time, but I realized that genuine happiness and joy were attainable by simply facing what I was most scared of facing. By surrendering to his will for me, I was given a new lease on life.
By setting down every part of how I lived my life prior, I was a given a chance to start over. With the help of others like me, I found a way to face my past, accept it and move forward. By choosing each day not to take any drug that affects me from the neck up, and admitting my faults to God, I get a daily reprieve. I’ve met wonderful people along my path. God speaks through them. And he speaks through me. God lives in and around me, just as he lives in every one of us that chooses to allow his presence there.
I don’t understand why bad things happen or why some people must face such unthinkable circumstances in life, but I do know that somehow, there is something that can be gained from each experience, each tragedy, and each day that just doesn’t go our way. But so often, this takes a power greater than our own.
Perfection can not exist in any of us. None of us are righteous, we are human. No matter what we do, hard stuff will come up and try to take us down. People will do things that hurt us, even if they don’t mean to. We will hurt others, even if we don’t mean to. It’s easier to just let go of trying to control the world, and love people anyway. What can exist instead of struggle is redemption, contentment and ease in the everyday.
I grew very tired of being sick and tired. I chose to take certain steps, because I trusted and believed that God led me exactly where I needed to be. I kept faith. This was the path, the truth and the life for me. And you know what? Instead of living in my own hell or lying dead in a ditch somewhere, I am alive today. I am free, and I have a beautiful life that I am grateful for each and every day.
