Wisdom Of The Rooms - 2022

[bluidkiti]

November 14

Quote of the Week

"Gratitude is the shortest path between me and God."

I used to take everything in my life for granted. At the height of my “big-shot-ism,” I had a lot of property and a lot of prestige. Rather than appreciating what I had, all I thought about was getting more or better or bigger. What I didn’t know was that I also had alcoholism, and the growing hole I felt inside me would never be filled with any of these outside things. When I hit bottom, I was surrounded by a lot on the outside, but I was empty on the inside.

When I started going to meetings, I heard other people talk about the same hole, and I began to hear about a different way to fill it. It started, they told me, by developing an “attitude of gratitude,” and by taking reliance off of myself and placing it on a God of my own understanding. They told me I already had everything I needed to be happy, joyous, and free. My job was to become “right-sized” by working the Twelve Steps so that I could appreciate all God had done and was doing for me.

As my humility grew, I found I truly had much to be grateful for. To start with, I hadn’t died or destroyed my life through my alcoholism, and I was now sober and on a spiritual path. When I looked at the abundance of everything I already had—a loving family, a wonderful new fellowship of friends, my health, and more—I came to appreciate the real richness of my life. As my gratitude continues to deepen, so does my relationship with God. Today, I have only to think about ten or fifteen things I have that property and prestige can’t fill to realize how blessed I am. Today, I know that gratitude is the shortest path between me and God.