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Have y'all read this book? My husband and I just started reading it in our own little book club and first off let me just say this guy likes to say the F word....a lot. It's fairly comical, down to earth, a little cheesy, but totally relatable. Keeping it real for sure. He talks about what we have vs. what we don't have, and focusing on the lack there of, actually makes us less productive and less positive vs. looking at what we do have. When we figure out what we actually need to be giving a "F" about, figuring out our priorities then all the other stuff doesn't really need to matter. We live in such a society where enough is never enough. We need more more and more. And us as alcoholics, really feel that way. Possibly more so than "normal" people. We also care so much about…

When you hear about heaven on earth, most of the time I think we are talking about moments, although fleeting, but that are truly magical, whatever those moments look like. Thinking back on my "God wink" experiences, really I've had a lot... especially when I am willing to open my eyes to find them. We are told to seek, right? And for me, those moments can be big or small, loud of quiet, but all seem to have a bright light encompassing them. Those moments are just moments in time or people and things that they say or do. Most recently I felt the presence of God at the ribbon cutting ceremony, the official opening of Samaritan Colony Women's Treatment Facility, a long time coming, but what an absolutely beautiful thing to witness and be a part of. Something 12 years ago, I could have cared less about, you wouldn't…

Ahh, self care. In our program we are told we can't be selfish, that we have to be doing for other people all the time and always saying yes. But I always say, what good are we to others if we aren't taking care of ourselves? (However that looks like) For me, I've tried taking care of my self in a number of ways over the years since getting sober (because let's face it I had no idea what that meant while drinking), but it turns out I didn't really know what it meant after becoming a mom either (especially not being able to drive - you'd be surprised how much freedom and self care just driving can give you). Of course after having kids (3 back to back to back) it was all about them and taking care of them. But when I get extra snappy ("spicy" my husband…

Faith: a strong, often unshakable belief, trust, or confidence, typically held without requiring logical proof or physical evidence.

Faith without works is dead. We hear it from our book, we heard it in today's sermon at Grace church. We are supposed to build ourselves up in faith, but what exactly does that mean and how do we do it? Just like what our books says, we get up and do! Take the action, whether we want to or not. In the sermon today, our pastor said we must contend for our faith. we must battle for our faith....which really is not what any of us want to do right? Because we want it to be fun, easy, and all about us (our way or no way).

So then what happens when its not any of those things (because if we are doing things right, then most likely it won't be)?…

When was the last time that you actually stopped the smell the roses? (Flowers) Watched the birds, rabbits and squirrels? When do we take the time to do this? I remember a lot of people talking about after they got sober that they could actually stop and smell the roses again.. they were noticing things and not taking things for granted and allowing their perspective to look at things so magically.. even the simplest, smallest little things. So why then does that change over time? The world gets to us and we forget... The world is in a hurry and so we are supposed to be too. Maybe the world tells us that we're not supposed to be grateful. We're not supposed to notice things. Maybe that we're not even supposed to be happy, free and joyful? But I'm here to tell the world differently. Just for today I will…

From early on when I got sober, I decided that I wanted to be as real as possible. I remember before I got sober I wanted to change myself so that I could fit in because that's how I thought I would be loved and how I could belong. So I would change everything. I would change the way I looked, the way I acted, the way I talked, the things I would say, the accent I would use.. just so you would like me. Or so I thought. But that's not keeping it real because that's not who I am. And of course as we grow up we have to figure out who we are because we don't exactly know in our early days, our early years. So now since being sober for almost 12 years I maybe have almost figured it out.. But I am okay with being…

So then why do we still have so much shame? And where does it come from? Why are we so hard on ourselves? Or why do we think we disappoint so many people? Why is it that we can never be good enough? But what is good enough? What does that really mean?

As we continue going through this Worthy book, a lot of things have come up- things that I've never thought about before, new perspectives, and sometimes things I think about all the time. Something that came up recently in our readings is God's goal(s) for us versus our goal (s) for ourselves. What's the difference between them and how do we get them to line up? How do we know what's right and wrong, and how do we know what God really wants for us versus what we really want for ourselves. I think going through life especially as we age, it's one of the things that our society teaches us that we have to have these certain goals as we grow up. We have to do well in school. We have to have a career and it all has to be perfect. We have to have a family. We…

From week two of reading this book, man is it speaking to me. It talks a lot about shame...and how do we get past that. As most of us want a how-to book on what to do, what this author tells us is that we actually have to work through it. And what that looks like is talking about it. Getting our story out there. Whatever that story is. No matter how good or bad or what people might think of us. But just like from this page on the book we do worry about what other people think. We do worry about the judgment and have a fear of being less than, not belonging, not able to fit in, not good enough. A lot of times though, what I found is I think we speak that on ourselves (it's our voice with maybe a few other voices mixed in).…