Sometimes I forget how important people in recovery take the slogan "One Day at a Time." This past Sunday, the first Sunday after Christmas, I posed the question, "What is your favorite Christmas memory." About two answers in, I suddenly realized I had done it again. Past Christmases for many of the people in recovery are full of pain. Christmas spent in addiction, family separation, divorce, lost opportunities and pain. Several of us at Recovery Worship have lost parents this past year, one man learned on Christmas Eve that his estranged wife had died suddenly of a heart attack earlier in the day.
I heard all of these emotions as people stood up to tell their story, the stories full of pain were often ended with the same line, "but I am sober today and that is what is important." They spoke that living a life in recovery has turned sad memories of Christmases past into happy memories of Christmas this year. One of the last people to tell their story was a man who has only been to Recovery Worship a few times.
"My favorite Christmas story" he said, "is this Christmas. This is the first Christmas in thirty years that I have been sober on Christmas Day." He is still in treatment but you could hear the hope in his voice. This time, this Christmas, he was going to make it, the rest of today he will be sober, he will worry about being sober tomorrow…..tomorrow. Those Christmas's spent in addiction are in the past, in recovery he has been given a "do over" and he plans on making it work today!
We all have the right for a "do over" after all; God got a "do over" after Noah and the flood didn't he/she! That will be the topic this coming Sunday as we have a Service of Healing and New Beginnings on the first Sunday of the new year.
