Today, all over the country, people will be gathering to give thanks for all the blessings in their lives. As I sit here this morning, listening to my wife in the kitchen making pies, I am thinking about all I have to be grateful for. The list is long and I won't go into great detail, but the list includes family, friends and not the least of all, my sobriety. Because without that, I wouldn't have any of the other things in my life today.
Yesterday, I went to the Sawyer County jail to visit a young man at the request of a family member from our church. He is currently a guest of Sawyer County as a direct result of his drinking. We visited for about an hour and he told me some of his story. I shared some of my experience, strength and hope with him. Toward the end of our visit, he made a comment about how much it sucked to be in jail at Thanksgiving. I told him to remember how much he had to be grateful for instead of thinking about how much he had to be down about. I told him about the funeral I attended a couple of weeks ago for a friend of mine from work. He was the same age as the young man I was visiting and he left a wife and four children behind. As bad as it is to have to spend Thanksgiving in jail, the young man I was visiting has other Thanksgivings to look forward to, the one who's funeral I attended does not.
As I got ready to leave yesterday, the young man said he would like to have me come back and visit with him again next week after he had done some reading from the 'Big Book' and I told him it would be my pleasure. As I think about these two young men, I can't help but think about how everything else in my life takes a back seat to my sobriety. Without it, I have no chance at anything else. So today, I give thanks for that.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment