Am I Letting Go and Letting God, Or Fidddling While Rome Burns?

Experience in Al-Anon has taught me that I have many choices. I can live in fear: head ducked as if in expectation of a blow.

I can live in joy, with faith and trust that my Higher Power has not brought me safely this far, only to change His mind at this late date, decide He can't be bothered with me, and huck me out the window.

It may feel as if I'm being dangled upside down, seventeen stories up, and I may have to close my eyes and act as if I'm right-side-up in my livingroom, but I can do that, I've learned how.

I used to live in awful fear of the future: so much so, that my life went past unnoticed, while I tortured and tormented myself with what might happen.

It might, that's true, and if it does, I'll deal with it as best I can. I will not ruin the pleasures I can take in today, by constantly reminding myself, of the worst of all possible outcomes.

When this choice - of Letting Go and Letting God, was first suggested to me, I was doubtful. Supremely doubtful - how could they sleep at night, with their world teetering, like a newcomer to yoga, practising stork pose?

How? By deciding to, that's how. Oh, I groaned with frustration when I'd get an answer like that; I wanted a reply that would allow me to continue to worry, because worry felt as though I were accomplishing something, when dealing with those areas in my life over which I had no control.

At least if I worried, I felt as though I had some small part in it. I couldn't bear that feeling of whatever it was, being so completely, so utterly, beyond my reach. I wanted to have some input, so I tried to make myself feel as though I did, and I spent my time engaged in various disastrous scenarios.

I was in Al-Anon for quite some time before it dawned upon me, that my writing of my life always led to disaster and ruin - I never pictured things working out in a positive way. I was floored when I realised that - this was the inside of my own head after all, I should be able to write the thing however I wanted in my own fantasy life, right? Where had I learned to be such a pessimist?

No matter, I had and did, and now I was being offered the chance to change my interior landscape, to one of "sunshine and flowers."
(as I sarcastically commented to my sponsor one evening, bringing forth a reply of, "It's better than ruin and misery, isn't it?)

I have only this one day, this one hour, this one small space of time, in which to live - I do not know what the future is bringing. I don't want to be ignoring today, while always peering out the front window, to see if I can see tomorrow driving up the street, straining to see past the cedar in the front yard next door, to see if it's in a limousine, or a hearse.

I pray for acceptance, for the ability to live in the moment, and to take joy in this moment. I pray for the willingness to let it go - and to trust my Higher Power to look after me.