While listening to one of my sober pals speak at a meeting, I had a very strong vision at the end of her talk.
My friend shared her incredible life story. I had heard it before. I remember hearing her when I first got sober when she had a year of sobriety, which seemed like forever to me then. She talked about wanting to isolate, wanting to drink and check out. I mean she wanted to check out now at 18 years sober! She wasn’t talking about the past.
The thinking part of her disease of alcoholism was getting ready to pounce. All of her defenses were down and she was telling the truth about her not wanting to come to the meeting today and not wanting to be with us. She didn’t fit it, didn’t feel a part of—and she didn’t even care.
Then, she talked about what she had learned to do when she felt this way. To come to meetings and talk even if she didn’t want to. Her words were like a prayer to me. A reminder that there is a solution to our problems and that our thoughts don’t need to overwhelm. God was right there. I felt her relaxing into us as she neared the end of her chair and the obsession and fear falling away from her as she talked.
Then I had this vision:
We were all at a baseball game and my friend was running around the bases. She rounded third base, headed for home plate and slid in on her belly. Dirt flying. Tagging home base with her fingertips. We were all there cheering her on as the umpire called her “SAFE!” That image of the umpire squatting with wide stance and arms stretched out to his sides, palms down, all of us screaming loudly and with all the drama we could muster was such a powerful picture of our sobriety community. We are safe together.
The safe zone.
Come and stay.
Steal home if you have to.
Hebrews 12:1
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
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