:: sweettalk ::

:: Friday, July 16, 2004 ::

strength

God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy Will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy Will always.

Oh, that You would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would always be with me, and that You would keep me from evil.

Thank You for keeping me sober today. Amen.

When strength is yoked with justice, where is a mightier pair than they?  --  Aeschylus, Fragments

Though strength be wanting, the will to action
Merits praise
-- Ovid, Epistolae ex Ponto

The strength of a man’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life. -- Blaise Pascal, Pensées, no. 352

I can hear again! I've been battling an ear infection and a swollen lymph gland for the past week, and they've been dragging me down.  Every day has seemed like a struggle, but today I feel like a new man.  We are making progress on the Customer and Intercompany A/R reconciliations at work, and otherwise I've just eaten and slept.
 
I talked to Mom and my baby brother Ross on Monday night.  My parents are going to visit him in New York this weekend.  I hope they have fun, and I can't wait to go up there and visit him as well.  On Tuesday night, my friend Tom returned my call from last week.  Since we last spoke, he's been invited to present a paper on the subject of his PhD dissertation at an international conference in Venice.  I am very excited for him.  All of his hard work is beginning to pay off.
 
Yesterday, I stayed home from work and went to see the doctor about the ear infection.  He prescribed some antibiotics and drops that already seem to be working.  Thank You, God.  I am so grateful to hear and to have energy again.  Last night, I chaired the eight o'clock AA meeting on strength and read an excerpt from the 1941 Saturday Evening Post article by Jack Alexander:

THEY MADE it plain that if he actually wanted to stop drinking, they would leave their work or get up in the middle of the night to hurry to where he was. If he did not choose to call, that would be the end of it. The members of Alcoholics Anonymous do not pursue or coddle a malingering prospect, and they know the strange tricks of the alcoholic as a reformed swindler knows the art of bamboozling.

Herein lies much of the unique strength of a movement, which in the past six years, has brought recovery to around 2,000 men and women, a large percentage of whom had been considered medically hopeless. Doctors and clergymen, working separately or together, have always managed to salvage a few cases. In isolated instances, drinkers have found their own methods of quitting. But the inroads into alcoholism have been negligible, and it remains one of the great, unsolved public-health enigmas.

We had a great discussion on the strength of the program and sharing our strength.  There is much strength in surrender and in knowing that we are not alone.

:: Kyle 5:15 AM 0 comments
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