As Far as the East Is from the West

Dear Reader,

This evening I have been spending time with Psalm 103. Within it, I find a beautiful description of God's mercy—not only toward David, but toward each of us.

David begins with words many of us know:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”
—Psalm 103:1

Then comes an important instruction:

“And forget not all his benefits.”
—Psalm 103:2

Those words remind me of the closing line of the AA Promises:

“We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”
—Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 84

For those of us in recovery, this reminder has special meaning.

After many years in recovery, it can become surprisingly easy to forget where I came from. I know I sometimes forget the loneliness, the fear, the broken relationships, the broken promises, and the repeated resolve that tomorrow would be different.

What I cannot forget is that God met me there.

So it is vital that I “forget not all His benefits.”

This is not to say that I have everything straightened out or that I have repaired every mistake. I am still a work in progress.

I am saying that God meets me where I am, and He is still teaching me a better way of living.

Here I am encouraged by David's continuing words:

“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”
—Psalm 103:3–4

Forgives → heals → redeems → crowns.

There is movement in those words. God does not merely forgive the past; He begins restoring the person.

These are not the words of a God reluctantly tolerating His children. They describe a God actively reaching out to us.

I do not read “who healeth all thy diseases” as a promise that every physical illness will disappear or every wound will be immediately healed. Some healing takes place within us as God gives us strength to live through what cannot yet be changed.

Through the guidance of a Higher Power, recovery has helped me understand that forgiveness is much larger than simply having a debt erased.

Forgiveness allows life to begin again.

It does not mean every consequence disappears. Some wounds require time. Some relationships may never return to what they once were. Some things we damaged may require amends, patience, and years of changed behavior.

But our past does not have to become our permanent identity.

God does not look upon the repentant soul and say,

“You will always be the worst thing you ever did.”

Psalm 103 tells us something very different:

“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.”
—Psalm 103:8

And then comes one of the most beautiful promises in scripture:

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”
—Psalm 103:12

Think about that image. East and west give us a picture of immeasurable separation. David is telling us that when God forgives, He does not keep our sins nearby so He can continually hold them against us.

That is how completely God is willing to separate the repentant person from the sin that once seemed to define him.

This does not give us permission to ignore responsibility. Quite the opposite.

Because I have been forgiven, I am free to become responsible.
Because I have received mercy, I can make amends.
Because I have been shown patience, I can learn patience.
Because someone carried the message of recovery to me, I can carry it to someone else.

And this is where Psalm 103 begins to meet Step Twelve:

“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”
—Step Twelve

The spiritual awakening is not simply that I stopped drinking.

It is discovering that a life I thought was finished could be redeemed.

It is realizing that failure did not exhaust God's patience.

It is discovering that grace was present even when I could barely recognize it.

And once I truly understand that, something changes.

I begin wanting another suffering person to know it too.

I can sit beside someone who believes his life is beyond repair and say:

I once believed that too.

I can listen to another person's shame without condemnation because I remember my own.

I can offer hope because hope was once offered to me.

God's mercy does not end with me. Mercy received becomes mercy shared.

This may be one of the deepest meanings of carrying the message.

We are not carrying a message that says,

“Look how well I have done.”

We are carrying a message that says,

“Look what God can do with a surrendered life.”

Psalm 103 even acknowledges how fragile we are:

“For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”
—Psalm 103:14

I find tremendous comfort in those words.

God knows exactly what He is working with.

He knows our weaknesses.
He knows our fears.
He knows the resentments we struggle to release, the habits that stubbornly remain, and the character defects that occasionally reappear when we thought they were long gone.

He remembers that we are dust.

Yet He loves us still.

His mercy is not based upon our perfection.

David writes:

“But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.”
—Psalm 103:17

Here I understand the fear of the Lord not simply as being afraid, but as reverence—recognizing who God is and placing myself humbly before Him.

From everlasting to everlasting.

There is no corner of my past where God's mercy cannot reach.

No yesterday so dark that He cannot redeem it.

No failure so deeply buried that His light cannot find it.

And no person sitting in an AA meeting, a church pew, a jail cell, a hospital room, or alone at a kitchen table at three in the morning is beyond the reach of God's love.

That is the hope I hear in Psalm 103.

And that is the hope I believe Step Twelve asks us to carry.

We do not carry perfection.

We carry experience.

We do not carry judgment.

We carry compassion.

We do not tell people that life will suddenly become easy.

We tell them that they no longer have to walk through it alone.

Someone once carried that message to us.

Today it may be our turn to carry it to someone else.

And when we do, our recovery becomes more than something that saved our own life. It becomes a means through which God may touch another.

Psalm 103 begins with remembering what God has done for us. Step Twelve asks what we will do with what God has done for us.

So today I join David in saying:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.”

I will remember the forgiveness.
I will remember the redemption.
I will remember the lovingkindness.
I will remember the people God placed along my road.

And then, with gratitude, I will try to become one of those people for someone else.

For God's mercy is greater than our past.

His love is greater than our weakness.

And His forgiveness reaches—

as far as the east is from the west.

🙏

The Responsibility of Recovery

 

Dear Reader,

This morning I have been considering a word that does not always sound very spiritual:

Responsibility.

For much of my life, I believed responsibility simply meant doing what was expected of me—mowing the lawn, delivering papers, saving money, meeting family expenses, keeping commitments, and taking care of the ordinary duties of daily life.

For long periods during adolescence and early adulthood, I was able to meet these responsibilities remarkably well.

However, as the roots of addiction and alcoholism slowly choked my existence, even these basic responsibilities began to disappear.

By the time I found recovery, responsibility was no longer a quality I could honestly claim for myself.

When I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous, much of my attention was centered on what had happened to me.

There were disappointments, losses, broken relationships, fears, resentments, and circumstances I deeply wished had been different.

In early sobriety, much of my growth involved learning again to take responsibility for the basic needs of life.

Slowly, I gained enough strength and stability to begin repairing relationships, meeting everyday obligations, and learning to live life twenty-four hours at a time.

Over the years, through working a Twelve Step program, I began to regain some sense of sanity.

With the guidance of a sponsor, the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a growing faith in a Higher Power, I came to understand that responsibility reaches far beyond simply doing what is expected of me.

Certainly, I remain responsible for the life immediately around me.

But recovery gradually introduced me to a deeper understanding of responsibility.

It brought me to a question that continues to challenge me:

“What am I going to do about the person I am today?”

That question changes everything.

I no longer have to allow yesterday to dictate what I do today.

I can acknowledge the past without continuing to live there.

I can accept responsibility for the life that is placed before me now.

There is an important difference between responsibility and control.

I cannot change yesterday.

I cannot control what another person thinks of me.

I cannot make someone forgive me.

I cannot guarantee tomorrow.

I cannot control the outcome of every decision I make.

But today, I can act.

I can take an honest inventory.

I can admit when I am wrong.

I can make amends where possible.

I can ask for help.

I can pray.

I can forgive.

I can show up.

I can reach out to another person who is struggling.

And I can choose the next right thing.

For me, this is where recovery and spirituality have gradually become inseparable.

At one time, surrender sounded almost like giving up.

I have since learned that spiritual surrender is very different from abandoning responsibility.

When I turn my will and my life over to God, I am not asking God to live my life for me.

I am asking for His direction.

Then I must still step forward, take action, and accept responsibility for my choices.

The Serenity Prayer expresses this beautifully:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

There is responsibility in every line.

Serenity asks me to stop fighting what is beyond my control.

Courage asks me to act where action is possible.

Wisdom helps me discern the difference.

That is not passive spirituality.

It is an active partnership with God.

Recovery has also taught me that responsibility grows as we grow.

In the beginning, my responsibility was very simple:

Don’t drink today.

Then it became attending meetings, listening to others, working the Steps, calling someone when I needed help, and becoming willing to look honestly at myself.

As recovery deepened, responsibility began asking different questions:

How do I treat people?

Do I keep my word?

Do I carry resentment, or do I practice forgiveness?

Do I listen?

Do I serve?

And most recently, responsibility has taken on an even deeper meaning:

When someone reaches out for help, am I willing to reach back?

Gradually, the question of my life has changed from:

“What can I get from life?”

to:

“What can I give to life?”

Through my experience, I have discovered that God does not always remove the road in front of me.

More often, He gives me enough light to take the next step.

For me, this is one of the quiet miracles of spirituality:

The outcome remains His.

The step remains mine.

My prayer today is that I may recognize the small part of this world that has been placed in my hands—and care for it well.

My recovery.

My choices.

My words.

My actions.

My willingness to help another human being.

I cannot control where every road leads.

But with God’s help, I can be responsible for the direction of my next step.

And for today, that is enough.

🙏🧘‍♂️💕🤗☮️

All Is Well, All Is Well

 

Good morning, Dear Reader,

Over the past few days, I have been immersed in the Book of Psalms as I prepare for a lesson I will teach during the first week of September.

The book of Psalms is arranged in five separate books. Across its 150 psalms we encounter recurring themes of Torah and Messiah, lament and praise, faith and hope. Again and again, the writers speak honestly about fear, grief, uncertainty, gratitude, worship, and their trust in God.

One psalm that has caught my attention is Psalm 23:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.”

Here David gives us a beautiful message: the valley is real. The danger is real. But so is God’s presence.

Likewise, Psalm 46 offers reassurance in the midst of trouble:

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

As I continued reading, I began to notice a recurring movement scattered throughout the Psalms: from pain toward trust, from lament toward praise, and from fear toward hope. That movement reminded me of a familiar hymn in the Latter-day Saint hymnal, “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” with its repeated assurance: “All is well! All is well!”

The hymn was written by William Clayton in 1846 during the westward journey of the Latter-day Saints. It was born in a time of uncertainty and hardship, shortly after Clayton received joyful news that his wife had safely given birth to their son. The Saints were still traveling an uncertain road, surrounded by mud, storms, illness, separation, and the unknown. Yet from within that difficult journey came the declaration: “All is well.”

That is the beauty of “All is well.” It is not a declaration that the world is calm. It is a declaration that God remains steady.

Psalm 121 and Psalm 34:18 reinforce that same confidence:

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.”

Many of us hear the words “all is well” and imagine that they must describe a life without struggle. The Psalms teach otherwise. They were often written out of trouble, tears, fear, loneliness, and uncertainty. Their writers cried out to God honestly. They questioned. They grieved. They waited. Yet again and again, they returned to trust.

In much the same way, “Come, Come, Ye Saints” was born out of hardship, not comfort. Its repeated phrase “All is well” is not a denial of suffering. It is a declaration of faith made while the road is still difficult.

Faith does not always allow us to say, “Everything is well.” Sometimes faith simply allows us to say, “All will be well because God is with me.”

As I reflect on my own recovery from drugs and alcohol, I identify with many of the laments found in the Psalms:

·    some days are confusing

·    some prayers feel unanswered

·    some burdens do not leave quickly

·    some healing takes time

Yet through recovery I have found:

·    I can still take the next step

·    I can still trust God today

·    I can still believe I am being carried

·    I can still say, in hope, “All is well.”

Recovery has not taught me that every day will be easy. The Psalms do not promise that either. What both have taught me is that I do not have to walk through difficulty alone. God can be present in the valley, near to the broken heart, and steady when everything around me seems uncertain.

So, as I end this message, I find refuge in the Psalms because they remind us that we can cry out honestly in our pain, continue walking in faith, and discover that peace is not always the absence of trouble. Sometimes peace is simply knowing that God is with us in the middle of it.

And because He is with us, we can continue our journey saying, “All is well. All is well.”

🙏  🧘‍♂️  💕  🤗  ☮️

Mindful of Us: Psalm 8

 

Dear Reader,

This morning I found myself reflecting on Psalm 8 and on a question that seems almost as large as the heavens the psalmist was looking toward:

"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?"  - Psalm 8:4

The phrase "son of man" caught my attention. In the Hebrew of this psalm, the expression is ben adam. At its simplest, it means a human being, a mortal person, a member of the human family.

That alone is worth pausing over.

The psalmist looks upward at the moon and stars, at a creation so vast that human life can appear almost insignificant. Then he looks honestly at humanity. We are limited. We are fragile. We are not nearly as powerful as we sometimes imagine ourselves to be.

And yet the psalmist asks a remarkable question: Why would God be mindful of us at all?

He does not ask why man is so powerful, so wise, or so important. He wonders why the Creator of the heavens concerns Himself with people as small and temporary as we are.

For me, that is a deeply recovery-centered question.

Many of us have lived at both extremes. At times we have felt too important, too self-willed, too certain that we knew what life should be and how everyone around us should behave. At other times we have felt broken, ashamed, and hardly worth noticing. Addiction, pride, fear, resentment, and pain can all distort the truth of who we are.

Psalm 8 offers a better balance: right-sizing is not the same as belittling ourselves.

I am reminded that I am not the center of some grand universe. The celestial sky above me is vast. God is God, and I am not. Recovery begins well when I stop trying to rule life and become willing to surrender to a Power greater than myself.

But humility is not self-contempt. Humility is truth.

I am limited.
I need help.
I cannot control everything.
But I am not worthless.

Psalm 8 does not end with our smallness. The psalmist also tells us that we are not forgotten. In fact, he goes on to describe humanity as crowned with "glory and honour." We are small beneath the heavens, yet we possess a dignity given by God.

That may be one of the most healing truths a suffering person can hear.

No matter what continues to plague us, Psalm 8 tells us that God is mindful of us. Not merely aware of us from a distance, but attentive to us, concerned for us, and actively caring for us.

This is a truth I experience almost every twenty-four hours of my recovery. The tools are often simple: the willingness to admit that I need help, the acceptance of kindness offered by others, and the willingness to return that kindness through love and service.

We are small, and yet crowned with dignity. We are frail, and yet remembered. We are human, and yet precious to God.

There is another lesson in the expression ben adam. Every person we meet is included in that ancient idea: a member of the human family.

That changes the way I should see the people around me. The struggling newcomer, the difficult neighbor, the lonely elder, the impatient friend, the person who has disappointed me, and the person who keeps falling and getting back up are all people God is mindful of.

If God remains mindful of them, then I must try to be mindful too.

That may mean listening with more patience, speaking with more kindness, teaching with more tenderness, and remembering that no one I meet is ever "just" a problem to be solved.

Each person is a soul.

For the Christian reader, the words also carry a deeper echo. The New Testament book of Hebrews quotes Psalm 8 and then turns our attention toward Jesus. The simple expression "son of man," which in the psalm speaks of humanity, later becomes one of the titles Christ so often uses for Himself.

I find great comfort in that connection. The God who is mindful of humanity did not remain distant from humanity. In Jesus Christ, He entered our mortal condition. Christ knew grief, rejection, loneliness, suffering, and death. He knows the weakness of the ben adam because He chose to walk among us.

Psalm 8 begins with wonder at the heavens, but it leads me back to compassion on earth.

The question is not only, "What is man?" The deeper answer is this: we are small, but precious; weak, but not abandoned; human, but held in the mind and mercy of God.

For those of us walking the road of recovery, that is good news.

• We do not need to become grand in our own eyes.

• We do not need to despair over our weakness.

• We only need to remember who God is, and trust that He has not forgotten who we are.

Humility says, "I am not God." Grace says, "But I matter to God." Service says, "And so does the person standing beside me."

Thank you for reading. May you always find God's love and encouragement.

🙏🧘‍♂️💕🤗☮️

Wake Up and Live

Dear Reader,

This morning I came across these words attributed to Bob Marley: 

"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!"  -- Bob Marley

I believe Marley's message lends itself exceptionally well to recovery. Every image in it can be understood through the experience of addiction, sobriety, and spiritual awakening.

The road is life itself. Few would argue that joy and sorrow are constant companions as we travel through our mortal experience. Even before I found recovery, there were moments of great joy - holding a newborn child, sharing laughter with people I loved, and experiencing the simple gifts of an ordinary day. There were also moments of profound sorrow, including holding the hand of a family member as they passed through life's final curtain.

Recovery did not remove either joy or sorrow from my life. What changed was the way I judged, believed, reacted, and acted.

Before recovery, much of my thinking was bound by self, ego, resentment, jealousy, and mischief. Life was often centered on me - what I wanted, what I expected from others, and what I thought the world owed me. Mildly stated, even my desires could have very few boundaries. I believed freedom meant doing what I wanted. In truth, I was often being driven by the very things I thought I controlled.

Even in early recovery, many of those old ways of thinking remained. Sobriety did not instantly erase them. Through the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, and by staying close to people who had already walked this road, I slowly began to see life differently. I learned to take inventory, admit my wrongs, make amends, pray, meditate, serve others, and surrender what I could not control.

Somewhere along that road, often without recognizing it at the time, I began to wake up. 

And I began to live.

The road still has bumps, ruts, detours, and potholes. Recovery has never promised me an easy road. What it has given me is a better way to travel it. A spiritual way of living has become something like a stronger suspension system: the rough places are still there, but I no longer have to be thrown about by every one of them.

That does not give me permission to become careless or reckless. Quite the opposite. The spiritual path asks me to surrender the illusion that I am always in control. It asks me to seek a Higher Power and, in my own faith, to place greater trust in God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Through sobriety, prayer, meditation, scripture, and service, my mind has become less complicated. I am learning to live more closely to the prayer, "Not my will, but thine, be done." I still make mistakes. I still encounter potholes. But today I do not have to drive deliberately into every one of them.

Increasingly, I find myself living among the calm, happy people, places, and things that once baffled me. I have come to understand that peace does not require a perfect road. It requires a different way of traveling.

“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” 
- John 8:12 (KJV)

For me, this is the light I have found in recovery and in scripture. It does not remove every obstacle from the road before me, but it illuminates enough of the path for me to take the next right step. It helps me recognize some of the warning signs, avoid many of the potholes I once drove straight into, and find my way again when I wander.

Recovery, then, has become far more than putting down alcohol. It has become a spiritual awakening - a way of seeing more clearly, loving more freely, and living with greater purpose.

Bob Marley's words say, "Wake Up and Live."

Christ's words invite me to walk in the light.

Today, I see those messages meeting on the same road.

It is my sincere hope that every person who is struggling, searching, or simply trying to find a better way through life will have the opportunity to discover such guidance - and, one day at a time, to wake up and truly live.

🙏 🧘‍♂️ 💕 🤗 ☮️

When Sorrows Learn to Swim

 

Dear Reader,

Today I came across a quotation attributed to Frida Kahlo that stayed with me:

“I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.”

Those words struck me deeply because I believe they describe something true about mortal life. Sorrows do not simply disappear because we wish them away. Pain, fear, regret, loneliness, and loss often return to the surface. They follow us into different chapters of life. They may change form, but they do not vanish easily.

I have come to understand mortality as a book made up of many chapters. Each chapter contains pages filled with emotions and feelings. As children, we may know the joy of a piece of chocolate or an ice cream sandwich. Then, almost without warning, we also discover fear. A child can go from delight to alarm in a single moment.

Adolescence opens still another chapter. Emotions become stronger and more complicated. We begin to know attraction, affection, longing, joy, embarrassment, and rejection. We become aware of how deeply another person’s words or actions can affect us. These feelings are part of being human, yet for some of us, they become difficult to carry.

That was true for me.

In my case, the chapters of young and middle adult life stretched across some twenty-six years. They contained stories of happiness, companionship, intimacy, and moments of genuine delight. But too often those pages were followed by deeper sorrow, confusion, and darkness. Somewhere along the way, I began using alcohol and harmful substances not merely for pleasure, but as a way to escape what I felt.

For a time, I believed that escape was working.

But it was not.

Frida Kahlo’s words help explain why. I may have tried to drown my sorrows, but the sorrows learned how to swim. Alcohol could numb them for a while, but it could not destroy them. The pain always rose again. The regret returned. The loneliness returned. The fear returned. The more I tried to bury what I felt, the more I found myself sinking beneath it.

A life shaped by alcohol and substance use can lead to insanity or death. It is a frightening road, because at first it appears to offer relief, while in truth it quietly robs us of freedom, clarity, and peace.

In my own case, something changed.

I started swimming.

That is the thought I would add to Kahlo’s quote. My sorrows had learned to swim, but recovery taught me that I could learn to swim as well.

At first, I did not understand that in spiritual terms. I only knew that something greater than myself had to take place if I was going to live. Through recovery, I began to learn a new way of life. I learned honesty, surrender, prayer, self-examination, humility, and service. Each of these became like a stroke in the water, lifting me a little higher and helping to keep me afloat.

Over time, my understanding of that help became more personal and more sacred.

In the Book of Mormon, Alma and his people were in bondage, burdened, and oppressed. They cried unto the Lord for relief. What touches me so deeply in that account is that the Lord did not remove every burden all at once. Instead, He said He would strengthen them so that they could bear the burdens laid upon their shoulders with ease. In other words, He did not first change the water around them. He first strengthened the people within it.

That is how I have come to understand much of recovery and discipleship.

God did not erase every sorrow from my past. He did not remove every painful memory, every defect, or every difficult feeling. But through His grace, He began to strengthen me so that those sorrows no longer had the power to pull me under. What once overwhelmed me became something I could face with faith. What once ruled me became something I could endure and overcome one day at a time.

I also think of the promise in Ether that weak things can become strong. That scripture has real meaning to me because my weakness was not imaginary. It was not poetic. It was painfully real. I knew what it was to be emotionally lost, spiritually confused, and personally broken. Yet the grace of Jesus Christ is able to do what human will alone cannot do. Recovery taught me the strokes, but Christ gave me the strength to keep swimming.

This is why I no longer hear Kahlo’s quote only as a dark joke. I hear truth in it, but I also hear a challenge. If our sorrows have learned to swim, then we must learn where help is found. We must stop trusting in the false relief that nearly drowns us and begin trusting in the grace that keeps us afloat.

That grace has come to me through a spiritual program, through prayer, through the support of others, and through my growing faith in Jesus Christ. I do not claim that I have arrived at a perfect life. I have not. Recovery did not erase every sorrow. Faith did not make every chapter easy. Mortality still contains grief, uncertainty, temptation, and struggle.

The sorrows still know how to swim.

But now, so do I.

And I have learned something more.

I am not swimming alone.

That may be the deepest comfort of all. Jesus Christ does not stand far away from human suffering. He enters it. He understands it. He extends His hand in the midst of it. He does not always calm the sea immediately, but He makes it possible for us to continue forward with courage, trust, and hope.

Today, as I continue writing new chapters in the book of life, I know that sorrow is not the end of the story. There are still pages of pain, but there are also pages of gratitude, friendship, service, laughter, peace, and love. There are pages that speak of rescue. There are pages that speak of growth. There are pages that testify that God has not abandoned us.

Through the grace of Jesus Christ, I have discovered that life is not simply something to survive.

It is something worth celebrating.

🙏🧘‍♂️💕🤗☮️

Hear Me, Lord

 

Hear Me, Lord

Dear Reader,

Today, in preparation for teaching some of the Psalms in the Old Testament, I came across Psalm 102.

The opening lines of the psalm struck me:

"Hear my prayer, O LORD;
let my cry for help come before You.

Do not hide Your face from me
in my day of distress.
Incline Your ear to me;
answer me quickly when I call."

- Psalm 102:1-2

The psalmist is not simply asking God to fix a problem; he is asking for God's presence. That distinction matters.

Often, what makes suffering most frightening is not the pain itself, but the sense that we must face it alone. I remember the loneliness I experienced near the end of my drinking and drug use. There seemed to be no companion, friend, or family member willing or able to reach me in that lost state of living. I still remember that pain when moments of sadness enter my life today.

The older wording, "Hide not thy face from me," could also be expressed this way:

"Lord, whatever happens, do not let me lose the assurance that You are near."

In desperate moments we seem to cry, "Answer me speedily." This is deeply human. Scripture teaches us to wait patiently on the Lord, but Psalm 102 also shows that God receives the urgent prayer that says, "I do not know how much longer I can bear this. I need You now."

Such a prayer is not a lack of faith. In many ways, it is a profound expression of faith.

The psalmist cries out because he believes Someone is listening.

Likewise, even in moments of despair, I find myself praying because I truly believe that God, as I understand Him, is present and listening.

Over the years of my recovery, there have been times when my faith has weakened. Yet the psalmist reminds me:

"But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever."
- Psalm 102:12

In simple terms: Even when my world feels temporary, God is eternal.

I have learned time and again that what appears unbearable can be borne through the power of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. This changes my perspective. I may still experience fear, sorrow, or uncertainty, but I am no longer abandoned to them.

God has not disappeared. My circumstances may change, my emotions may rise and fall, and my understanding may sometimes fail me - but God remains.

In those darker moments, the prayer God desires is not always the polished one, but the honest one:

"Hear me, Lord. Stay near me. I need You."

That is not weak faith. It is faith reduced to its truest form: dependence upon God.

May we all come to know such humility.