Israel’s history begins with God calling Abram and Sarai to become a blessing to all the communities of earth. Their willing response transforms not only their lives but the lives of their descendants.
God calls Abram and Sarai to leave the land of the familiar and be remade as God’s people. God’s grace sustains them in the journey from wilderness to new life, new identity, new community. This is a passage of hope and promise.
Long-sober alcoholic women express this kind of journey when they tell stories of awakening. MB, who had 43 years of sobriety tells this story of being called to a land that God showed her.
Finally the symptoms got so bad that I began to want to strike out at people. It got to the point that if my little girl would come into the kitchen and I was peeling potatoes, I would have to throw that knife on the counter because that was how afraid I was.
It was at that point that God came into my life because I had become teachable. It was that little momentary crack in that shell which gave me that momentary insight where I was able to say it isn’t what happened to me, or to my mother or father, whom I hated and was obsessed with every day, and it isn’t my husband or my little girl. It’s the alcohol that is doing this to me. And it was just that little moment of insight.
It was at that point that God placed sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous right in my path. They led me through my first meeting and the miracle happened. They had the tradition that the primary purpose of an AA group is to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous—and that is exactly what they did.
They gave me these one-liners, “Any idiot can stay sober for one day,” and “All you have to do is say please in the morning and thank you at night” without any explanation around it. It was the idea of 24 hours that really saved my life. You see I had an awful time getting out of the past because I was so obsessed with what had been done to me and so it was good for me to have the structure of a miniature lifetime. I thought of each day as a lifetime.
They worked and worked and worked on me to get into today and to stay in today. I memorized that little saying, “There are two days of the week about which we should not worry. One is yesterday with all its pain….” I had it up on my mirror and memorized it one line at a time. It was a wonderful tradition for me to get into today. And of course not worrying about tomorrow because it is not here yet; it has not dawned yet. All we have left is today. They kept on and on with that. And they began to teach me how to live without picking up a drink today.
I was a daily drinker; I was not a falling down drunk like my mother, I was a daily drinker who was constantly under the influence of alcohol and I had to drink to make any decision, to iron, to decide what to cook for a meal. You know for the first few months of a person’s sobriety we have to guide them step-by-step, day-by-day. There are layers of the onion and it takes years to really see ourselves and learn how to live sober.
We say that getting sober and having the fullness of this program takes a long, long time because we don’t feel God when we come into this program. I certainly wasn’t feeling this. It took a long time for the shell to begin to crack. And so I began that walk with the steps that have continued to this day.
The experience of long-sober women represents one example of how God continuously makes new community with us. Long-sober women enter into a new life crafted out of the wreckage of the past. They develop the capacity for a deep relatedness that can absorb and heal the injuries of shame so painful to new members.
These women model methods of confrontation that do not further the injury already done by drinking. They freely offer the hope found in a profound appreciation for the absurdities of life. They never, never take the blessings of new life for granted.
Long-sober women are like living sacraments, expressing love and support and God’s healing grace through their faithfulness to those who still suffer. They have risen from the dead and now walk among us.
God’s call to Abram
The Holy One said to Abram and Sarai: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and your parents’ house to a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you.”
Abram and Sarai went as the Holy One directed, and their nephew Lot with them.
Genesis 12.1-4.
- What attitudes, beliefs, emotions, behaviors have you left behind because you entered the place God showed you?
- Who has been a blessing to you in your journey?