A Prayer For Overcoming All My Health-Related Fears

I’ve been having a lot of fears lately about the state of my health. In fact, I’ve been consumed with it more than not, which means I’ve been dealing with it mostly in my head instead of my heart. This is specifically why I decided it would be best to write a prayer about it so that I can give it up to God. So here goes:

“Dear God, I’ve really been struggling lately over the state of my health. It truly seems as if my body is hurting everywhere and there are too many days now where all of it just completely overwhelms me. I’m scared because I haven’t had much relief in quite a while and I honestly can’t remember what having a good day feels like anymore. God, the only thing I know to do anytime I become this fearful is pray, so I ask that You help me dispel all these fears that I keep on having about my health and healing. Please also help me to continue trusting I’m on the right path and let me know if I should ever deviate from it as well. But most importantly, please help me to not let any of these health-related fears consume me any longer, as they only drive me farther away from feeling close to You. Thank you God for hearing my prayer. Amen.” 

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Daily Reflection

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” (Desmond Tutu)

When I’m struggling to see any light around me, and darkness feels like it’s totally engulfing me, I find the best thing to do is seek out something, anything, that can bring me a shard of hope. Sometimes it comes from a friend’s hug. Sometimes it’s from the warmth of the sun. Sometimes it comes from a small task I accomplish. Sometimes it’s from watching an animal or bird nearby. Sometimes it comes from laughter. Sometimes it’s from something I read. But regardless of wherever it comes from, the point is there’s always light shining all around me. I need only to look for it, because it’s there. And while that light may not totally expunge all my darkness, it at least beams a flashlight of hope into it, reminding me that this too shall pass when it’s meant to. Thank God there’s always hope.

I pray that God will always help me to find hope in each of my moments of darkness. And I pray to remain open to wherever that light may come from.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Daily Reflection – The Beginning

I decided it was time to add a new category to my blog and it has to do with the subject of a daily reflection. While this new category will not specifically deal with recovery from addiction, it was something that was totally motivated by it.

“Daily Reflections” is actually the title of an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) approved book that is read in just about every meeting I attend in my current hometown. In it are 365 day-by-day writings where each contains a few sentences from various AA literatures, as well as a few descriptive paragraphs that are usually quite motivational for the recovering reader. I own a copy of this book, but it’s just one of the many different types of daily reflections I’ve read over the years.

As a kid, my mother regularly had a copy of Daily Guideposts lying around. Within it was also a day-by-day writing that involved a Biblical passage and a small uplifting story from one of the writers on how it applied to them. When I graduated from college, my mother purchased one of these for me every single year until she passed away and I always loved starting my day or ending them by reading this daily devotional.

After she died, I found many other versions of daily reflections to read to help spiritually motivate my day including Streams In The Desert, Diamonds In The Dust, My Utmost For His Highest, Touchstones, and more. They all followed the same pattern with a thought-provoking passage and a few paragraphs that were typically inspiring. Plenty of them also ended each day-by-day reading with a short prayer.

I’ve found an enormous amount of hope, inspiration, and joy from following so many of these daily reflections over the years that I decided to finally start writing one of my own. Hence it seemed quite appropriate to call the title of my new category, “My Daily Reflection”.

While I won’t necessarily be writing one of these each and every day for my blog, it is my goal to eventually have enough of them written to produce my own daily reflections based book someday. Nevertheless, from now on, anytime you see “My Daily Reflection – Day ____” in the title of one of my blog entries, know it falls under this new category.

As for its format, well why change something that has worked so well for so many including myself? Thus with each of these entries, I will be providing quotes from various spiritually uplifting sources, and a small paragraph or two where I’ll reflect upon it from moments throughout my life. And at the end of each I will also be providing one of my own short prayers.

So it’s truly my hope you might find encouragement when you read each of my day-by-day reflections just as I have from the many daily devotionals I’ve read over the years. And ironically enough, my very first entry under this new category will come tomorrow and will be about hope itself…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson