Month: September 2016

Have you ever questioned something you were doing on a daily basis, wondering if it really was having any benefit for yourself or others? I’ve often gone through this very dilemma when it comes to continuing to maintain this blog, but recently God gave me a strong reason why I should keep it going.

Let me begin by saying I’ve now been maintaining this blog for well over three years. Honestly, it’s really hard to believe that sometimes, especially knowing I’ve published well over 1,300 entries now since its inception. But for the most part, I’ve averaged only a handful of readers on any given day and usually have had little to no feedback from anyone. Initially my goal with this site was to write for myself, as in an online journal about my life experiences. As time went on, I began writing in the hopes to inspire others as well, with the desire that my entries would somehow benefit others. Indeed, the twelfth step in recovery (the name of my site) is ultimately about that very thing, to help others.

Yet, for the amount of effort and stress it occasionally takes to maintain this blog on both my hosting server and with WordPress itself, combined with little to no feedback and a small number of readers, I have regularly questioned why I keep this up, especially knowing it costs me several hundred dollars per year to do so. From time to time, I’ve started to convince myself that I could just write these entries in Microsoft Word and simply save them to my computer for my own viewing and in doing so, it would actually be far less stressful and costly.

But when I wrote and posted an article recently that was titled, The Pilot of Positivity and Joy, which was about an inspiring individual I met who helped me to keep the hope and faith alive in life, my site suddenly exploded with readers. To give a comparison, on most days I probably average about 20 views on my site and if I’m lucky a comment or two. On the day this article posted though, I had around 700 readers, 20 plus re-shares, and dozens of comments not only praising the person I wrote about, but also the article itself.

Sometimes I truly think that God knows precisely when a person needs a strong reminder on their spiritual journey for something, and for me, this was just that, a reminder to keep my blog going.

So I want to thank all the readers who have stood by my side and continued to check out of my articles every now and then. While I hope that over time more might find my site and make a connection to something on their own spiritual journey, I’m at least very grateful for those who have let me know how much my writing has touched their own lives. In the end though, all the credit is truly due to my Higher Power, which is God, thus I give thanks to You God for helping me see how beneficial it is for me to keep this blog going…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

For anyone who knows me, I take great pride in meticulously maintaining my yard, especially during the summer. My partner would say I’m far too anal retentive about it all and he’s probably right, as that came to light quite a bit for me over the past few months due to an overly hot and dry summer and a construction project on the outside of our house that affected both greatly.

It all began in June when the lawn company came to put some fertilization down. Regrettably, I made the mistake of also having them do a weed treatment for the entire yard, even though I had very few weeds at the time. In my mind I thought, “Well at least this will help prevent weeds from coming up!” Unfortunately, that decision wasn’t too wise, as what it did do was burn my yard and turn much of it brown.

As the summer went on, I did my best to accept what happened from that decision and be happy with what beauty remained. But when an invasive type of grass I didn’t want began to invade a large portion of my backyard in early August, I decided to have the lawn company return and use a specific product to remove it. Yet again I made a quick decision without putting much thought to it. Well given the intensity of heat and shock the yard had already taken two months earlier, I ended up with an even more brown and sad-looking yard with almost no green left.

Shortly thereafter, my partner and I discovered the corner of our house had eroded over time due to water damage. The foundation needed immediate repair and when the company we hired came in, a large portion of my already brown yard was dug up to correct the issue. So I decided during this job to have the company heavily thatch, aerate, and reseed the yard when they were done. In other words, I decided to start over from almost scratch.

While my mind was screaming “Aaaahhh!” during all of it, the landscaper doing much of the work told me that what I was doing was going to pay off in the long run and that next spring, my entire yard was going to be and look far healthier than ever before. It was really hard to believe that though as I stared out over my yard now littered with plenty of patches of nothing but dirt, tiny holes and small-sized pieces of mud that looked like miniature turds.

But as I pondered all this, I compared it to the fact that I too totally started my life over about six years ago, ever since I lost a business and much of my finances at the beginning of 2010. Since then, I’ve often felt like I’ve been burned, dug up, thatched, aerated, and reseeded over and over again and none of it has ever truly felt or looked pleasant to me on any level. Yet, somehow I have continued to believe the me that’s emerging from all this is becoming much brighter, fuller, and better than I ever have been in this entire life.

So maybe that’s the main reason why I went through what I did with my yard this year. So that I could see that even a sad-looking yard could be completely transformed by something greater than itself, simply by being fully overhauled and letting a little time pass by. And just the same, maybe God has been overhauling me as well these past six years even when it’s felt like I couldn’t get any more worked over than I have. We shall see, but I remain hopeful in the outcome that will ultimately prevail with both my yard and with me…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson