Welcome to another entry of God’s Mysterious Ways, where I write about things that may be more than just coincidences, where God may very well indeed have a hand behind it, which for today is about a sponsee I invited to attend my weekly volunteer commitment with me recently.
Every week, I volunteer at a place called Rescue Crisis, which essentially is for people who are severely struggling with addiction or mental health and need urgent attention. Every Wednesday I run a 12 Step meeting there for anyone who may need it, where my focus is on sharing my experience, strength, and hope with my recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction.
Normally, I run this weekly meeting by myself, mostly because the number of clients from week to week isn’t very high and thus doesn’t require any extra support. I’ve also enjoyed handling it alone because it’s empowered me and given me a sense of purpose in my own recovery. But just a few weeks ago, when I was talking to one of my sponsees and trying to coordinate a time to meet with him, I kept feeling the need to ask if he’d like to do my next volunteer commitment with me at Rescue Crisis. He instantly agreed and we met for coffee beforehand on the night it arrived. Afterward, we headed there and walked in to the building together. Immediately upon entering the lobby, I saw someone there who was standing next to several large black trash bags, looking very much in fear and despair. Ironically, the guy just so happened to be a friend of my sponsee’s and someone my sponsee needed to make an amends with. The reason for the amends was due to my sponsee having chosen to never return a call for help from this guy, when he had specifically told him to reach out and he’d help. Sadly, he had lost track of how to reach him a good while ago and suddenly there he was again, standing in front of him.
My sponsee discovered his friend had been discharged from another recovery center due to a relapse and had been dropped off there. His friend was now homeless on a night where the temperatures were in the low 20’s and unfortunately, there wasn’t any ability for Rescue Crisis to take him in for the night. So, as a way to make his amends, my sponsee invited his friend to join us in our recovery meeting and then offered him his place to stay that night for a warm meal and a bed to sleep in away from the cold. But in my opinion, that’s not even the best part of this story! Because the next day, after that warm meal and bed, his friend got admitted into another recovery program where my sponsee got to personally drop him off there.
Who knows what would have happened if his friend had been forced to sleep out in the cold that night? Would he have drank again to deal with it? Would he have even survived the night? Was it God who saw fit to motivate me to invite my sponsee to a meeting I rarely feel the urge to bring anyone to with me, solely to bring these two together, knowing how the rest would play out?
I leave it for you to decide…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
