Have you ever felt like no one could feel as worse as you do and then suddenly have someone’s more serious misfortune grab your attention? My Higher Power seems to be giving me these gentle reminders quite a bit lately, one of which happened on a Sunday morning just about two weeks ago now.
I was at an AA conference and had just finished my breakfast when the final speaker was about to take the podium. While my body was undeniably present in a seat facing where they soon would be speaking, my mind was off elsewhere feeling sad and completely frustrated over the state of my health. One of my table companions (and friend) noticed my frown and asked if I was ok. I really wasn’t much in the mood to talk so I responded by simply saying my back was hurting a lot, although it was definitely more than that. Most of the time when I’ve been hurting that bad, I’ve remained silent solely to not outwardly express any negativity.
As my mind continued to spin in circles due to my health issues, the speaker finally took the stage and appeared to be a woman in her early 40’s. She began by speaking of being physically and sexually abused as a child and then talked about her addiction-riddled years and the insanity that happened during them. But what started to grab my attention was when she mentioned what took place in the past decade of her life.
First she was diagnosed with spinal cancer and found healing, then Leukemia and battled that one successfully as well. In the midst of those difficult years, she mentioned how she even pondered relapsing back into drugs more than once but never did. She said that was only because of her constantly sharing about it with others just like she was doing with all of us there. But it was what she said next that I truly feel was one of those gentle reminders coming from my Higher Power.
Just last year she was diagnosed with a very rare form of cervical cancer and by the time it was caught it had spread to her lymph nodes. And as she stood there on the stage fighting back tears telling everyone all this, she said her doctor very recently had given her only four months to live. At this point the only thing that could be heard in the room around me was everyone trying to stifle their sniffles and tears. And it was then that I knew I really needed to be more grateful with the state of my life, except in all honesty, it took me the rest of the day to get there.
Sometimes it takes me a little while to see things more clearly, especially when my body is ailing so poorly like it’s been so much lately. But what I realized that evening when I got home and had time to reflect was that this woman was ailing far more in her health issues than I was, and most likely wouldn’t be coming back from it compared to how I will be from mine. Thus I’m very grateful to my Higher Power for helping me to see gentle reminders such as this.
So as I end this article I pray to you God to shower this incredible speaker with peace, love, light, and joy in whatever her remaining days end up being here on Earth. As for me God, well, please forgive me for all those moments when I’ve thought I have it so bad in my own health issues. And please do keep on sending me those gentle reminders throughout my life should I at any point allow any of my perceived misfortunes to take me down an ungrateful path…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
So glad to hear you realizing that, there are a lot of others worse off and you have a lot to be thankful for!!!