Category: Daily Reflection

“Being held by the right person is enough to cure anything…” (Hu YiTian & Shen Yue)

There really is only one thing I want the most in a relationship with someone I call my partner. And it’s most assuredly not sex or anything carnal in nature, things so many relationships get based upon. That thing I want so incredibly these days is just to be held, to be fully embraced, wrapped deep in the arms of one who loves me unconditionally, one whose love fully emanates from within.

There is something truly priceless to have the arms of another wrapped tightly around your chest. It’s something I never got growing up from my parents and I often wish I had. Unfortunately, because I didn’t, I was led onto a path that for the majority of my life landed me in relationships that have been void of this type of love from people who I’d allow to use me more than not.

Being held is an intimacy so deep that it can help make a broken person learn to feel safe again. I haven’t felt safe in a very, very long time and I can’t remember what it feels like anymore to be held that deep within the arms of any other. I long for it, sometimes even dreaming of it, and doing that very thing to myself isn’t the same. It just isn’t.

How many people in my life have labeled me pathetic or needy or God knows what other judgments, all for wanting to be held I’ve lost track of. Wanting to be held is natural and good and truly beautiful in this world, and something I absolutely know God would want of me. Because God puts people in our lives to show that type of love.

The simplest truth is that we are supposed to be the arms of God and ultimately show His love with them. It’s our job to wrap them around those we love and remind them regularly that they are going to be ok, that they’re safe to let go and safe to even cry.

I cry as I write these words and envision a day where I receive this myself, where I can finally fall into the arms of another and heal from this broken mess I’ve become…

Dear God, I pray You bring into my life someone to love me so deeply from within that it’s natural for them to want to hold me and never let go…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Let us run with determination the race that lies before us…” (Hebrews 12:1 (GNT))

Many people often make goals for themselves but give up somewhere along the way to achieving it. I’ve been there oh…so…many times where I’ve actually set some destination in mind for myself, where I’ve always intended to arrive at, yet stopped running towards it at some point or another, always citing any number of reasons why. Presently, I am on one of those races right now with my eyes fixed on a goal that I made a long while back, and it’s one I realized was the very answer I sought in an article I posted just over a week ago or so, where I asked my readers whether I should keep TheTwelfthStep.com site up and running.

When I wrote that heartfelt article recently about whether I should keep this blog going or not, I was honestly amazed at the number of responses I received after it was officially posted. Ultimately, I soon came to recognize that I was seeking external validation rather than doing the internal job I needed to do to find that answer. While I took to heart every comment and feedback I received to that article, the conclusion I came to was one that most assuredly emanated from within.

I started this blog with a longevity in mind that I promised myself I’d make and if I did make it, I would earmark it for that achievement. That feat was to consecutively write in a blog for 10 years. I wanted to prove to myself I could share something from my life every single day for an entire decade and now, that earmark is almost upon me.

While I’m exhausted on so many levels from keeping this site up and running, January 14^th, 2023, will mark the end of a race I first sought to run when it comes to TheTwelfthStep.com. This is why I have decided that I will keep writing up and through that day to achieve a very feat that I never thought possible. What happens beyond that I don’t know.

Maybe this site looks different after that. Maybe I’ll only write once a week about something that truly moves me. Or maybe I won’t write at all for it until I feel moved about something. Or maybe I decide to just shut it down for good. Whatever I choose, I’m satisfied knowing I went within to get the answer and now plan to run the rest of this race with a fierce determination to actually reach the end of one for once in my life.

Dear God, I know the race I’ve been on has been long and arduous, but I also know the finish line is just ahead. All I ask is that you please help me to reach it. Thank you.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Sometimes, it’s not the times you decide to fight, but the time you decide to surrender, that make all the difference.” (Sissy Gavrilaki)

I’ve been fighting my whole life since a teenager to get what I think I want. Sometimes to the point of exhaustion. And when I have gotten any of those things, has it made any of life better. Typically, not. Rather, it just leads me onto the next fight, the next battle, the next something where I find myself exerting so much control and force that I often lose myself in the process.

This is why over the past few months I’ve finally decided to do something entirely different. I’ve surrendered. Surrendered to my health issues. Surrendered to my relationship woes. Surrendered to my financial insecurities. Surrendered to my loneliness. Surrendered to my emptiness. Surrendered to everything. I’ve given up the fight. I’ve waved the white flag. And you know what? Life has felt a whole heck of a lot less burdensome.

A lot of insight has come in this surrendering. Sometimes so much so that I am awed at how much me trying to control the outcome of so much in life had blocked me from receiving. Receiving from God that is.

I’ve shed an incredible number of tears lately. Sometimes in the strangest of places. And sometimes in the humblest of moments where I have been able to connect far greater to the hearts of others, something I couldn’t ever seem to do when I wasn’t surrendering at all to anything.

Surrendering to the tide of life may be the best action of life I’ve made in a very, very long time, and one I’ll be reflecting on for probably the rest of this life…

Dear God, I see how surrendering the fight has truly changed my life. Thank you for all the love that has come since, from you, from others, and from within me. 

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson