Category: Daily Reflection

“We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” (Ronald Reagan)

I’ve often found myself throughout life thinking I didn’t matter much in this world. I figured that since I wasn’t famous and not very well known I was never going to make much of a difference on this planet. But somewhere along the way, I realized all I really needed to do was help someone…anyone…just one person…and in doing so, I could make an impact on helping the entire world become a better place. Through my recovery work, I’ve done this very thing by sponsoring one individual after another, each just trying to find their way in sobriety. And outside of recovery, I’ve found it’s the little things that can have the biggest effect upon the earth, some even as small as simply listening to what someone is going through and praying with them. I’m glad I clearly see I do matter now, and all it took was helping one person after another, until I finally accepted I was helping everyone, one individual at a time.

I pray to God that I always remember I do matter in this world and that all I need to do to make a difference is help but one person, because that act alone can have a ripple effect that touches all of us.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“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

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