Category: Words To Live By

Bad things happen all the time in this world. You can see it quite easily by just looking at the news headlines on any given day. Wars, famine, poverty, killing sprees, weather catastrophes, diseases, and more, I could keep going on with the amount of darkness that is pervading this world lately. This has often led many people, both those who have faith in something greater than themselves and those that don’t, to ask the age old question, “If there is a God, why would he (or she) let all these bad things happen?” And I was once one of them.

As much as I don’t like admitting it to myself or anyone else, I used to hold a lot of hatred towards God and blamed God for just about everything bad that happened in my life. As a kid I was mentally and emotionally abused by my family, I grew up with alcoholic parents, I was bullied constantly at school, and I was sexually molested by the age of 12. During my young adult years, I grew addicted to alcohol and drugs, my father left my mother and abandoned the family for awhile, I got jumped by gang members which landed me in the hospital, I was arrested for stealing, and I lost a best friend when I came out to him. By the time I became an adult, my father committed suicide, one of my closest friends died from AIDS related complications, my mother fell down the stairs drunk and died instantly when she broke her neck, and soon after that, I began to lose track of the amount of bad things that kept happening in my life. The common thing uniting all of them was my contempt for God. I, like many other people couldn’t understand why God allowed these bad things to happen and in my mind God became the cause for all of them.

This only led me to become filled with more darkness in life because the more I remained angry and blamed God for everything, the more I acted out in toxic behaviors. And the more I acted out in toxic behaviors, the more I blamed God for the bad things that kept happening while I acted out toxically. It became a vicious cycle that didn’t take me anywhere except into the depths of despair. For almost three decades I lived this way until I realized God wasn’t the cause for any of these things, either my spiritual sickness was, or someone else’s was.

For example, my father committed suicide because he was mentally sick and it was his own decision to check out of life early before he was truly meant to go. It wasn’t God who told him to kill himself. Or take my mother’s tragic fall down the stairs where she died instantly from a broken neck. God didn’t make that happen either, it was my mother’s evening binges of alcohol that did. Even using the example of that molester who took sexual advantage of me at the age of 12, God didn’t tell that man to do this, that man’s sickness led him to do it. And as for my own addiction prone life, God didn’t lead me into any of them, my desire to remain numb from all the pain in my life did.

I know many people might still say to all of this, “So what? God still could have prevented them from ever happening!” And yes, you’re right, God could have. But ask yourself the following questions on how life would look like, if God prevented everything bad from ever happening for the rest of our lives…

1. Would we ever seek God or anything greater than ourselves?

2. Would we ever grow stronger and learn any life lessons?

3. Would we ever have a desire to become more spiritual?

There’s many other questions I’ve asked myself on what could have happened if God prevented all these bad things from ever happening in my life. But the truth is that all of those bad things in my life helped me to grow with more love and light each time they occurred. I am who I am today because of them and I like who I am today. If God had prevented all of those things from happening, I might still be that same selfish and self-centered person who thought the world revolved around himself. And I didn’t like myself at all when I was that person. Maybe that’s why I hated God so much and blamed God for everything bad that happened in my life. As when I didn’t like myself, it was much easier to put the blame on God, or anyone else for that matter, then look at my own unspiritual behaviors or do what I could to heal from the results of other people’s unspiritual behaviors.

But to answer that age old question of why God let’s bad things happen. Maybe it’s really as simple as God sees how each of them will eventually shape every one of us into a person filled with a much greater capacity for love and light. I’m not God so I really don’t know the precise truth to this question. What I do know is that I am glad all those bad things happened to me throughout my life. They’ve led me to finding a much deeper and more loving connection to God and myself. They led me to living a more selfless based life where I am loving everyone more equally. And they’ve led me to writing day after day about each of them in here. Maybe now in knowing all this, you can see at least one reason why God might led bad things happen…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

One of my personal goals is to write an article in this blog each and every day. When I began doing this about nine months ago, it was due to a homework assignment that was given to me by both a therapist and a spiritual teacher to journal my daily life experiences. I was less than thrilled with the idea because I’ve never been the kind of guy who enjoys doing the “Dear Diary” type of thing. But one of them suggested I try blogging online instead and I agreed to try that. What I didn’t and couldn’t know was how God was going to use my writings as a vessel to help others.

Every day when I log in here to do my writing, there is a counter that tells me how many people checked out my blog during the previous 24 hours. At first, I found this to be a serious distraction because the number in that counter was often in the single digits prompting my ego to tell me that no one would ever read my blog. But my spiritual teacher kept reminding me that I wasn’t doing this for everyone else, I was doing it to heal myself. You see, I gave up on writing several years ago when I became too active in addictive behaviors which caused my inner light to grow quite dark. Prior to that, I had been a monthly columnist for a local paper in Virginia, had experienced success in being published in a few others magazines and newspapers, and even written the first book in a series planned for kids to young adults. So as I began to write in here, it really was about healing myself. And somewhere along the line, that started happening.

I can’t honestly say how all of this has worked. But the fact is, it has. With me just sitting here at my computer every single day and writing something about my life in a positive way, it has led me to healing so much of myself. And just when I start to think I’m running out of things to say, another idea comes to me. I give all that credit to God because it wasn’t too long ago, that I thought I had nothing left to offer this world, where God found another way to use me.

Many people often give up when they feel their they have nothing left to offer this world and that their life has become purposeless. Some will fall into addictions because of this and others will even end up taking their own lives. I was one of those people who came very close to ending my own life when I thought my existence had become pointless. I don’t think I can say that anymore. More and more people seem to be finding my blog every day and some are even sharing now how much my words are helping them. I’ve always believed that I came into this life to help uplift and inspire others but somewhere along the lines I got lost and off track from doing that. For years and years, I chased after the quick highs I could get in life through people, places, and things and instead, I went in the exact opposite direction of the one I believe I was meant to go in. Thankfully, I don’t feel that way anymore and somehow, my writing has been a big contributing factor to that.

It’s become a way of life for me now to spend time each day writing and I will admit it’s frustrating at times. The reason why journalling and writing in general can be beneficial for a person is that it forces them to see their life in front of them. Often, we as human beings will go on doing things day after day and become oblivious to the fact we’re even doing them. By writing down those day to day things, it forces our brains to see exactly how we’re living our lives. With my blog, I am taking all my day to day experiences, including my pains, irritations, and things that overwhelm me, and find the words to express about them. Once I find those words, I start writing them down in here and turn them around by looking at where I have either grown in life or could still grow. And through all of it, God has been leading more and more people to find and read my blog. In fact, it was just a few days ago where I noticed that 24 hour blog traffic counter was in the 800’s.

All of this goes to show that none of us ever know how God is going to use us. I don’t believe that anyone is this world has a purposeless life, and if any of you are feeling that way, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and take a deeper look at how your living your life. It was my own chasing after worldly things that led me to feeling this way but when I finally let all of them go and asked God for help, I was led to doing something that gave me a purpose. You have a purpose, trust me, you really do. Don’t give up, don’t despair, and know you’ll find it, as all it may take is some online journalling.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Does anyone really like to go to the dentist? As a kid, I did, because I used to get to pick a small toy out of this treasure chest at the end of every appointment. Today, not so much, as the only thing I get when I leave an appointment is a package containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss. But in all honesty, I’m actually grateful that I ended up going to my dentist just over a week ago on the spur of the moment. And it all began with a weird dream I had the night before that visit when I thought I had cracked a tooth (but didn’t).

Some would say that dreams are never anything more than just that, dreams. I, on the other hand, have begun to see how dreams can at times, provide valuable insight to areas in my life I need to pay attention to. So maybe this is why I had the dentist on my mind all the next day after having that cracked tooth dream, or maybe not. Either way, going to the dentist is not normally something I have on my mind when it comes to my day to day living, but the I have to say the daily maintenance of my teeth is.

While I may not be the world’s best flosser, I can definitely say that I diligently brush my teeth at least twice a day and sometimes, even more. I’m sure that’s a big reason why any dentist I’ve seen for the past two decades have given me high marks and flying colors. As the years have passed though, these consistent high marks have led me to make excuses and avoid those twice a year dental cleaning appointments. But last week though, during a few hours I had time to kill, whether it was because of that cracked tooth dream or not, something motivated me to contact my dentist. I have to admit that the dentist is probably one of the last places I would ever want to be spending my free time at, so deep down I was really hoping they were going to be too busy for a walk-in, but they weren’t. Twenty minutes later, I found myself sitting in that dental chair and starting to dread what I dread most whenever I’m there, which is having my gums poked and prodded with that sharp tool, as well as the uncomfortable sensation and taste I get from their cleaning instruments and pastes. While I sat there slightly anxious because of this, the assistant informed me that they’ll be doing my annual dental x-rays prior to the cleaning. So after much biting, clenching, and holding my mouth open in various positions for both those x-rays and the eventual cleaning, the dentist finally came in where I expected my normal good news. Unfortunately for me, that ended up not being the case.

“You have a small cavity…“, the dentist casually said as I sat there dumbfounded knowing the last cavity I had was before I ever hit puberty. She further informed me I could wait a few more months to have a filling put in since my insurance wasn’t going to cover it. But the idea didn’t seem very appealing to having a cavity remain in my mouth where it would only grow worse with each day that passed. So I proceeded forward with getting the filling right then and there.

By the time everything was done, almost two hours had elapsed from when I had first entered the dentist’s office. The left side of my face, the inside of my mouth, and my throat were all completely numb from the Novocain, all of which was causing me to feel slightly anxious. As I walked out the door to leave, the dentist reassured me that everything would be fine and that the numbness would go away in about an hour. But sadly, her words proved to be quite far from the truth as it took approximately five days for my body (and its extreme sensitivity to medical procedures and medications) to fully heal from the minor procedure. I’m happy to say though, that everything is much better now with my teeth, mouth, and face.

Looking back, my Higher Power has helped me to see how my ego and its expectations made me think my teeth would always be invincible. I also realized I still have some work to do in the area of patience as I worried incessantly for those five days while my body healed itself slowly from that minor dental procedure. While it’s frustrating that I do have such sensitivity to all medical procedures and medications, I am glad that I went to that dentist appointment and took care of this sooner than later. I can only imagine if I had let my ego convince me to wait until later to fix that cavity. Knowing my track record that comes when I put something off, there’s a good chance that decision could have ended up with me getting a root canal or even worse.

The bottom line and my recommendation for all of you is this. Don’t put off your routine dental checkups if you can help it and try to pay attention to your dreams. While I’ll never know if there was something I could have done to prevent that cavity from ever forming, I’m just glad my dream became a catalyst in some way to going to my dentist. And at least now I get to breathe a sigh of relief for another six months…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson