Category: Words To Live By

I woke up one morning not too long ago on a cold, rainy, morning and saw a crew of city workers outside shoveling hot tar for the umpteenth millionth time into a number of potholes on the street outside. Sadly, they’ll be back again in the Spring to do the exact same process all over again, as every six months that tar becomes worn away enough to return to the same pothole-strewn street. As I watched them for a minute, wishing they could grasp the concept that repaving the entire street would create a more permanent solution, I saw a parallel to how life can normally be for many of us.

How often do you look for those temporary patches, i.e. quick fixes, when those potholes appear in your life? Potholes like health issues, relationship problems, financial woes, addictions, and the like.

All too frequently, I myself sought out many of those temporary patches that merely covered up an underlying problem and never led to any real solution that fixed it. Patches like having to take more and more medications to cover up what was actually causing me depression and anxiety. Patches like leaving one partner for another, jumping from relationship to relationship, constantly thinking it was always them and not me, believing the next one would be better. Patches like borrowing more and more money to fix a problem that only created an ever-increasing pile of debt I wasn’t ever going to be able to repay. And patches like attempting to put limits on things I was becoming addicted to, such as having one drink, or one hit of a drug, or looking at 10 minutes of porn, or gambling $20 at a casino, even though I never did keep to any of them.

That’s because temporary patches, no matter what they are, are just that, temporary. Like that tar being placed in those potholes on the street in front of my house that will become totally undone in six months from now or less, all of the quick fixes I ever utilized in life constantly became undone for me at some point as well. That’s how I learned the only solution was to repave my entire life with better streets. While the upfront cost of this has been a lot more frustration, hassle, and quite often pain, I know in the long run it will pay off.

Unfortunately, many choose to never go through this process and play that long game so to speak. That’s because human beings tend to be impatient people, which in turn cause them to regularly place hot tar into their potholes, solely to just keep going on in life hoping they won’t miss a step. Yet, eventually this action always catches up to them, causing them to only have to seek more of that tar to refill the hole, never fully grasping that if they just faced the pothole head-on, they could find a way to repave it so that it won’t keep reappearing.

Thankfully I’m not trying to fill my potholes anymore with tar. Instead, I’m working on repaving my own existence with the help of 12 Step recovery and a ton of faith. Faith that God can and will repave me in a way so that I’m not always going to be a pot-hole strewn street who is in need of regular reoccurrences of repair…

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

How do you know when your Higher Power is providing guidance and direction? That’s a really tough question and something I’ve often struggled with, especially as of late when it comes to my health and healing.

Lately in fact, it really feels like God has been on radio silence with me in that specific area and I have begun to question whether the advice I get from friends is actually also coming from God or is it simply that, advice?

Is the suggestion I’ve had a few times now about taking some new pill to help with my pain levels that’s basically cannabis without the THC component (the part that gets a person high), just friends trying to help or it is God using my friends to provide me guidance and direction? Is the suggestion I’ve had from a number of others about taking medical marijuana coming from God talking to me through them or again, just advice? How about all those who suggest I go back to doctors and try all the new medicines that have emerged in the past few years since the last round of medicine I took that got me so very sick. Is that God talking to me through them, or again just people offering their friendly advice?

I could go on and on with the many suggestions I’ve received in recent years and frankly, it hurts my head to think about whether any of them are from God or simply from friends who care about me and don’t want to see me hurting so bad. Unfortunately, I don’t have a clear answer to any of it, because none of those suggestions have ever resonated on any level that I’d say was felt in my heart and soul. Instead, each have basically rolled around in my brain creating only more confusion and frustration.

I know there’s one school of thought that says that we need to take blind action and God will show up if that action is meant to be on our path. But there’s also that another school of thought that says one will know without doubt when it’s time to take action for God and if there’s still doubt present, then the only action is to be still and wait until the doubt isn’t there.

I tend to be more on that latter school of thought because every single time I’ve taken action when I’ve been in doubt, the results were terrible and only created me greater pain and frustration. On the other hand, I’ve had great success in waiting upon God, although it has required a much higher level of patience. Take my trip to see my family in Nashville recently. It wouldn’t have been something I did without having received a message that came pretty clear to me during prayer and meditation one day. It had been almost three years since my last visit to them, which was by all means was an emotional and physical nightmare back then. But in this case, I followed the conviction I felt was coming from God and the trip ended up being a huge success and a peaceful and joyful one at that.

Thus, in light of that, if I was going answer the question I first posed, that being how do I know if God is providing me guidance and direction, so far it really comes down to a feeling, a knowing, and a surety where no doubt is present. And as of right now, I haven’t felt any of that when it comes to my health and healing, except for the things I’m already doing to become healthier in life.

And while it may seem like I’m not getting better on far too many of days, the last thing I want is to jump into one of those pieces of advice and find myself in a situation like this person I learned of recently who got tired of waiting for answers from God and ended up having a thousand more problems going on with their health because of it. And given my incredible sensitivity to things I take internally, I can only imagine how bad it could get if I decided to wing it as well and not wait upon God for a clear answer.

So, for now, I am choosing to keep waiting on God for clear guidance and direction. Because ultimately, I believe that when God is providing those things, it’s something I will know and trust without doubt, without confusion, and without questioning. But if I still have any of that going on, I find it’s usually just my ego that tries to take control, by convincing me that any one of those friend’s pieces of advice is far better than waiting upon God. And isn’t it through all the waiting that cultivates a much deeper level of faith and trust in a Higher Power? That’s something I’m going to continue to ponder as I wait for God to answer…

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

On June 12, 2016, our country endured a terrible terrorist rampage by a lone gunman at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where 49 innocent people were killed. Fifteen months later, on October 1, 2017, it happened yet again on our soil when another lone gunman perched from a 32^nd floor window at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas and opened fire onto a large crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. When all was said and done after the gunman’s life was extinguished, another 58 harmless individuals had lost their lives, leaving our country with the ongoing question of the motive behind these murderous rampages?

Some argue that it all comes down to gun control, while others say it’s because of how the media continues to glorify it with 24/7 coverage. Then there are those who say it’s because of all the escalating violence in video games. Some claim it’s related to childhood abuse. And then there are even those who claim it’s due to the lack of social connection that people have nowadays, as far too many are withdrawing their lives into technology instead of each other.

Personally, I don’t think it’s any of the above and what I’m about to say is something that I’m sure plenty are just going to roll their eyes to. But, with me being a spiritualist and one who is inclined to believe that there are dark energies at work on our planet, ones that most can’t see with their eyes, I have begun to wonder if many of these murderous rampages are because of them.

I have always believed in both angels and demons. Or if you prefer, good spirits and bad spirits. While I have never seen the existence of either yet (as far as I know), I have read many books about them and have also connected with a number of individuals over the years who have witnessed both. And what I’ve learned from them is how easy it is for the dark spirits to attach themselves to individuals who regularly engage in low vibrational behaviors.

People are probably going to think I’m crazy for admitting this, but when I used to engage in sexual addiction behaviors years ago, I actually felt constantly drained and often had many desires that I felt weren’t even coming from me. Then one day I had a random woman approach me and say I had a dark entity attached to me that needed to be removed. I was pretty freaked out to say the least. She introduced me to someone not too long after that who was gifted in removing such entities and once that person did (for free), I felt a whole lot lighter in life.

With this latest shooter from Las Vegas, it is now known that he too was involved in addiction-like behavior, that being gambling. And I have never known an addict of any kind to only succumb to one addiction. Usually there are others closely tied to a main one. So, could it be possible that through his addiction behaviors, that some dark entity was able to attach itself to him and lead him to do the tragic act he did?

This is all pure speculation of course, but it is said in many of the books I’ve read and from those spiritualists I’ve connected with, that when an entity attaches itself to someone, it can’t force them to do anything, but it can repeatedly whisper and prod them into doing what it does want, almost making it feel like it’s a desire coming from deep within.

In my case, when I relapsed back into my sexual addiction a few years after the first entity got removed, I frequently started getting urges beyond anything I had ever experienced before, ones where I regularly felt a huge need to go hook up with someone. Many would say that’s just the nature of an addiction, which I might normally agree with, but after I got the second entity removed, those severely strong urges totally disappeared and I found an immediate desire to leave the addictive relationship I was in at the time, one that I never had enough strength to leave prior.

I know what I’m proposing here might sound totally preposterous, but my point in writing today’s article was simply to raise an awareness that maybe the motive behind some of these terrible gun-based tragedies is actually tied to dark forces at work on our planet? Maybe the real motive isn’t due to the ease of getting guns, or due to media glorification of the tragedies, or due to the amount of violent video games played, or due to childhood abuse issues, or even due to the lack of social interaction? What if instead it really is due to dark forces at work that somehow find ways to attach themselves to individuals that eventually drive them to do an insane behavior like shoot into a crowd of innocent people?

Regardless of whether there’s any truth to this or not, seeing that I’m not sure it can ever be proven, I’m just grateful God has freed me from engaging in all toxic addictions where anything dark or ominous could potentially attach itself to me again. Because the last thing I would ever want in this life is to find myself with an overwhelming and insane urge to suddenly pick up a gun and harm or kill anyone…

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