dailydatewithgod

On my daily dates with God, I have experienced the compassion and grace of being willing to go into the dark spaces. The parts of myself that I was ashamed of or did not want anyone to know about.  Carrying them around for years in my heart and mind became a weight (almost literally) I could no longer sustain. Learning to face the truth of myself in recovery has been painful at times. Sometimes the greatest pain has come from realizing that my adaptive style of self-hatred and being really hard on myself are not effective tools for reconnecting with the truth of who I am.  When we realize something we do regularly does not work there is a sense of loss and confusion.  In part, this comes from the fact that it served us in some way for a time.  God invites us to look at the alliances of our self-defeating patterns.  We see them as faults and want to get rid of them.  God sees them for what they are.  Adaptive thoughts or behaviors aimed at getting our needs met and continuing to live the best we can.  God is everpresent to the light of life that dwells within us and knows while the expression of the alliance to life may have become counterproductive its alliance is true none the same. As we begin to see this in ourselves we recognize it in others.  It is something I need to be reminded of both for myself and others.  If I focus on the alliance I have compassion.  If I focus on the expression I have contempt.  Thus far compassion has engendered more change in myself than contempt could even attempt.