Unbridled

Yesterday was my birthday.  I used to hate birthdays when I was in active addiction—time was passing me by and I had nothing to look forward to.  Birthdays are so different now that I’m in recovery.  I have friends and family to celebrate with—to make me feel loved and known and special.  And I actually enjoy thinking about my life and where I want it to go in the next year.  I see birthdays as lines of demarcation: who I was before the birthday and who I will be after the birthday.  And I like setting goals for the year ahead.  As I was thinking about those goals, a phrase from my recovery handbook popped into my head—“happy, joyous, and free.”

The book says, “We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free.  We cannot subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears, though it once was just that for many of us.  But it is clear that we made our own misery.  God didn’t do it.   Avoid then, the deliberate manufacture of misery, but if trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize on it as an opportunity to demonstrate His omnipotence.”

When I read that statement again a couple of days ago, I realized that it contained my goals for this next year: to be happy, joyous, and free, and to stop manufacturing misery.  Since I got sober, I notice joy and freedom more and more.  And every now and then, I have the fresh realization that the only impediment to the life I want is me.  God set me free when I surrendered my pain and darkness in exchange for His joy.  And He continues to remind me of that freedom and joy, even when I start manufacturing misery.

God has been so patient and loving with me over our sobriety journey together.  I thought when I started the journey that it would be linear—a perfectly straight line on a beautifully boring map, starting with a “You are HERE” marker on cross streets labelled “Drunk” and “High.”  The straight line would be an easy to follow highway to a paradise where everything is easy and figured out.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  God taught me that the journey of sobriety, at least for me, is filled with zig zags and setbacks and forward leaps.  My growth has definitely not been linear.  And I still haven’t arrived at the mythical paradise of comfort and ease.

When I was newly sober, I saw a video of a baby horse trying to stand.  He was all legs, long and wobbly, and he kept losing his footing and falling.  But within a couple of hours, he was standing.  The video flashed forward a few years and showed that same horse running.  I watched breathlessly as he ran so fast that he seemed to fly.  He was, to me, the living embodiment of being happy, joyous, and free.  He was fulfilling God’s plan for him, leaving the world behind and existing in that perfect space of purpose.

I thought of that video when I was setting my goal to be happy, joyous, and free.  In my first couple of years of sobriety, I was like that baby horse, desperately trying to find my footing but falling again and again.  I wanted to run but I couldn’t even stand.  Slowly, I learned about the principles of recovery—the steps that led me out of the pit I was dying in.  The Serenity Prayer.  The network of support.  The hearts of the people who were learning right along with me.  And one day, I realized I was standing, a little wobbly, maybe, but I was standing—standing on the principles of recovery and the promises of God’s Word.  When I committed to those principles and promises, I stood strong.  When I checked into the Misery Motel, I wavered and nearly fell.

God has taught me through this journey that I can be happy, joyous, and free even when misery is present.  If it’s legitimate misery, not something I manufactured out of boredom, than I can take it to Him.  He lifts the burden, or He teaches me how to cope with it.  He’s shown me that I can stand strong when pain washes over me in such powerful waves that I almost can’t breathe.  And He’s shown me that the happiness and joy I always assumed were for others are as free a gift to me as anyone else.  All week, as I’ve been thinking about goals, He’s been reminding me of that video of the horse: of the foal who happily stood, joyfully found his footing, and finally, in an abundance of freedom, ran.  And I’ve heard Him whispering to me, “It’s time.  You’ve been set free.  Run, my girl.  This is what I made you for.”

So this year—I’ll run.  I’ll run in happy, joyous freedom.  Even if I feel shaky and my knees wobble.  Even if I get scared because I think I’m running alone.  I’ll run, knowing I’m fulfilling His purpose for me.  I cannot imagine joy greater than that.