“Good things happen to drunks who don’t drink”

…is what they told me. I wasn’t so sure I believed them, but to be honest, they hadn’t lied to me, yet.
I’ve been thinking about some of the ways that statement has been proven to be true throughout my life.
I haven’t always gotten what I wanted, but I have always had what I needed. I was taught that, obviously, I didn’t NEED as much as I’d thought.

Here are some things that I had no control over that did, indeed, work out for the best:
1. I gave birth to my son within 20 miles of the best children’s hospital in the region, which made it possible to get him there and save his life, and subsequently, continue to keep him under the care of a team of exceptionally knowledgeable Pediatric Cardiologists.
Had I been in charge, I would have given birth in a foreign country with a much greater likelihood of his dying in infancy. But God…
2. I became (unexpectedly) pregnant, which was a huge factor in my decision to pursue sobriety. My own best thinking would have kept me living a very reckless and self-destructive life, but once I knew there was a baby in the mix, I was able to focus on LIFE, rather than the slow death of an addict,
3. I got involved in unhealthy relationships (reckless and impulsive, remember), thinking that I deserved the abuse and chaos. Without them, I realize, in retrospect, I wouldn’t have been in the right places, at the right times, for some pivotal events that changed my life, down the road.
4. I took a chance and said “hi” to a guy on a christian “dating” site (www.christiandatingforfree.com), and even though I was pretty sure he was WAY out of my league, he responded positively, and about a year later, we were married. The part that is all God, in my view, is the difficult lessons I had to learn in the experiences leading up to that(this)relationship. Through them (kissing frogs, I call it), I became the kind of woman who my spouse needed me to be. Instead of the insecure, impulsive, needy (“assertive” is what Cosmo calls it – yeah, it’s not really that), immature person I’d been for so long, I had somehow figured out how to practice (“…these principles in all my affairs”? You betcha!) some self-restraint, a bit of patience, and been given some kind of self-respect in working a Recovery program. I behaved like a woman who knew she had great worth, as opposed to how I’d behaved before I made seeking God a priority…and before He’d lined everything up just right… (it bears mentioning that I behaved like that woman, not that I actually believed it. I was “acting as if”.)

My Prince

God took care of seeing to it that this guy became smitten with this damaged woman-child, accepted her children as part of the deal, and patiently continues to feed her fragile heart and spirit. ❤
I NEVER coulda worked that one out. And I can say that, for sure, because one upon a time, I did manipulate my way into a marital situation. Not proud of it. Just sayin.

So, that’s all for now, but I’m hoping to add more stuff to this list in the next couple of posts.
When good things happen, even now, my knee-jerk reaction is to be afraid, so this list is a concentrated effort to dispell that silly notion. You know, “fear of failure/fear of success”. But today, I have a fat list of things that happened to turn out good, just like He said they would.
How about you? Don’t be shy! What are some times in your life that you could not have been responsible for, working out?

From my castle in the *beautiful* mountains.