God’s Love

From Each Day a New Beginning, November 1:

“’Love and the hope of it are not thing one can learn; they are a part of life’s heritage.’ ~Maria Montessori

Love is a gift we’ve been given by our Creator. The fact of our existence guarantees that we deserve it. As our recognition of this grows, so does our self-love and our ability to love others.

High self-esteem, stable self-worth were not our legacies before finding this program. We sought both through means which led nowhere. These Steps and our present relationships are providing the substance and direction needed in our lives to discover our worthiness.

Had we understood that we were loved, in all the years of our youth, perhaps we’d not have struggled so in the pain of alienation…”

Happiness surely is an inside job. And it’s in several 12-Step fellowships that I have learned to treat myself with kindness and dignity. I’ve turned my new self inside out so that it’s visible to the world. It colors all of my relationships. No matter what happens in my life, I trust in the goodness of my Creator. All will be well.

In this excerpt from my award-winning memoir, Stepping Stones: A Memoir of Addiction, Loss, and Transformation, I come to the same realization: I am a child of God, and I am worthy of love. All good things will flow from there.

                                                         Grace

            “While working at Harvard back in 1972, I spent a lot of time at a particular thrift shop in Cambridge. Making only about six thousand dollars a year, I was grateful to have acquired a taste for second-hand merchandise.

For twenty dollars, I bought a large print of Maxfield Parrish’s most famous painting, Daybreak, mounted in a handsome frame. Something stirred in me as I caught the alluring blues in an obscure corner of the shop where someone had placed the painting. It has held a prominent place over every bed I’ve slept in since that year.

             I am the woman lying on the floor of the temple, one arm casually framing her face, shielding it from the sun. Columns support the temple and there are leaves, water, rocks and mountains in the background, painted in tranquil shades of blue.

            Bending over me is a young undressed girl. I am in conversation with her. My face feels warm and I’m smiling. The setting in this picture is one of absolute calm, beauty, and serenity.

           That has been my ever-present wish: to be as watched over and cared for, as it appears that woman was.

           All my life, though I wasn’t always awake and aware of it, I have been.”

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