In four days I will be clean and sober for eight years, and you know what? I still struggle with getting along with others. When by the grace of God, I stopped using and drinking I began a journey of getting to the real problems of my life, self-centeredness. I am learning not to open my mouth as much with these struggles, but I still feel the tug in my mind of wanting things to go my way all the time. While I’m here, I’m going to use this time to admit that I am wrong sometimes when it comes to dealing with others, and do a little fifth step at the same time. Do you like yard sales? I’m not a big fan of them. I have a neighbor that lives about a half mile down the road from my house. They have been living there for around two years or so, and they have yard sales often. They put up these little signs all the way from the highway and at every corner. One of their signs they place about ten feet past my driveway. I get people circling through my drive thinking the yard sale is here. What I usually do is go out and take the sign down after a few unexpected guests looking for a yard sale. Well, my neighbor puts a new sign up and I take it down. Once they nailed a nice piece of plywood to a power pole for a permanent sign holder. Today I use it for a bird feeder. Once they put up a metal sign that sticks in the ground and it wound up in the ditch. Early this week they put up another sign and as I watched I decided I was not going to lose my serenity over it. I decided I was going to accept it and “live and let live.” That serenity lasted for about four hours, until someone drove through my driveway. I then went out and took the sign down which cost me my serenity. I would like to add here that I have never really talked to these neighbors. I just wave at them as they pass on the road as I ride my bicycle. This morning as I began my day, I observed as they were putting up another sign, and I got bent. I decided to talk to them and called their closest neighbor to get their phone number. Well, they didn’t have it, and they only knew their first name. One thing they did was speak kind words about them. I was told how they watched each others houses, fed each others pets when gone, and how they shared food from the garden. I was told of  “these people” bringing Christmas gifts to their neighbors and just being good people. Well, I was trying my best to be a jerk, but the kind words of love cut right through my self-centeredness and healed my pain. I saw my neighbors, all of them, in a different light. A light burning with love. Love gave me back my serenity. I will let the sign remain, and wish them well in their yard sale. I am learning that in my recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, the abstinence of chemicals is just a starting point. The real work comes as I plug along one day at a time attempting to get along with my fellow man. I am grateful for the grace of God that has given me time to grow along spiritual lines. Today through my neighbors, God has done for me what I could not do for myself.
…………toad
Share with me these words of Jesus.
"Stop judging others, and you will not be judged. For others will treat you as you treat them. Whatever measure you use in judging others, it will be used to measure how you are judged. And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, 'Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye."
(Matthew 7:1-5 NLT)

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