almost a year ago my wife and i both worked for an organization called church army. this is an organization that puts on 12 step workshops, common solution recovery classes{ also based on the 12 steps of aa}, spirituality classes{ such as whats so amasing about grace, the jesus i never knew, and 30 days to understanding the bible}, they have accoutability groups, life skills classes{ put on by university of missouri outreach}, case management, transitional housing, and finally church on sat. night.anyways a year and a half ago my wife and i started an extension in another county. very rough at first, but started picking up. due to funding cuts we had to close the extension. my wife had to find another job. we still opened the office as much as we could on a voluntary basis. one day out of the blue we got a phone call telling us to bring in our keys. this came with no explanation or anything.we never got any word from the director. this hurt alot since this was a man which i held in high regard and loved alot. and i thought this love was returned. a couple weeks later we got word that the extension was re-opened. still no-one gave us a call. so i was pretty sore.we had put alot of effort into opening this extension and it was givin to someone else. after that my support to this organization was somewhat limited. at this point i also felt as though i had dome something wrong or that i hadn't put forth enough effort. i continued to talk to my sponcer who told me i need to go and talk to the director. that i couldn't afford to carry this around. but i avoided it. i was hurt deeply.truely locked in self. eventually through prayer i started presenting at workshops again and attending some of the classes and meetings there.but i still had this lump of coal in my heart.
on the 16 i was blessed with 4 yrs clean and sober. the day went by uneventful other than working 18 plus hours. but at 1130 that night who should show up at the detox door but the director. i remember thinking oh great this is exactly what i need. when in retrospect it really was what i need. after giving him a hug i invited him in. he was stopping by to drop off a card for someone he had talked to at church the night before. well a detoxer had gotten up that knew him and asked if they could speak and i said ok. i took this opportunity to go off to outside and pray. told my co-worker i was going to step outside. a minute or so later he came out and i asked if i could talk to him for a few minutes. he said sure. we had the talk that i should have had a year ago. i told him how i felt and why i felt that way. that it was no excuse for me carrying this anger around towards him, and that i was truely sorry for not coming and talking to him. he told me that he should have handled that alot better. and he explained to me what all was going on at that point in time. he gave me a hug as we parted and i thought he was going to squeeze the life out of me. he said as we hugged it was never his intention to hurt someone he loved. and i could feel a big load lifted off me.
i can't think of any better gift God could have givin me on my sobriety birthday that an oppurtunity to cleanse my heart. and it was so amasing how it happened. like i said i avoided him for a year and then he just shows up out of the blue. thank you Father for knowing exactly whats best for me.
we are suppose to have dinner together in the next week. time to continue in the ammends.
love you guys billy
