leaning learning

There are some things in life that I just cannot explain. Call them miracles, call them God showing his love and kindness to us, call them the natural outworkings of basic life principles such as sowing and reaping or pride and humility - it really does not matter to me. All I know is that at least three times in my life, God has intervened and instantly freed me from addictions, destructive patterns, and painful memories. I still feel the vestiges of familiar tendencies on the rare occasion, but the impulse, the devastating ravage of emotions, that seemingly helpless downward spiral, and the desire to even head in those bad directions are gone, totally gone.

I wish I could point to something I did, or find a convenient 5-step process that made all the difference, or tell you that someone prayed for me, but in all honesty, I just cried out to God over and over again and submitted myself to him as best as I could. And one morning, or make that one morning and two evenings, these things were not following me around anymore.

I do believe that my desire to disentangle myself from these things caused me to lean over towards God more and more and rely on myself less and less and eventually, I just fell over into his arms and the chains broke. In one instance, I was alone at home, another time I was falling asleep, and most recently, I was in a crowd. No matter what situation I find myself in, if I just turn towards him, He is always there, more willing to engage with me than I could ever fathom.

This is a band we saw at the Montreal Jazz Festival a few weeks ago, Misteur Vallaire. Photo by Dean.

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outWORD by Matte Downey

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