grace upon grace

And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace. – John 1:16

In the midst of a serious funk, I got this notification on my phone:

Six months alcohol free, thanks be to God.

Honestly, in many ways, this has not been my favorite week: a lot of stress, illness in our house, my pain level is just terrible right now.

I so desperately needed this to give me a moment of pause, to stop and give thanks for my blessings, to remember to be thankful for being set free.

I also needed the reminder that God will always give me the strength to do the hard things.

So, having regrouped, I got back to the work of this amazing five week oil training class I’m in and discovered that it was vision board time.

And that activity was just what the doctor ordered.

It was time to dream some new dreams – happy bright oil-y, health coach-y dreams – and start speaking life over them. It was time to take into account my new limitations and make fabulous plans accordingly.

And, around the time I finished my vision board this afternoon, my new hair arrived in the mail. I’m laughing as type this. (she who laughs lasts)

And I really dig it.

And I’m adding it to my list of things I’m grateful for this week. It’s the seemingly small things sometimes that really aren’t.

As always, anytime I write about anything dealing with alcohol and sobriety, I feel an incredible burden as well.

In our society, though my wine drinking was definitely unhealthy (and a problem for me), it would not have been considered a problem by many.

Everyday, I see wine memes everywhere, wine glasses made to hold a whole bottle, exercise gear that is wine themed, and apparentely even mommy wine runs. It is so socially acceptable that a problem is easy to hide or deny.

And that is “just wine.”

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, other substance abuse issues have also positively exploded in recent years.

And it completely breaks my heart.

I write this with absolutely no judgement.

I write this because I desperately want to see others set free.

Whether it is a substance abuse issue that is immediately life threatening or an alcohol abuse issue that seems less dangerous (though we all know that they can also be catastrophic), if you are experiencing a problem that you know is interfering with you living your best life, please seek help NOW.

Don’t wait until next week or after the holidays or when you get paid or whatever.

Freedom and joy and so many good good things are on the other side.

Even the helluva weeks are much better.

I promise.

. . . for we have all received grace upon grace.