Surrender to Start

The sound of air exploded out of me, as I went flying towards the pavement landing with a sickening crack as my skull met the ground. My breathing was distinctly labored, every breath was my last. Each bone in my body was radiating pain, and my skin was on fire. I had never died before, but this seemed to be what it would feel like. My heart thundered in my ears like a war drum beating ferociously, trying with all it had to keep me alive. The air had such a staleness to it as if I were already in the grave, and this, the dying part was merely a formality. A powerful voice sounded from above me. My eyes were swollen shut, so I couldn’t make out who it was, and the ringing in my ears made the voice echo with more tonality.
“Have you had enough?” It asked.
My voice was ragged like pieces of old rusted metal had been scrapped across my vocal cords, “No, I need you still,” I said.
“I have already taken everything from you and brought you to the brink of death. You will die if you continue on with me.” The voice said, almost sad for me. But it couldn’t be sad; it wasn’t a living thing.
“Then I will die, I don’t know how to live without you.” My ropes end had been reached; there was nothing left for me.
The thing began to move in swiftly on me, for Its final blow, the killing blow. When suddenly another voice sounded as if it were over top of me, shielding me protectively like a mother protecting her young.
“He is done!” The voice yelled at the thing. “You will leave here now!” The protective voice screamed at the thing, and before I knew what happened, it was gone.

I woke up in my bed the bruises and breaks from the night before left me barely able to move. My body would recover, it was my mind that troubled me, as the thoughts raced about the night before fear began to set in. “How was I going to live without Alcohol?”

Surrender was the only way. I was unable to surrender on my own that night. I would have allowed Alcohol to kill me, in truth I went to bed many nights with the hope that I had drank enough to do just that. Only to wake up the next morning disappointed. It was not me that saved myself that night, It was my higher power, who I call God. And it was not the first time God intervened on my behalf. It is only by God’s grace that I am alive today, and at a point in my life where I can now choose to surrender my life every day to God.
The first step teaches me to surrender first to Alcohol, realizing it is my greatest enemy. Once I can surrender and accept that alcohol or my own will can no longer run my life, but that it has to be run by something more significant than me, can I move forward with my life. Truly alive.

The New year always brings with it a litany of resolutions for who we are going to be this year. Promises to ourselves that this year will be different. “I will do things differently, I swear.” A promise I made so many times.  I no longer am worried about what I will be like in a year. Instead, I am focusing on who I am and where I am right now in this moment. I am willing to surrender this moment to get to the next. Realizing that by surrendering each present moment to the past, I am planting seeds for future growth. By holding on to the seeds, I have assured myself an empty future.

I ask myself today, what am I putting into this present moment that will lead to future growth? When I know my starting spot, I can learn what I need to do each step of the way for a better life. Planting seeds full of life, love and laughter along the way. Surrendering in each moment so that I can start a new one. Because every moment I have ever lived in has not been perfect, but it has been full of every single thing I need at that moment to be complete.

I will Surrender each moment with the firm belief that I did all I could in it, and continue to thank God for the grace that continues to bring me through.

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