relationships

Joe and I facilitate a grief group at our church. It's been going on for almost 2 years and often the conversation expands into discussions of the member's relationships with the person for whom they are grieving. Monday night a young woman was talking about the death of her mother 2 years ago. The first thing she said was, "I don't miss the fighting. I miss the good times but I don't miss the fighting. ...we fought all the time...we butted heads....we were so much alike." Then she shared something that troubled me.  "And that's how my 10 year old daughter and I are...We fight all the time,"

This disclosure troubled me because it highlighted the unhealthy relationship pattern that she is in. She communicates and relates to these important people by fighting.  My sense is no one enjoys that kind of relationship. I wonder when she dies if her daughter will say, "I don't miss the fighting."

We all learn communication patterns from our homes. Sometimes it makes us smile when we hear ourselves say something our parents said. It's important to take a look at and to listen to our communication and relationships. Are we duplicating some of the things we heard and did from home? Are those patterns healthy? Are they the ways we want our children to copy and maybe to remember when we are not with them?

God, help me to hear the way I talk and listen to my children and loved ones. Is it a loving manner in which they feel treasured?

Blessings-Penny

one month

It's been a month since I've written a blog. A friend emailed and asked if I was ok? I reassured her I was---maybe I had just run out of things to say. She assured me I hadn't! she was right.

Today I attended a conference of faith and recovery. It was useful in confirming my strong belief that long term recovery happens when we place our recovery in our relationship with God. That is when the joy and peace of recovery comes alive within us. Sometimes conferences don't break new ground but they give information and concepts to people new to recovery whether they be treatment providers or clients. This felt like one of those. And helped remind me that even if what I say, I've said before maybe there is someone new reading this blog and they will hear it for the first time.

Also I need to be reminded of these concepts of recovery, faith and God over and over and over. No matter how long we have been in recovery, this is a chronic disease and we need to pay attention. It is a tiger that creeps in the grass and when we don't pay attention, it rears up and bites us on the ass! really! Pay attention.

And as the preface to my book says in quoting the philosopher, Pascal, "There is a God-Shaped void in the heart of every man which cannot be filled with any created thing but only by God, the creator, made known through Jesus Christ."

Books on amazon.com "Filling the God Shaped Void-a book of daily meditations" and "Broken by Addiction , Blessed by God.-a woman's journey into long term recovery."

Blessings-Penny