Higher
Power
I am asked to write a few words about my Higher Power.
My pen stops...... when did we meet? Was it at my First Communion?
Maybe Confirmation. Maybe we met when I was born. I can't remember
that day, so if we did meet then, I don't recall. The day, the
year, the time, I cannot tell you, but it was the first time that
I felt fear. At first, He was the scapular on my neck or a cross
on the wall. I would pray to these false idols or to that little
gold house on the altar at church where they told me He lived.
While I was in church I felt safe, but at home I was afraid of
the dark, and I would go to sleep with my mother and father if
they would let me in. I soon learned to say the prayer: "Now I
lay me down to sleep, I pray to God my soul to keep. If I should
die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take." I had faith
that if I recited that prayer, no harm would come to me. Even
long after I was into my disease of alcoholism, I would say that
prayer. My heart pounds now recalling the fear that used to grip
me in the night as the alcohol wore off. It was also at night
that I found myself saying, "I'm sorry God for what I did this
time," but I would repeat the same sorry behavior over and over
again. Father Martin said one morning when he came to the Women's
Prison that, in his opinion, the best prayers an alcoholic can
say are those asking for help when ]ne is drunk. I'm sure it was
those prayers that brought me to the door of AA almost 20 years
ago. In AA, my God was given a different name: Higher Power and
Love. After my first meeting, I never had to visit the gold house
again. Alcohol had made me stupid; how could my God live in such
a small house? In every face at the first meeting, I saw my God,
and when they spoke, I heard my God. They told of what they had
heard and seen; each one's story was different and each had stayed
away from a drink through this Power greater than themselves.
I didn't have to get this Power in church, I had only to ask for
it. "Believe that we believe," they said. I was self-will run
riot for a long time into my sobriety. But by saying my prayers
in the morning, asking for help, I was at least dry. One day,
about three years sober, pain gripped me so bad, my self-will
was petrified. I had no choice but to let God come into my life
and take it over. What does my God look like? There is no body,
you cannot see or touch this God. My senses feel my God. I have
always known when I was on one of his assignments. How do I know?
Well, I'm in a place of higher achievement, either for myself
or for a group. When the assignment is over, I look back and most
people think I'm great, but few know my real boss. I've given
up all my lovers for him for he is the only one who could sleep
with me every night. He tells me the truth. "Elizabeth," He says,
"I will never leave you, but you will walk alone. Sometimes you
must be very brave. There will be lots of darkness, do not worry."
My God comes in the form of the food I love to eat, or the warm
bed when I'm cold. When the woman in the mirror looks great, I
know that's my God. But fear is His specialty, you know He's paid
a visit when it's gone.
Copyright; Ruth
Mahoney April 13, 1988
