For Today: September 23rd

To disdain today is to prove that yesterday has been misunderstood.

Maurice Maeterlinck

I love today because this program has given me such a deep understanding of and gratitude for yesterday. I look back at what I was with a sense of triumph that I could have come through such spiritual impoverishment and hopelessness to the sustaining faith I have today.

The “newfangled” aspects of my life today---my abstinence, my good looks, my joy In living---are direct descendants of yesterday’s realities: the overeating, the fat, the demoralization, the sickness of spirit, mind and body. 

Thank God for what I was, and what I have become!

For Today:  I may feel nostalgia for yesterday, but it is never at the expense of my appreciation of today.

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I suppose I can't appreciate today without having experienced the pain of yesterday; this is true.

I have come a long way, both spiritually, emotionally and physically, in the past 39 months.  Physically, I tried on a pair of 'yesterday's' pants and they literally fell off.  Losing 100 lbs means I look quite a bit different than I used to.  But I behave differently too.........I am not the same person now that I was when I was in the throes of my disease & practicing my addictions. 

I've learned how to LIVE, with God'shelp, and the joy that I now feel has replaced much of the fear, anxiety, despair & depression I once felt.  Hopelessness has been replaced with Hope........for the future, and appreciation for the past as well.  Had I not been where I WAS, I couldn't be where I AM today.

For today, I am grateful to be alive......instead of emotionally dead & living with addiction running my life.