September 2011
Welcome to aboundinglove.org.
This month we are celebrating Recovery Month
with the rest of the recovering addicts
throughout the United States. I pray that
your visits to this website will be a healing
experience to be remembered forever.
Recovery Month
National Recovery Month
(September) is a national observance that
educates Americans on the fact that addiction
treatment and mental health services can
enable those with a substance use or mental
disorder to live a healthy and rewarding
life.
Each September, thousands
of treatment and recovery programs and services
around the country celebrate their successes
and share them with their neighbors, friends,
and colleagues in an effort to educate the
public about recovery, how it works, for
whom, and why. There are millions of Americans
whose lives have been transformed through
recovery. These successes often go unnoticed
by the broader population; therefore, Recovery
Month provides a vehicle to celebrate these
accomplishments.
Recovery Month spreads
the positive message that behavioral health
is essential to overall health, that prevention
works, treatment is effective, and people
can and do recover.
Total Recovery
All efforts towards recovery
are commendable, but we at aboundinglove.org
believe that any recovery worthwhile must
include the spiritual aspect of recovery.
And not just any spiritual recovery, but
one centered around the person and finished
work of Jesus Christ at the cross, His resurrection,
and His gift of the Holy Spirit.
This fact may be hard
for you to receive, but listen to what the
apostle Peter had to say about recovery.
"As we know Jesus better,
His divine power gives us everything we
need for living a godly life. He has called
us to receive His own glory and goodness!
And by that same mighty power, He has
given us all of His rich and wonderful
promises. He has promised that you will
escape the decadence all around you caused
by evil desires and that you will share
in His divine nature."1
All of the movements of
the church, beginning with Peter and Paul
and the other apostles, had as their goal
a spiritual awakening or renewal. This is
true through various monastic movements,
the Protestant Reformation, and the Oxford
Movement of the early 1800s. It was true,
also, of the Oxford Group (originally called
"A First Century Fellowship"),
an evangelistic movement in the 1900s, out
of which the Twelve Steps grew. Both the
Oxford Group and the Twelve Steps have at
their hearts the desire to take a healing
message to people caught in unwholesome
lifestyles.2
The Oxford Group
Dr. Frank Buckman, a Lutheran
minister of Pennsylvania Dutch Stock, was
the founder of the Oxford Group. This was
the parent group of Alcoholics Anonymous,
which, in turn, is the source of the Twelve
Step Recovery process.
While attending the 1908
Keswick Convention in England, Buckman had
an experience that changed his life. Bearing
resentment and feelings of ill-will toward
the official board of a hospice he had established
and from which he had been compelled to
resign because of differences with those
board members, he entered a little church
in Cumberland. His pride and anger had prevented
his serving as a Christian minister should.
Suddenly, in that church, through a woman's
talk about the Power of Christ's redemption,
he envisioned the suffering force of the
crucified Christ.
In that moment, he realized
what a distance his resentment had placed
between himself and God's unconditional
love. Spiritually transformed, he was filled
with an intense feeling of life as he surrendered
his will and willfulness to God. The Oxford
principles of surrender, restitution, and
sharing were founded on his personal experience
of spiritual conversion.3
Alcoholics Anonymous
Bill Wilson, the founder
of A.A., traced his journey through the
Oxford Group. In November 1934, while he
was still a practicing alcoholic, Bill was
visited by an old friend, Ebby Thatcher,
who had been restored to sobriety through
the Oxford Group. One month later, while
in a hospital undergoing treatment for alcoholism,
Bill was again visited by Mr. Thatcher,
at which time the principles of the Group
were explained. Twenty years later, Bill
Wilson described his conversion experience
that night in this way:
My depression deepened
unbearably and finally it seemed to me
as though I were at the very bottom of
the pit. I still gagged badly at the notion
of a Power greater than myself, but finally,
just for the moment, the last vestige
of my proud obstinacy was crushed. All
at once, I found myself crying out, 'If
there is a God, let Him show Himself!
I am ready to do anything, anything!'
Suddenly,
the room lit up with a great white light.
I was caught up into an ecstasy which
there are not words to describe. It seemed
to me, in the mind's eye, that I was on
a mountain and that a wind, not of air,
but of spirit was blowing. And then it
burst upon me that I was a free man. Slowly
the ecstasy subsided. I lay on the bed,
but now for a time, I was in another world,
a new world of consciousness. All about
me and through me, there was a wonderful
feeling of Presence, and I thought to
myself, 'So this is the God of the preachers!'
A great peace stole over me and I thought,
'No matter how wrong things seem to be,
they are still all right. Things are all
right with God and His world.'"4
Are things
all right between you and His world? Maybe
you've had a similar spiritual conversion?
If not, God desires to deliver you from
past resentments of ill-will towards others,
and the pride, fear, and anger that prevents
you from living a wholesome life. The power
of the Cross will remove the distance that
your resentments have placed between you
and God's unconditional love. May God open
your eyes to the many possibilities that
are ahead of you as you experience the freedom
that comes through Jesus Christ.
"For
God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes
in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life."5
A Prayer For You ...
Heavenly Father, it's hard
for me to believe that You would love me,
but I want to believe You. Holy Spirit,
I need your help to know God's love and
for the willingness to receive Your love
through abounding love ministries. My life
is a mess, but I believe that Your love
in Christ Jesus is the ultimate affirming
love that heals human wounds and patiently
awaits my graced response. I come to You
now in faith, believing that You raised
Jesus from the dead for my salvation, which
is available to me. I invite Jesus into
my heart, so that I may be cleansed from
sin, to receive a new spirit and a new heart
with new and right desires. Thank You, Father,
for setting me free to experience Your healing
and affirming love. Amen.
Scripture References:
Acknowledgement: A special thanks
to Sherry for transcribing this months view!
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