“HAPPY, JOYOUS AND FREE”
We are sure God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. We cannot
subscribe to the belief that this life is a vale of tears, though it once
was just that for many of us. But it is clear that we made our own
misery. God didn’t do it. Avoid then, the deliberate manufacture of
misery, but if trouble comes, cheerfully capitalize it as an opportunity
to demonstrate His omnipotence.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 133
For years I believed in a punishing God and blamed Him for my
misery. I have learned that I must lay down the “weapons” of self in
order to pick up the “tools” of the A.A. program. I do not struggle
with the program because it is a gift and I have never struggled when
receiving a gift. If I sometimes keep on struggling, it is because I’m still
hanging onto my old ideas and “. . . the results are nil.”