I was taught that God is an experience not an idea. God is hard to find when I am spinning in my own head, searching the Rolodex of my mind for answers. God comes alive the moment I ask for help.
AA didn’t get me sober, God did. AA simply offers me infinite opportunities to ask for help. I ask God for help every time I attend a meeting, every time I work a step and every time I put my hand out to a newcomer. Help is what I needed twenty years ago when the best I could do was get drunk twice a day and watch TV in my darkened, messy apartment. Help is what I need today.
I see evidence of God’s hand in my life when I look backwards from where I came. It’s God’s job to get me out of any jam I get myself into. God was there at my bottom with a moment of clarity that led me to AA. God was there to send me to China and a brand new life when, at three years sober, I lost a job that I thought I could not live without. God has been with Lola and me throughout the past six months as we battle her cancer together. There have been too many “miracles” to write off as coincidences.
My experience of God has blossomed as the twelve steps grind away at ego. Today, if I’m in the right space I experience God most everywhere. I see God in a little Chinese child who squeals with delight as he learns to walk on wobbly legs. A hawk glides through the eggshell blue sky in the hills near my home. Defying all odds tiny wildflowers bloom on the harsh desert floor. The same infinite intelligence that heals a cut on my finger keeps the planets spinning around the sun. The light comes on in a newcomer’s eyes, the same way it did for me.
God is, God was, God always will be. Of this I have no doubt.