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Don't Fear the Reaper

I’m one who firmly believes the idea in our book that nothing happens in God’s world by accident. To me this means every single thing that happens in the universe is God’s will. Birth, death and every other experience of life all happen exactly as they are supposed to happen at exactly the right moment. This means that what we call accidental death is really no accident. 

It wasn’t death I was afraid of toward the end of my drinking. It was life. I was locked in the self-centered prison of my old ideas. My world had shrunk to the size of my messy apartment. I had no real friends, no job and no interest in much of anything besides drinking. I lacked the power to live life fully. Back then death might have been a step up.

Today the certainly of death teaches me life is precious. Death motivates me to experience as much of our beautiful world as I can before my time is up. I want to experience as much joy as possible by being of service: to continue to make living amends; to continue to grow and change and continue to become an ever greater expression of the One who has all power.

Acceptance is the key. Death is one of those things I cannot change no matter how courageous I am. Recently a number of close AA friends have moved on to the big meeting. I could tell each of them reached the point of total acceptance. Sure they had physical pain from their illnesses and injuries, but they did not suffer. With acceptance I believe death can be an exciting adventure instead of something to dread.