A Bright Light

Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel tapped him on the side to awaken him and said, "Quick! Get up!" And the chains fell off his wrists. - Acts 12:7 NLT

In the late summer of 1994, I knew something was wrong. For a few days, my brain was trying to digest a court order given to me as the result of a driving under the influence arrest. I was to pay a fine and attend 20 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for the offense.

Sometime between when that court order was in my hand and my first AA meeting in early September I had an awakening... a life changing one.

I counted my failures, the ones that really stung. I had just filed for a divorce in a marriage that lasted just half a year. Not long before that, I had filed a personal bankruptcy. However, it was another inventory item of my life that really convinced me that I had come to the end of myself: I was uncomfortable inside my own skin. Anxiety was drowning me.

That was three strikes against me I reckoned and it was time to face life somehow differently. I didn't know how to or what to change, but I knew something had to be done.

I had reasoned that the AA meetings couldn't hurt, maybe they were the beginning of a solution. Maybe attending the meetings were the starting point of finding what I could become. And maybe... just maybe, becoming someone that didn't hurt so bad inside.

The chains were beginning to fall off my wrists.

Continued: The Right Direction

Alexander is a writer in the online spiritual battlefield. You can also find him at The Scrooge Report.