The transition from a life of active addiction/alcoholism to a recovery lifestyle brings both difficulties and unexpected blessings. Our old way of seeing life often put us into the midst of many frustrations when events didn\’t go as we had planned, when we had planned. We wanted what we wanted, right now!

In addiction recovery we have the opportunity to learn – and to take to heart – the lesson that some things happen not when we think we are ready for them, but when our Higher Power knows we are ready. Sometimes our desires and expectations coincide with God\’s plans, and we find it easy to talk about living in God\’s will. On the other hand, there are times when our goals, plans, and wants just don\’t seem to be going anywhere. Those situations pose a much greater challenge to our commitment to surrender to our Higher Power. And then there are those occasions when we feel we have genuinely accepted that God\’s plans or timetable for our lives is not what we wanted, and yet we try to resign ourselves to being okay with life anyway – and then we are pleasantly surprised and amazed that God permits events to unfold in a manner that graces us with a blessing we never saw coming.

Many folks in addiction recovery talk of \”God-things,\” meaning the little (and sometimes not so little) unforeseen and unexplained blessings that God has poured out upon us and those around us. These God-things are evidence to us that our Higher Power is actively at work in our lives. They are often understood as minor (and not so minor) miracles. During a difficult time someone we have never met before says the exact thing we needed to hear. A phone call comes at just the right moment. Maybe it\’s something as simple as feeling the sun on our face, or seeing geese flying overhead, or watching a deer cross the road; timely reminders from the natural world that God is still in charge and everything will be okay.

Remember those connect-the-dot exercises we used to do as children? Draw a line from dot #1 to dot #2, and so on. Eventually a recognizable picture began to emerge. Maybe that\’s the way synchronicity works. Synchronicity is understood as the experience of things happening in some meaningful pattern. What we might have formerly dismissed as sheer coincidence takes on new meaning for us in recovery. Events that cannot logically or rationally be explained away are no longer seen as simply statistical flukes, but rather as experiential evidence that our Higher Power is directly involved in our lives, or in the lives of other people we know. We learn to \”connect the dots\” and see the pattern.

I can recall from my days in seminary one professor explaining that the method of teaching used by Jesus – telling stories – is paralleled by the experience of someone telling a joke; either you \”get it\”…or you don\’t. Some people understood right away what Jesus was getting at… others figured it out later on, and some never did understand what he was saying.

Maybe that\’s also a reasonable way to understand synchronicity in addiction recovery. If we are open to see God\’s hand at work in the events of life, then we will recognize that events work out according to God\’s timing and according to God\’s plans. If we don\’t \”get it,\” then life will continue to seem random and chaotic. What a difference that makes, not only in our attitude toward life, but also in our attitude toward addiction recovery! My hope is that we can all take time to be open and reflective about the events that happen in our lives. Perhaps we will discover that God has placed a pattern before us that can provide us a new found sense of hope and encouragement (because we know that there is purpose to those things that happen in life). How much easier it is to take life on life\’s terms when we know that our Higher Power is guiding and directing things.

Visit www.valleyhope.org or
www.valleyhope.org/drug-rehab-alcohol-rehab-aboutus.aspx to learn more.

Visit http://www.valleyhope.org or
http://www.valleyhope.org/drug-rehab-alcohol-rehab-aboutus.aspx to learn more.

Author Bio: Visit www.valleyhope.org or
www.valleyhope.org/drug-rehab-alcohol-rehab-aboutus.aspx to learn more.

Category: Wellness, Fitness and Diet
Keywords: addiction recovery, drug rehab, drug and alcohol treatment centers, synchronicity, higher power