Humble beginnings

I ate lunch today with six men all at various points of sobriety. One of these men was just hours into his own sobriety. I don't know what makes a person choose this day, the morning of Christmas Eve to get sober, but I suppose in the life of someone struggling with addiction, it is just as good a time as any.

It isn't an easy thing to see, a man sitting amidst a group of people, all of whom are laughing and eating, telling stories, enjoying each other, and appreciating the mystery of what brings them all together. He sits there unable to eat, edgy, raw. There is no way around that part, only through it. And you don't have to be an addict to know how he feels. You just have to know what it feels like to sit with yourself when you'd rather run. To want to seek any of the things you usually seek to make whatever it is you are feeling or trying to avoid, just go away. To be in that state is to be vulnerable. It is humbling and today, it was humbling to watch. But it is a beginning and what better day to begin than today, on the eve of the greatest humble beginning?

I wish him well, this man. I pray healing and wholeness over him as I do those I love who haven't yet chosen that beginning for themselves. And I give thanks for a table full of people with whom I can find hope. They gave me my own humble beginning today.  And I couldn't be more thankful.