New beginnings . . .

HEALTHY REMINDERS!

here we are the first week of January quickly coming to a close
and many of us have made choices to better our lives to increase peace and contentment!

I know I have done this numerous times, particularly in recovery,
only to be reminded I cannot do it on my own. . . leaving me in the state I once found myself.

When one day my therapist shared a tool- a linear chart of what recovery is really about. Below is a poem I wrote when I was confined to my bed while on heavy psychotic drugs.

Is it a dream, it seems
like a dream? Waking
with a start I know it
is not.

Opening my eyes
I am ashamed.

How it came about I
could not explain.

A brittle soul about to break,
slumber I once more
take.

There is a stirring as I awake.
Saying a prayer “My soul to take.”

Crispness of sheets brush
against my skin,
a fever begins and my body
seems to melt, sheets now wet
with the trickle of sweat.

Beginning to thirst
and bereft of water, I
become hotter, beginning
to falter.

The hopeful anecdote to my
illness has provoked it
instead. Another potion
has created more mental
commotion.

The walls seem empty as
I stare in space,
searching for anything
to break the dreariness
of this place.

On the left hangs a picture,
dismal and grey, to the
right a window, dressed
in lavender and lace.

Hanging from a silver rod.
Slowly
lifting my head from
the bed, moving my legs to
the floor.

Reaching for the wall with
trembling hands.

I pull the curtain to my
side, as I cry “This piece
of cloth I wish to hang
above my head.”

As I try, my arms are not
high enough, my hammer and
nails strong enough, my
measure true enough.

Sitting in the
midst of failure I quit.
In my brokenness something
greater than I draws the
curtain aside.

With His rod accurate and right,
draping His banner of love
over me in peace and light!

And so on this 7th day of January
awakening after a restless night
I am reminded that I will not be left
in this state – it will lift in time just as
the chart explains!