So the last couple of months have taught me all about a new challenge.
I haven't relapsed since the date specified in my first post on this blog. Today is my 66th day of sobriety.
So what is this new challenge? Isn't the point of recovery to remove challenges? Well, yes it is, and some have been removed.
But the Lord always has new lessons for us to learn. I admit, I don't know how to tackle this one. I don't know how get someone else to progress and recover. I guess the Lord wanted me to go through this so that I would understand how my wife felt trying to get me to progress. She couldn't. She had absolutely no power to make me change. She had the power to encourage me, but she couldn't act on my behalf, no matter how hard she tried.
So now I'm stuck. My wife won't recover from the effects of my addiction, making it impossible for us to communicate fairly or lovingly, despite my best efforts. I try and try to push her forward, to make her feel like there has been progress. I want to make her understand that with progress, there should be less trouble between us.
I guess I can't do that for her.
So the new challenge is learning how to accept that and be supportive, even when I'm being hurt by the individual I'm trying to support. It's pretty vicious. And it makes me feel pretty horrible for putting my wife through that in the first place.
So, the moral of the story is that challenges are issued by the Lord for the purpose of teaching us to understand others in a Christlike manner and so we can learn to act as He would in such situations. I pray that He will grant me inspiration and wisdom to be a proper friend to my wife, who needs my support and patience. I have to learn to deal with the progress she is making, even if it isn't total recovery.
After all, sobriety isn't a sign of total recovery, so I better remove the beam from my own eye before I try to remove the mote in hers.
