So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬

I’m not safe in sobriety. Just because I’ve straightened out doesn’t exempt me from the repercussions of the past or the echoes of the future.

We’ve got to live right now just like the rest of the world.

And sobriety kills just as swiftly and unapologetically as addiction.

Whether by apathy leading backwards to the bottle or by the unexplainable onset of sickness or by the baffling, freak accident.

We walk on thin ice.

And in good health, good spirits and fine company, we still decay one day at a time—reaching toward eternity with a body ill equipped for more than a few decades.

Well, this got dark. But take heart, there is hope. And not the temporal hope that might carry through a day or two. But hope that lasts. Hope that fulfills. Hope that dreams into infinity with the knowledge of the certainty of a future beyond time.

There is very little chance of satisfaction in this life or the next if I focus all my energy on satisfying myself. This body is a vessel of this spirit which I may choose to nurture or to ignore.

As we enter each day, we can choose to renew this spirit. To double down. To seek out maker’s will for us. To recognize and accept the fleeting nature of this life. And to embrace it as a gift to care for rather than something owed to discard.

God, renew my mind, renew my spirit today.