For God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.

Ephesians 2:4-5

Oh, what Grace. It’s a mystery: why some remain lost, while others stumble into the light just enough to find the way.

An onlooker might divvy it up to blind luck, but Grace is the touchstone of progress. Are we equipped to see enough of our own future to accurately reflect upon the path that brought us here? I don’t think so.

The active addict is so intent upon the moment – living in the moment – that nothing else matters. There is no leaning forward, there is no falling backward. There is only this present pleasure; or the seeking therein.

In this, we were carrying out the tenants of one day at a time, perhaps better than those in sobriety. Once the initial fog clears out, and we begin to think with a sober mind, we are actually more muddled than before.

The many worries of the world, the grasping for the ability to repair damages done, and the deep threaded regret of the burdens we’ve been to those whom we love coat us thickly.

But Grace.

By Grace, we have been saved indeed. And the lingering thread of emotion that we have become as we sober up is frayed and sensitive and tenuous, and it is in this state that we are most usable by him who has all power.

But there is truly a long period of reconstruction ahead of us. We are not to fool ourselves into thinking that sobriety is an overnight matter. The choice may come quickly and indeed the first day of sobriety is just a day.

But this Grace we’ve been given is dealt out methodically. Encouraging us to live fully in the moment.

We so long to be made whole again, but God only uses broken things.