Words

Fulfillment is a feeling of happiness and satisfaction. It's also the completion of something, like the fulfillment of a promise.

Like many of my friends in the blogging world, I took up the practice of replacing New Year's resolutions with a New Year's "Word" a few years ago.  My yearly word was supposed to replace all the guilt that is associated with the traditional unfulfilled resolutions. My New Year's word wasn't supposed to require measurements or goals, it was just supposed to guide me along through the year without any demands or expectations. Like Dumbo's feather, I thought I could just curl my trunk around a word and fly.

That's me, always scouring for the next no work or sweat required gadget on the Home Shopping Network or in the As Seen On TV aisle of my local Walgreens.

No big surprise that my "Word of the Year" offered the same astonishing results as the jars full of Belly Fat Burner and Thigh Blaster pills I have in my medicine cabinet.

Warning: Results may not be visible to the human eye!

So, I was really re-thinking this whole "Word of the Year" thing. But then I started reading all the blogs this morning and was starting to feel left out.

"Maybe I should give it one more try," I thought. "Besides, I can't think of anything else to write about on this New Year's Day and, for a sober blogger, not writing a New Year's Day blog is akin to Dick Clark not Rocking in the New Year. 

"Dick," I said, "if you can still manage to fulfill your obligations even though you've been dead for three New Year's Eves, (maybe you should have read the fine print a little closer.) I guess I should make a half-hearted but live attempt to fulfill mine."

And that's when my word of the year jumped out at me.

FULFILLMENT

I'll admit the word probably stood out because of all the unfulfilled promises I've made to myself on every other New Year's Day. I guess I thought if I made it my word, I'd be pressured into being fulfilling for at least the three week shelf-life of most New Year's resolutions. Maybe I'd be able to finish at least one unfinished task in that time.

I sat down to write a list of obligations I wanted to fulfill this year. 

Ugh, huh? 

Then I started thinking about my last post about Praying Big and I decided to make my list a list of wishes I wanted fulfilled in the next year. Things that would fulfill me and make me happy. I won't share those things with you, but I'll tell you it was a helluva lot more fun than obligations.

Then, that word "pray" jumped out at me and I started thinking about that. All of you know that I pray on a regular basis. I've tried not to be too "in your face" about it but it is right up there in the title of my blog. That three letter word, G-O-D.  I thought about my hesitancy in the beginning of this blog to include it in my title and I thought about all the other times I've wondered if prospective readers were turned off by that word in my title and maybe that was why I didn't rack up the number of followers that other blogs do. I thought about how I've considered, more than once. changing the title of my blog.

I felt a little ashamed and, rightfully, ungrateful.

See, I fully believe, without a doubt or moment of hesitation that I would not be here without God. When I thought I should give up on myself, I knew He hadn't. So, I didn't. He told me to start this blog. He did. I ignored Him for a long time but then I did what He told me.

And my life was never the same.

Thank God!

I've let Him sit back there in the background, afraid to bring Him too far out of the shadows, while I basked in the light of the fulfillment of His part of this bargain. Afraid that His presence would chase off those who don't believe in Him, those that think He's just another Dumbo's feather. 

But I believe.

Now, I think it is time to for me to fulfill my part and give Him credit and share how my belief in Him sustained me and brought me through.  It's time to concentrate on where He wants to lead me instead of where I want to take Him as long as He stays in the background.

Because I know what He has planned will be more fulfilling than anything I can conceive.

So, in fulfillment of my debt to my Co-Writer, my blog will begin to focus on my quest for a more fulfilling life, through sobriety and through Him.

I don't know what changes this will wrought.  Or if it will wrought any.I don't know if I will lose some of you as readers, I hope not, because through you I am drawn closer to Him. All I know is that since I started thinking about this new direction, I've been filled with more anticipation and excitement than I have since the early days of my sobriety. Like those early days, I can't wait to see where He will take me.  

Whether you believe in Him, or not, I like to believe that you acknowledge that in this gathering of compassionate and giving souls, here in the blogging and recovery world, there is a love and a hope and a sacredness that transcends this worldly sphere.

Happy New Year, my friends. May it be a year of Fulfillment for us all.