THE STRUGGLE IS REAL

Life is a never ending series of struggles. One struggle after another. A continuous series of dramas. Life is drama filled. As well it should be. Life is not easy. Where is the merit in easy. We learn from struggle, we improve under the weight of struggle. We  gain character, perseverance, faith all from going thru struggle. We learn to survive from struggle. We learn we can survive from struggle. We improve, we learn to do better. As humans we were created with the ability to heal, to improve. We fall down and get back up. That is how we learn, by living thru our mistakes and by watching the mistakes of others. Listen as Trent revisits the area of struggle and its capacity to make us better.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Recovery is a Process of Decisions podcast. This is Trent Thomas, your recovery peer support specialist. This week's episode is entitled The Struggle is Real. Recovery tests the struggle we all strive against. To recover means to overcome struggle. Recovery is defined as to strive to overcome an adversity, to become whole again, to reach a bridge over a depravity. Recovery is success over a drama. Drama in one's life is to be expected. Life is drama filled. There's a scripture that reads God will not put more on you than you can bear. God knows what you can bear. He knows what we know not. His will is primary. His will is predominant. His will is always correct. In this life, we simply must play our part. God's will, not ours. For me, when I drive, I often crash. In my life, I've learned to relinquish the steering wheel to God. I let God do the driving, his direction, his map, his will, his plan. My God has led me on the road to recovery. He created the mechanism for the opportunity for me to relinquish my disastrous course of self-destruction and submit to His will and ask for help. Once I asked for help, I then had to follow instructions. Instructions sent by God. Instructions based on truth. Truth is the treatment for the disease of self-deception. The disease of lies, a disease where we first lie to ourselves and then to everyone we come in contact with. A disease where we deceive ourselves into believing a substance is a need greater than food, water, bathing, housing, our family, and even greater than our very lives. A disease that wants us dead, but will settle for us being absolutely miserable. Misery, depression, sadness, and eventually death. Yes, the struggle to recover is real. In fact, it's deadly real. Recovery is a decision to live and not die. Struggle is absolutely necessary for life. We struggle, we get faith, character, belief in a power greater than ourselves. We get growth, we get correction, we get direction. We learn to do better, to make better decisions. We get perseverance. We get to live life on life's terms. We get to measure ourselves against our bad past decisions. We get accountability. We get all these things because of the struggle we must go through. The key here is go through, rise above and survive. Struggle is the measure of our self-worth. Our accomplishments are derived from our success against struggle. Yes, struggle is real and necessary for life to continue on. Struggle is necessary for our growth, both external and internal. Struggle is the mountains and valleys we must endure to achieve success. What we struggle against is how we measure our mettle, our muster. Struggle is how we determine our recovery. Struggle is how we ascertain if we are in recovery. Struggle is our determination of embitterment. If we are met with recovery success, then it is struggle that lends its substance to meet our merits of success or failure. Recovery is the meeting of struggle and overcoming it. Yes, struggle is real and the overcoming of struggle that rewards itself with success in recovery. Failing to struggle ends in relapse and the merits of the consequences of misery. A miserable existence is the essence of relapse, which is the exact opposite of recovery. Struggle has the unique ability to reward those whom successfully overcome its mountains with the joyous happiness of freedom. Freedom from the dreadfulness of carrying around misery, which is a direct result from being enslaved with the bearing up under the weight of active addiction. Struggle is real, and recovery is the blessed outcome for successfully overcoming the road laden with struggle. The harder we struggle, the greater the appreciation for the reward of recovery. Recovery is a reward in and of itself. Struggle is real, and recovery is a statute of successfully overcoming struggle. Recovery is proof of the existence of God and his mercy. Recovery is a blessing from a power greater than us and proof that he exists and cares about us and is willing and able to reward those whom he sees fit. Recovery is God initiated and God sustained. Recovery is a successful culmination of the power of God. His will, his way, is successful all the time. In his time frame, God is never wrong and never makes a mistake. His will is righteous and exact. His mercy is overwhelming and truly undeserved. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy of his kindness and mercy. We should ever be mindful of his graciousness and unlimited mercy. Our love for the God of our understanding should be given freely as it is no match for his undeserved love for us, his creation. A creation whom he declared in the beginning to the entire universe as exceptionally good. Good in God's eyes is beyond comparison by any other standard. Man and woman were declared by God at our creation as worthy of proclamation by God as an exceptionally good above all other creations. No other praise was handed out by God except for the singular creation of man and woman. No, not the sun, moon or stars were heralded as exceptional. Only the created beings of man and woman were acknowledged as worthy of praise by the Creator Himself. God saw praiseworthy components of his creation of man and woman, as we were created in his image, created to be godlike, thus having the qualities of God, possessing mercy, kindness, love, empathy, jealousy, hate, and rage, all the innate qualities we possess and must manage on a daily basis. All these qualities makes us like our Creator, including to imagine and make from our imagination. Thus, we build homes, cars, rockets, trains, and planes. We have mastery of air, sea, and land. We inhabit the four corners of this planet and excel in all climates. We are God's cherished beings and receive His help and guidance. All we have to do is ask. Through the mercy and undeserved kindness of God, we are infused with the inner capabilities to heal, to recover. We fall down, we get back up, we improve, we learn, we can do better, we strive for excellence, we reach for the stars. We are only limited by our imagination. Our imagination is infinite. We can make and build what our mind can conceive. We are truly remarkable creations. The universe, including man and woman, are created from the imagination of God. His infinite imagination is limitless. There is no limit to what God can conceive. God operates in the supernatural. He needs nothing from the natural world to make his will a reality. Proof of this is written in his creation testimony, where he stated in the beginning, let there be light. And then several creation days later, he created the sun. Thus, he did not need the sun to make light. He stated, Let there be light, and light came into existence without light from the entity we call the sun. God operates on a supernatural plane. He does not need anything from the natural world to bring his will into being. Thus God can make a way from no way. With this very real quality from our creator is the mechanisms for recovery. The ability to recover is a trait handed down to us from our creator. The ability to improve, to do better, to learn more, to facilitate new from old, to imagine and build better, to build new, to overcome struggle and recover. Yes, struggle is real, and thus from struggle we derive recovery. Struggle is real, and so is recovery. This is Trent Thomas, and I would like to thank you for listening to another episode of Recovery is a process of decisions podcast. You can now subscribe to this podcast and receive rich, deep episodes for subscribers only, as well as a private personal email account to communicate directly with me for comments and show suggestions. I also would like to invite everyone to check out my new ebook publication entitled Recovery: The Seven Steps to Sustain Recovery available at Amazon.com. Written for those in recovery seeking a formula to sustain recovery. As always, your inspiring comments can be left at transnetrecover.com forward slash podcast. Please feel free to follow me on Facebook and Instagram. Thank you and have a blessed day.