Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul) (17 page)

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hanking God for a specific attribute brings him into your everyday life and reminds you he has an answer for your every need. On a day you feel disorganized, or frustrated with someone else’s disorganization, thank him for being organized. When you feel misunderstood, thank him for being understanding. When you experience his perfect timing that turned out to be different from yours, thank him for being timely. Thank him for being generous on a day you are experiencing his unmerited abundance. Thank him for being a forgiver, on a day you need forgiveness, or need him to help you forgive. When you feel less important than others, thank him for being interested in all of us.

Lana Fletcher

The strength of a man’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.

Blaise Pascal

Footnotes for Life

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here is something unique about each one of us. We all have different ways of expressing ourselves, of handling adversity or conflict. Misunderstandings are the basis for most quarrels and it requires patience to listen to what is said between the lines. To recover from hurts and injustices I must first look at myself. If something I did or said added to the conflict, then I must take responsibility for my actions and apologize. If the other person cannot accept it and the relationship suffers, it is their problem. I have done my best.

Joan Clayton

Forgiveness is the bridge for restoring relationships.

Joan Clayton

Footnotes for Life

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t is a sign of wisdom to be able to set goals and then, having done so, to let them go. All that is required for success is a vision of the destination. The journey itself will reveal the means that will take you there.

Mistakes will not throw you off course unless you let them stop you. A good navigator keeps a sure eye on the final destination, but steers there through a series of approximations.

Brahma KumarisWorld Spiritual University

Your determination pulls success toward you, and your focus pushes obstacles away.

Brahma Kumaris

Footnotes for Life

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W
e can be so quick to judge, to label actions, people, circumstance as good or bad, right or wrong. By doing so we essentially limit our experience of life. Even the painful path of an alcoholic need not be labeled or judged as bad, for this path provides perspective, consciousness, gifts unattainable in any other way.

Today, I let go of my need to label or judge, remembering that often gifts are well disguised, and that God has a much bigger perspective than I.

Jeffrey R.Anderson

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Footnotes for Life

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love to awaken to the birdsong outside my bedroom window as I wonder what the new day will bring. As I look outside, it looks cold and damp as if it has been raining. Yet, regardless of the weather, the little robin perched on her branch will continue singing. The robin knows that all her needs will be provided for daily. There is no need to worry.

I also have needs, but unlike the little robin, I do worry. But, just for this morning, I will surrender my cares to the one God who provides for all creation.

Theresa Meehan

Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.

Confucius

Footnotes for Life

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or me, the greatest part of recovery is the feeling that I am never alone. I have a whole sober community that I share my life with. One day someone is holding me up; another day that same person is shaky and I get to be their strong support. In recovery I have been given so much love and so much hope. A passage in “Promises” from
The Big
Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
says it best, “We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.”

Dorri Olds

I once was lost but now I’m found.

John Newton

Footnotes for Life

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hoosing an attitude of joy regardless of circumstances is a courageous act of faith, but it is also a matter of will. Such an attitude enables us to set a strong hand to whatever good we can do, lighting brave little candles against the darkness. It is a conscious decision to make my world better rather than worse. I choose this day to notice and savor every good thing. I will walk in joy that cannot be disturbed by the actions of others, but can be passed on to those who desire it.

Rhonda Brunea

We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

Joseph Campbell

Footnotes for Life