Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul) (4 page)

Rokelle Lerner

What life means to us is determined not so much by what happens to us as by our reaction to what happens.

Lewis L. Dunnington

Footnotes for Life

J
ANUARY
12

S
ome think he’s a little strange. A week before my son was born; I rested against his fence and admired his flowers. He was quiet for a while and said, “I used to watch those through my window when I was in prison.” I protectively placed my hand over my unborn child. “I was a prisoner of war,” he continued. “Just a kid really. Both my parents and my sister were murdered and I didn’t want to live. Then, I saw those cosmos through my cell window and I made up my mind that if I was ever free, I’d go and touch them and keep some of the seeds.” Things are not always what they seem.

Mary Lee Moynan

Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you.

Joseph Murphy

Footnotes for Life

J
ANUARY
13

W
e make extensive lists. We make lists of all that is broken about ourselves; we also have long lists of what we should be doing, and aren’t doing yet; we have lists of regrets, lists of complaints, and lists of “it will never happen.” But today, let us start a new list entitled
All
That Is Possible with Me
. It starts like this: I can hold someone’s hand; I can feed the ducks; I can read a book; I can write a book; I can become president; I can feel the cold and the warm; I can color any page blue if I want; I can breathe; I can smile.

Barbara A. Croce

I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Footnotes for Life

J
ANUARY
14

W
e are survivors. We are resilient. Within us is great strength, an ability to overcome and to endure. From pain we never deserved, we build walls to hold in our secrets. Secrets that seem too difficult to face head-on. Secrets we fear, if shared, will only bring more pain. You have a choice and you have a voice. Keep your secret locked up within your walls forever, or use your strength and courage to break the silence and allow the truth to set you free.

Nicole Braddock

Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Footnotes for Life

J
ANUARY
15

T
he day after my daughter confessed to me that my husband of ten years was molesting her, I found myself without a home, no job and with three frightened, displaced children in a women’s shelter. I had spent ten years dodging shouts and blows, trying to make a nice life out of what had become a nightmare. I had obviously failed. I was as low and lost as I’d ever been. When the counselor asked what choices I had made in my life that had brought me to this moment, it was a turning point. Everything from that day forward would be the result of that long, hard look at myself. It was the first small step for me.

Jaye Lewis

In the depth of winter I finally learned there was, in me, invincible summer.

Albert Camus

Footnotes for Life

J
ANUARY
16

M
y recovery lifts my spirit and gives my life a deeper purpose. Even my compulsive behavior was an attempt to grow, to find inner peace, however misguided. But today I recognize that the peace I sought can only truly be found by uniting my will with God’s. When I willfully try to push my life in place, I am limited in my vision. Today I invite spirit to involve itself intimately in all the petty arrangements of my life. Nothing is too small for spirit to be a part of. I am one with spirit; separateness is but an illusion, for the very second I invite spirit to be with me, it is there.

Tian Dayton

Love is faith, and one faith leads to another.

Henri-Frédéric Amie

Footnotes for Life

J
ANUARY
17

W
e as a group are privy to knowledge that is rapidly coming to the rest of the world. There is a Spiritual solution to every single problem, question and situation in our lives, because that is what we indeed are, creatures of a Spiritual nature, a Spiritual origin. This is the most important thing that we have learned as a result of working the Twelve Steps.

Jeffrey R. Anderson

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Stonewall Jackson

Footnotes for Life

J
ANUARY
18

S
obriety is not attained just by putting the cork in the bottle. It is suggested that our emotional growth stopped the day we started drinking and as we acquire more and more sobriety we “catch up.” I know that I am addicted to alcohol and am just one drink away from a drunk. For me, staying sober is paramount in my life. Without my sobriety and spirituality I am nothing.