Using Our Spiritual Lessons from the Past To Guide Us To Change

Sometimes it is easier for me to teach from my own spiritual experiences.  Often it is said in recovery that we can learn from the mistakes of the past.  I am going to reduce this to my life here and maybe you will understand how you too can look into your own family history and make better choices.

I was not born into a perfect world.  There was nothing but chaos as I chose to enter into life.  This was six weeks before the United States declared war upon Japan and subsequently Germany as well. 

Shortly after my birth, my father joined the United States Navy and I too was a child of an absentee father.  (first lesson here, learning to live without a father)  For the next five years of my early life, I saw very little of my father and well understood that his return just might not happen.  Mother was totally honest with my sister and me that his life was truly in the hands of God.  Both my sister and I understood this phenomenon and dealt with his possible death as we best could understand the concept.   I knew what was happening in the world.  I knew that my life could change in an instant, and the emotional silence that was held within was again another spiritual lesson forthcoming,  (learning to deal with fear itself and not being able to express this fear to anyone) 

During the war food was rationed as well as gasoline and many manufactured goods.  All factories were channeled  to refocus on the war effort.   In today's world only those of us still living have experienced the shortages that we had in the United States during World War II. To sit for hours waiting on a ration of sugar is quite boring to a child, but imperative to the Mother of the household who is feeding the family.  Gasoline was rationed by the amount, and it was impossible to buy tires for the car.  Mother once drove us to New Orleans from Fort Worth @ 30 miles per hour in order to save the tires, because there was no replacement.  Now that is a slow journey, and for a woman during that time, a scary one with two small children.  She did not know what kind of an example she set by her decision to make that journey herself.  Many women would not have gone, my mother faced the fear alone with two children, and did not look back. There was nothing she wouldn't do during this time period.  She became an inspiration for me many years later. 

  My first five years, although I did not go hungry were spent with lots of meals called "salad dressing sandwiches", no meat, canned milk, no candy(sugar was rationed) and all clothes that we had were made  by hand.  My mother literally lived at the sewing machine.   The southern part of the United States was a mecca of cotton and mills with plenty of fabric to make clothes, curtains, bedspreads, and etc.  My mother made the choice to take advantage of this shortage and learn to sew.  My early memories of her was to be  either at the kitchen sink or at the sewing machine making clothes for the three of us. ( another spiritual law here learning to change when the opportunity calls for a need).  The sewing machine gave her the opportunity to not only learn a craft, but to also escape from her fears of being a single parent.  (law of polarity here used--for every negative there is also a positive choice around for learning).  My mother made the choice to learn the art of sewing and this enabled her to learn a craft that would later aid in the decorating business.  She became a master of color, design, fabric selection, and a skilled craftsman at the machine as well.  Would you believe that even my underwear was made on that sewing machine?  I did not graduate to store bought "bloomers" until about the age of 10.  My friends still laugh at some of these experiences---especially when the elastic came out of the underwear, and I had to spend the entire day holding up my "drawers" with one hand and taking a test for the teacher with the other.   Not fun on any level here. (again, holding secrets and living in fear)  Mother sewed for all of us even until shortly before her death 80 years later.  Her courage through all of this set a lesson of living by one's example or as we now say in recovery attraction rather than promotion is the key to success and learning.

This is enough  of today's story to explain how the spiritual lessons are laid out of us even at birth.  There were abandonment issues which taught me that God was always with me, even as a child.  I would, with his care, be taken care of.  Children do not see it this way, and with some the lessons are extremely hard, but hey!  Who said earth was a picnic?   My mother's action to learn a skill set an example of being able to adapt to change.  Change is all around and constantly rearing its Universal Head.  We either learn to adapt or perish.  There is choice here.  Either sit by the road and perish or join the parade of life and participate.  We are all responsible for our choices.  Choose to learn or not God does not care which one it is.  He does love us all and guide us with better choices once we choose to help our selves.   My mother always dealt with the truth straight up.  Nothing sends me deeper into frustration when I see parents hiding the truth from children.  Children know.  They often don't know how they know, but they know.  How much easier to face the truth when someone you love stands and cares for you.   More stories revealed and how life's lessons gives to us the courage to change and grow.