Light shines on the righteous and joy on the upright in heart.  Psalm 97:11

A friend recently said to me, “God is so pleased with you right now, His face is shining down on you because you quit drinking.” I listened in disbelief and thought to myself, “Really?”

The truth is, “Yes, really.” I can be certain of that because I know truth and the truth is that God loves me and when I am living in obedience, he promises blessings. I did a bible search for the word “desires” and 50 results came up. Among them is Psalm 145: 17-19, “The LORD is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does. The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of tho who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them” (NIV).

I know God has been telling me for a long time that drinking has been a blemish that tarnishes my claim to be a believer, and as you know from blogs past, I had to quit drinking to be obedient.

God is faithful and just, when God wants you to know he’s not pleased with some aspect of your life, he has a way of letting you know.

Fortunately I didn’t need to need a wake up call like a DUI or worse!

I do have a confession (since it’s just us girlfriends). On my celebratory day 61, I had a glass of wine and, to be honest, I did it with full intention because I wanted to test myself. I wanted to see if #1 – I could stop at just one, #2 – that I could control my drinking and possibly go back to being a social drinker if I could prove that I had a “handle on it” and #3 – Because I didn’t think it would be considered relapse if I didn’t drink under stress, duress or weakness.

Here is what this experiment taught me: #1 – I have incredible willpower because despite the strong temptation to order a second drink, I stayed true to myself and only had one #2 – I cannot go back to being a social drinker because the in the sobriety community says, “You take the first drink, the drink takes a second drink and the third drink takes you.” This is a battleground, this saying is true! and #3 – My amazing support system pointed out that what I did is, in fact, relapse, there is no such thing as “testing addiction” (Oops!).

So, here’s to today and celebrating, what I call my “Dover 30 days” for my do over and I’m 30 days sober (again!). Today I live in the confidence that God IS shining down with pleasure upon me for choosing him over alcohol. I am at peace and I know he is pleased with me and out of my heart of obedience, I await the blessings.

Praise be to God!