I read this when I didn’t get it right, when my emotions got the best of me. Falling short doesn’t undo where I’m going. Coming back is the practice.

Remember October 31, 2026

This is the morning I saw it. I saw a lifetime of blindness: looking for the approval of men, pride, using anger to be powerful, making everything about me. Fear shaped everything about me. I confessed it: I have been selfish. I have not trusted. I have been afraid. I have been blind. I have not loved.

I also saw that love has had its way regardless of my will. It was in my conscience, which I obeyed. It was in the fear of the Lord, mixed in with my fears without my knowing it. And it was in the love and faith of others, which kept tugging at me.

Then this came:

So excited. Confident. Faithful and hopeful. Focused on Jesus and trusting that I can love, with His strength. Excited for new experience and what lies ahead. Excited to partner with Him, faithfully. Seeing more life change, mountains moved, death brought to life.

It was Isaiah’s pattern: vision, then confession, then cleansing, then commissioning. “Woe is me!” became “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6).

When I forget, I remember these things:

• It was a glimpse, the first touch. Like the blind man in Mark 8, I saw “people like trees, walking.” The second touch is coming.
• I don’t love by trying harder. I love with His strength. We are God’s fellow workers (1 Cor 3:9).
• The feeling will fade. The faith underneath it won’t. “Though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).

When I don’t get it right

I reacted. Fear or anger or ego got there first, and now I see it. Seeing it is not failure. The people Paul warned about never see it. I do.

My emotions aren’t the enemy, and they don’t disqualify me. Job argued with God to His face, raw and confused, and God came to meet him. God said Job spoke rightly of Him (Job 42:7). He can handle what I bring Him.

“He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Ps 103:14). God isn’t surprised by this moment. He isn’t keeping score. I’m fully known, and loved anyway.

One bad hour doesn’t undo the work. The ground I stand on is still there. I stepped off it for a moment, and I can step back now.

Arriving isn’t finishing

Arriving doesn’t mean being done. Paul wrote “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil 3:12). The Big Book says the same: we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

My sobriety shows me how this works. I didn’t arrive at it in 1995 and then stop. I’ve been sober today, every day, for 31 years. That’s real arrival: a place I actually stand, chosen again each morning.

Love abides (1 Cor 13:13). It’s always there, like ground, gravity and air. Arriving means choosing to live there, and I can choose it again right now.

What arriving looks like

“Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). Knowing God shows up as love in ordinary moments:

• The people closest to me don’t experience me as an enemy.
• I hear something hard and say “you bet” before “yeah, but.”
• I’d rather be humbled than right.
• I can not understand and still be at peace.
• I still learn, but from rest instead of anxiety, to know God, not to keep Him at a distance.
• When I fall back into fear, I come back faster.

That last one is the one that matters on a hard day. Arriving isn’t never falling. It’s how quickly I return.

When emotions get the best of me

1. I breathe. I slow down and receive the breath, the same breath that gave life to the dust.
2. I name it. Fear, anger, hurt, shame. I just name it, without judging or dressing it up.
3. I take it to God’s face. Honest, even raw, like Job. Arguing with God is still staying with God.
4. I ask what grieved the Spirit. Bitterness, wrath, defending, the old armor. I don’t punish myself. I just see it.
5. I promptly admit it. That’s the tenth step. If someone was hurt, I make it right, simply and soon.
6. I choose again. Love abides. I step back onto the ground: kind, tenderhearted and forgiving, toward them and toward myself.
7. I tell someone. My prayer group, my gratitude list, a friend. Saying it out loud anchors it.

Verses to hold

• “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lam 3:22–23).
• “For the righteous falls seven times and rises again” (Prov 24:16).
• “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).
• “He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Ps 103:14).
• “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil 3:12).
• “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5).
• “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12).