THE GOLDEN KEY

Dear Friends on the Journey,

My name is Mari and I have a loathsome disease that has plagued me for a lifetime. It affects every area of my being and has accounted for the very best and the very worst of me. Most of you who are reading this share this disease with me and I am grateful for a support system with you in it. I'm not at all sure what my life would be like without you. Part of my program is to journal my thoughts and feelings ... and I appreciate your letting me share them with you.

"Beginners often get startling results at the first time of trying, for all that is absolutely essential is to have an open mind, and sufficient faith to try the experiment. Apart from that you may hold any views on religion, or none.

As for the actual method of working, like all fundamental things, it is simplicity itself. All that you have to do is this: STOP THINKING ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY, WHATEVER IT IS, AND THINK ABOUT GOD INSTEAD. This is the complete rule, and if only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will presently disappear. It makes no difference what kind of trouble it is. It may be a big thing or a little thing ... but whatever it is, just stop thinking about it, and think of God instead. That is all you have to do."
. . . . . . . . Emmet Fox ... From the Golden Key

Eight years ago my sponsor gave me a little golden book with the above words. The book was eight pages long and I wasn't ready to hear those words then. In fact I had never heard of Emmet Fox and to make matters even worse, I wasn't that interested in knowing him or who he was. What's more the words didn't make a great deal of sense to me then. I put the book away.

Fast forward several years when I picked up the book again. I was dealing with some unscrupulous people in my life and they were affecting my serenity deeply. I wondered what the Golden Key would say about them and I began to read Emmet Fox ... and take him seriously this time. "In order to "Golden Key" a troublesome person or a difficult situation, think, "Now I am going to "Golden Key" John, or Mary, or that threatened danger."; then proceed to drive all thought of John, or Mary, or the danger right out of your mind, replacing it by the thought of God. Shades of the Big Book? Isn't page 552 about resentments saying the very same thing?

My emotions are in a state of turmoil now. They weren't at their best because of some personal traumas in my life right now but all that paled on Tuesday when the country I love was attacked. Never in my lifetime have I experienced as many different "kinds" of emotions as I have felt this week. As I write this journal it has been almost a week and each day I'm struck by the capability of my psyche to FEEL as many feelings as I am being called upon to feel. I want to love those precious brave people who have given their lives to help others. I want to weep for the innocent who died. I want to hate those bastards who were responsible for changing the skyline of a city I used to live in and that I love. And I want to pull the hair out of the pious ones among us who have all the answers by saying just blow so-and-so out of the water and then everything will be just fine.

"Do not try to think out in advance what the solution of your difficulty will probably turn out to be. Leave the question of ways and means strictly to God. You want to get out of your difficulty ~ that is sufficient. You do your half and God will never fail to do His."

Dear God,
How you do it is up to You ...
Thank you for giving me the key to life ...
Please help me to use it wisely.

Love,
Mari
Marisok@aol.com
The Recovery Group

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