Sponsorship is a key avenue to acquiring gratitude.

I have a new sponsee.  She is a lovely young Native American woman who at the age of 30, is the mother of five.  Her husband gently asked if I’d be her temporary sponsor at a meeting we both attended and I happily called her that day. Since then I have been picking her up weekly and taking her to meetings.  Life isn’t all that easy for her and her husband.  They are both recovering from heroin addiction and are on a methadone program.  The requirements are stringent but they are meeting them.  Getting their children back is one of the driving forces.  Being a guide, a mentor of sorts, blesses me as much as it helps Jessica.  She is appreciative beyond measure and that makes whatever time I make available well worth it.

That’s the kind of thing we learn in these recovery rooms.  We learn how to be less self-centered.  We learn how to accept, with open arms, the people who come forward needing our help.  And the time we spend giving back to some one else what we have received in an earlier day from our sponsors, keeps the cycle of grace expanding forever.

Being in the state of grace is the gift that awaits each one of us when we share the blessing we have received as the result of changing how we live our lives.  Being able to share some of my experiences, my strength and especially my hope for a life that continues to be better with Jessica, allows me to appreciate even more what I have.  Sharing our joys doubles them. Sharing our sorrows diminishes them.

It’s easier to recognize grace than it is to define it, but I know that when I am offering love and acceptance to someone on my path, any one on my path, the warmth of God’s love washes over me.  I can only assume that’s grace.  It’s a gift that every one deserves, every one can receive, and each of us is promised if we simply offer unconditional love and acceptance to others.

Make the decision today to offer this gift to someone on your path to be shown what I speak of.  There is no time like the present to change our own life along with helping a sponsee change hers.

Life is so much more joyful when we include others in it in a special way. Being a sponsor to someone in recovery or perhaps a mentor to some one on our path in the work place, forges the connection that serves as the closest explanation we will ever get of grace.  Make today special for some one else and it will become truly special to you too.