A natural response is to have compassion for someone like Job but we should be careful to never enable or fall into the trap ourselves such self-pity represents, choking off all hope and manifesting the very worst kind of pride. Job’s story culminates with him demanding God to answer for all his travails. God rebukes Job, his sufferings notwithstanding, for his lack of humility and trust. What God is teaching Job is in essence the very same lesson we must learn in recovery, that God is God and we are not. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unfathomable his ways” (Romans 11:33). This requires a leap of faith in accepting God’s inherent mystery and trusting that He loves us and has a plan for us no matter how confusing, painful, or devastated our lives may be at any given moment. This is certainly difficult for anyone, but especially for the addict who craves certainty, control, validation, security, self-protection, self-perfection, and pleasure.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux offers a way of accepting God’s “unfathomable” and “inscrutable” love for us, her “Little Way” of childlike trust, surrender, and gratitude. Strongly resonating with the program of recovery, a snapshot of her spirituality can be taken from her advice to her novices: “Be like [a] little child. Always keep lifting your foot to climb the ladder of holiness, and do not imagine that you can mount even the first step. All God asks of you is good will. From the top of the ladder He looks lovingly upon you, and soon, touched by your fruitless efforts, He will Himself come down, and, taking you in His Arms, will carry you to His Kingdom never again to leave Him…You wish to scale a mountain and the good God wants to make you descend; He is waiting for you low down in the fertile valley of humility” (Counsels & Reminiscences).

Recovery is all about the surrender and gratitude of “a little child” at peace in a trusting relationship with the Father, our Higher Power. We learn to dwell in the “fertile valley of humility” and come to relish how God in His ineffable love will “come down” to meet us right where we are—in our brokenness, powerlessness, sinfulness, suffering, and fear. It is then, like a Father protectively and reassuringly embracing a child, that we will be lifted up, free of all pride and self-pity and unholy attachments, and abundantly rejoice that God is God and we are not!

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, pray for us!

Reflection Questions

• How did self-pity play a part in the drama of your addicted and disastrous life? Did you abhor mystery and crave certainty, security, control, validation, self-perfection, self-protection, and pleasure?
• How do you relate to and perhaps apply the “Little Way” of Saint Thérèse in your recovery? How has God “come down” to you and lifted you up?

Daily Mass Readings

First Reading: Job 3:1-3, 11-17, 20-23
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 88:2-3, 4-5, 6, 7-8
Gospel: Luke 9:51-56

Reflection by Pete S.