The Blessings of Sponsorship

As I’ve said before, sponsorship is so helpful for me in recovery.

This is something I want to share and hope that it helps my friend as much as it helped me to come to some of these conclusions for myself:

On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 9:49 AM, <my friend> wrote:
Nate–

This email is just to write my feelings, and set them free.

I’ve been feeling fear. I am afraid of confessing my lapse with someone who will not understand: wife and bishop.
I am not trying to hide it, honestly, I have talked about it at least with three people: you, John, and Steve. I felt good talking and being honest without being judged or chastised.

I will meet with my bishop, but I am afraid he’ll release me; he’ll prevent me from partaking of the sacrament and thus our friends at church will know something is wrong with me. I do want to open up, discuss my case, and all that, but I am afraid of the social consequences–I realize that’s bad and cowardly.

🙁

I will go to a group meeting this Tuesday and introduce myself and tell my story. I hope to find peace as I do that.

I am starting step 4. I am done with all the questions on step 3. I will share my inventory with you later, as well as with my bishop–I want to flush everything, never to get dirty again.

My email:

Only a couple things I wanted to mention tonight:

1. When I started going to the group in Springville, I felt really awkward and out of place. I missed the former group I’d been going to. It took a few weeks, even a month or maybe two, to get in a “groove” and meet new people. Even now, where the group is quite a bit different, I’m tempted to say, “I miss the friends that used to be here,” but I feel strongly those feelings aren’t coming from God. They are ME trying to justify not going, which we both know is not what I need.
2. After reading this email tonight from you, I have felt COMPLETELY the same way, even lately. However, I found this scripture while looking for information on humility:

12 Now it is better that a man should be ^ajudged of God than of man, for the judgments of God are always just, but the judgments of man are not always just. (Mosiah 29:12)

This scripture stuck out to me after reading your email.

I went on to find this scripture in the same chapter:

20 But behold, he did deliver them because they did ^ahumble themselves before him; and because they ^bcried mightily unto him he did deliver them out of bondage; and thus doth the Lord work with his power in all cases among the children of men, extending the arm of ^cmercy towards them that put their ^dtrust in him.

You can read more about what I studied here: Daily Scripture 4

Anyway, I got a few things from those scriptures:

1. worrying about what people think can never help us much, if at all. I’ve found this to be one of my main, core addictions
2. the main way I can “humble myself” truly is to cry unto God continually that he might deliver me out of bondage. I’ve hesitated to do this due to FEAR: fear of the unknown, fear of really giving up all my sins, fear of failure. But it can’t be said more clear for me – if I really believe what the scriptures say, I need to cry mightily for help.

thanks for your emails. I appreciate your honesty and openness. We’re in this battle together and we WILL be victorious if we trust in God and let him help us.

Talk to you soon!

Nate

One thing I’ve realized lately is that sponsorship, both having a sponsor and being a sponsor, is a huge blessing. Not only is it a way to learn more about true empathy, but it also helps me see things about myself that I may not have recognized otherwise, especially because I’m going through the same challenges.

Thanks for the help to my sponsor and thanks for trusting me enough to let me sponsor others too.

Nate