"Thou Calledst in Trouble, and I Delivered Thee"

Forgive me for waxing personal, but today is a major gratitude day for me. Twenty-five years ago today I took my last drink of alcohol, and today marks 25 years of continuous sobriety from alcohol and drugs for me. Who would ever have thought that an old drunk like me could stay sober for a quarter of a century? Chalk up this one to the grace of God!

Twenty-five years ago tonight, on July 31, 1989, I attended my third consecutive Monday Night Beginners Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had walked by that building two summers earlier on a warm summer morning on my way to work, avoiding my fourth DUI and subsequent jail visit. Three words in AA's Step One would haunt me for two years. The words were "powerless over alcohol." On that summer day I still had some willpower--I thought. But two more years of "research" proved otherwise.

My dear sponsor, Jerry, said, "Brad, it's a simple program. You go to meetings every day for 90 days and don't drink between meetings. Then, if you don't like what you have, we'll refund your misery." I could do half of it. I could get to at least one meeting every day. But on July 31, 1989 I went home from that meeting feeling thoroughly defeated and completely embarrassed. The chairperson said she could give me a 30-day chip in two more weeks, thinking I was staying sober, but I didn't even have a single day.

I went home and closed the bedroom door. It had been seven long years since my last day of white-knuckle sobriety--a forced sobriety while traveling with family to Disneyland, the most miserable spot on the planet. (Inside joke here!). I got revenge in 2006 with a case of food poisoning, and barfed on Mickey Mouse. True story! But July 31st wasn't a pleasant scene. I had been studying the Twelve Steps for two weeks and was hung up on Step Three, "Made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, as we understood Him." I wanted to protest. You mean I have to give up my whole life and my own will just to get sober?

The enemy was encamped in my room, whispering to a despaired soul. His rhetoric was, "You can't pray to God after all the terrible things you've done. It's too late for you. No one can help you now." After an hour of this garbage, I fell to my knees in despair. I uttered perhaps my finest prayer ever: "Help! I just can't do this." Immediately I felt a peace beyond my comprehension from a loving Father, who, like the father of the Prodigal Son, "when he was yet a great way off, . . . had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him" (Luke 15:20). His grace got me through the next eleven sleepless nights with agonizing compulsion. But somehow He kept me sober in spite of myself.

Let's fast-forward now to a sweetheart, a marriage, two wonderful teenage kids, several trips to the bishop's office, a forgiving family, many wonderful trips to the temple, and a few verses of scripture spurred by my bishop fifteen years ago this month, and it's been an incredible journey!

And yet, as I meditated this morning on the bus about the past 25 years, I guess it's human nature to never be satisfied. I feel like such a baby in this program. Oh, if only I could have progressed faster! Twenty-five years should be enough to become some sort of spiritual giant. And I have so far to go. Will I ever make it?

And while I somberly sat there, I opened my scriptures to where I had left off yesterday--in Psalm 81. I read, "Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder . . . There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god. I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt" (Psalm 81:7-10).

And then the tender mercies of the Lord were opened to my eyes. I witnessed a beautiful sunrise. Someone on the bus spoke to me and related true tales of a spouse who had "thrown her away" for something better. I was approached by a cleaning lady, who wished me a wonderful day. I saw a friend leaving work at the hospital, expressing gratitude for rewarding employment. I had a dear friend phone me at work because he knew it was my AA birthday. And I stepped outside and saw slender clouds crawling down the mountainside, like fingers clasping the crown of the head.

I had asked myself, "Why did He rescue me? And why take special notice of an ordinary drunk like me?" Then I realized His loving presence is all around. He is in the details of my life and yours too. I am precious in His sight, and so are you.

If we can learn anything at all from the Book of Mormon, it should be known to be a great mercy sandwich. Its first chapter proclaims, "But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance" (1 Nephi 1:20). And the last chapter reads, "Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts" (Moroni 10:3).

Oh, the tender mercies of the Lord!