Don’t Waste Your Sorrows

To me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.

Philippians 1:21

This was my older sister Martha’s life verse, and when she died in the spring a couple of years ago, we held her memorial service at the “Show Me” Alcoholics Anonymous Club, which was her request. It wasn’t a steepled church with cushioned pews and light blue carpet. It was a large, simple room with folding chairs and banners with the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions of AA on the tan walls. But this was the right place to honor my sister.

This was where she had poured out her life. These were the people she loved and cared for year after year, even during the painful months of chemo and radiation when she showed up daily to lead the group or to encourage others in recovery. After the minister’s eulogy and music, the microphone was open to anyone who wanted to speak. One by one people shared about the impact of Martha’s life on their own. Women told how they had had no hope because of the addictions that were destroying their lives, yet Martha took them by the hand and led them, accompanied by the “Big Book,” to sobriety and a restored life. Lonely and broken people told how they had found a friend and a sponsor in Martha. A man shared that the AA group had had balogna sandwiches and chips each Thanksgiving and Christmas until my sister arrived. Every holiday from then on, Martha personally cooked and coordinated a beautiful turkey dinner with all the trimmings for whoever gathered.

Martha’s own life hadn’t been easy. After a disastrous marriage and a divorce, she lost her children, and her life spiraled into despair and alcoholism. Fifteen years later, she joined the AA program, and it became the doorway to recovery and to her ministry. She gave God her broken heart and stayed sober one day at a time for more than twenty-five years. In the process, she held out a hand of compassion to hundreds of people. Martha didn’t waste her sorrows; she helped others walk not only through the Twelve Steps to freedom from addiction but into eternal life as well. —CHERI

God of compassion, show me those to whom you would have me reach out. Give me eyes to see and ears to hear the cries of those around me who are crushed in spirit.

Christ can do wonders with a broken heart if given all the pieces.

—ANONYMOUS

From the book