Te Doy Gloria

People in recovery often speak of reaching their “bottom,” or absolute lowest before they actually begin recovering from anything. I guess when you’re lying there and looking up, and you finally become aware of your own mortality or that you may have lost everything that means anything to you, getting your act together and getting help seems like a pretty good idea.

Now, I’ve never been in recovery, but I recall with absolute clarity the moment I had the awareness I needed to change something about my life or I was going to eventually kill myself.

I think it would have been 2002 or early 2003, when El Tri got eliminated from the World Cup pretty early on. It may even have been the United States that did the eliminating. What happened was that I had some friends over to my apartment to watch the penultimate game, and there was drinking involved. It doesn’t really matter what it was, or how much I drank, but the end result was me lying on my bathroom floor, with several blended beverages splattered in and around my toilet.

I must have laid there several hours, trying to get the world to stop spinning, but it never did. I eventually passed out, and just lay there on the floor in a puddle. My friends–such as they were–eventually left when I did not make another appearance.

I woke up with the worst headache of my life, and the knowledge that I could have choked on my own puke and no one would have even noticed.

And the thought occurred to me that this could be what the rest of my life would be like.

Obviously, I made some drastic changes in my life. My act has mostly been cleaned up for a couple of years now, but I can’t take any of the credit for that.

I’m not sure really why my mind dredged that thought up, but after worship on Saturday night, I couldn’t get one of the songs out of my head–it was called “I Give You Glory.”

What I was thinking today is that no matter how enlightened I may feel, no matter how much I may feel I’ve “arrived” in my walk with Jesus, the truth is that even if I hadn’t arrived, or been edified, or even accepted Jesus for who He is I would have still been loved just as much.

The maker of the universe would have pursued me just as relentlessly in my state of disgrace, laying on my bathroom floor Lord only knows how close to choking on my own chunks as he does when I attend services with my hair neatly combed (OK, yes, I know I don’t have hair, but you get the point) and my NIV bible clutched in my nervous hands.

Why?

I don’t know if I’ll ever get done tripping on that.

What I wanted to say though is that I can’t take any of the credit for any transformation that may have occurred in my life, because without Him it would never have happened. I never would have gotten up off my bathroom floor, or for that matter never would have knelt on that dock (which I am ashamed to say happened nearly three years before the bathroom incident–no, I am not perfect) and started the path I’m finally walking on in earnest.

My life has been filled with amazing things over the past three years, and all the glory belongs to Jesus, without whom I would be but a vapor.

I give you glory.

Go back and listen to that song again, and think about the words. Chew on them. They apply to you.