When I first came to AlAnon I kind of struggled with where to put Jesus in Alanon. If all religions are tolerated, then Jesus should be tolerated along with all the others IMHO. All throughout the small blue book there are Scriptures so it isn't anti-Christian (or anti-God). But, as you & I know Jesus and God are One and we can't separate the trinity. We even say The Lord's Prayer at one of our meetings. That is a quote from Jesus. A lesson he gave to his disciples teaching them how to pray. There serenity prayer is not in the bible. 

I found a balance that works for me & doesn't make me feel I am denying God in any way. I came to the program and agreed to use it to help me & will follow the rules as closely as I can; but won't deliberately go against them. If I need to get deeper w/ Jesus I can do that outside of AlAnon. I haven't denied God (Jesus) but just am aware of "over talking" our Christian faith. We are to follow AlAnon principles in meetings; and if I stick to that it is not hard to do. In the meetings I attend there are all levels and forms of faith, and it is respected as far I as I can see. 

As for the breakdown, sometimes these things just happen. I have had a very tough few weeks. Some was the AH trying to get things started, and a few other things were just things that came up that had to be death with and required money. But, over the past few weeks I have had a few times I just started bawling my eyeballs out. Today, I ended up at a local park and sat at the local park on a bench watching the geese, as I cried it out. The other night I was listening to a new song I just downloaded and it really was an awesome praise song. It was very emotional for me (We Believe by Newsboys - If you haven't heard it, download it). I just laid in bed and cried and cried. Then I slept like a baby. Last week in church I bawled thorugh the entire service. It's been an emotional week. 

I am glad we can cry when we need to. 

Don't overthink it; but don't ignore something God may be speaking to you about. 

 

There was a reading about this lately in the hope for today. It was saying that if not gojng to a meeting is part of taking care on yourself then its more importamt to do what you feel you need to do. Its good you recognised how you felt andhad the guts to do what you needed to do.i like pps suggestions about talking it over with your sponsor.x

I understand why you walked out. There have been a few times when I really wanted to leave a meeting. Al anon meetings can sometimes be depressing for me. I went to a few AA meetings with my AH and a friend and they are so lively!! Sometimes I am envious of the passionate AA meetings I have been to. I wish al anon groups could be more light hearted. I have found one that has a great secretary who is funny and very wise.
In my opinion your sponsor should respect your religion. Maybe she was just trying to bring you back to the al anon statement that we follow no particular form of religion. God is more "generic" like the word "higher power" than the name Jesus. Just my thoughts.
I think you had to do what was good for you at the time, so you left. It's ok.

 

 

Aloha Andromeda thanks for the honesty and trust...sharing and accepting feedback.  I can only do that from my experiences and not so much from my head.  My thinker is often times not right on and so experiences work best...what I have actually gone thru.  One of the things I have gone thru is the definition of alcoholism which says it affects the mind, body, spirit and emotions and what I related to in your experience is fear and hurt...emotions.  Fear from my inventory on my greatest emotional character defect was number one and I chase after every bit of information I can about it.  I hang with the explanation of it being  False Evidence (wrong thinking/perceptions) Appearing Real...my head is telling me and my ego what is going on and what is real when it isn't.  Then I'm reacting rather than responding...responding comes about for me when I slow down and think openly and slowly about what the truth really is and my part in it.  I check  my systems out honestly...I gotta know because its my part in it that I need to take care of.  Not knowing can guarantee that I will make a hurtful situation more hurtful even when I'm thinking I'm justified.    Hurt is about my ego being bruised at sometime and sometime its a repeat of something that happened before that I haven't come to settle with.  Hurtful is about realistic or irrational expectations, I want to love and be loved and when my emotions and mind tell me that I am not or will not realize that; I feel hurt.  That got less and less when I learned to love and accept myself unconditionally...it wasn't necessary then for others to do that job real or imagined.  Those lessons were awesome and not perfect because "stuff happens" and expectations happens at time also...this is about progress...not perfection and its okay to not be perfect and always on top of things...relaxing my guard means letting go of stress many times.  I've walked out of a meeting or too and not after I came to understand "don't leave before the miracle happens" because I have come to accept that is a "God" thing a Higher Power thing and for me an Akua thing...Akua being my Higher Power and not the God of my original understanding given to me at birth and reinforced for years thru the religious culture of my family which are alcoholic generations before the religious beliefs.  Alcoholism predates the life of the Christ by thousands of years.  I was altered genetically long before I was baptized and knew it at the age of 9. 

I live my life thru the filter of this program and the Serenity and other program prayers and that filter contains my beliefs and perceptions which have grown with and thru Al-Anon and AA.  My sponsor is human...just like me and at times I have gotten to sponsor my sponsor.  It's okay to have the solutions when your sponsor doesn't.  Getting rid of the fear...the opposite of which is love was key...Not liking is optional...not loving is not.  "Love always" is a characteristic of the serene, sane and sober person.   That is what I strive for.

Thank you and the others for the ESH.   (((((hugs)))))

About walking out on the meeting, maybe something in you just knew you couldn't handle her that evening, I trust my gut, my sub-conscious, it does things sometimes that are way out of ordinary for me but in the end I usually figure out why and agree. Handling someone is possible when all systems within are a go, but boy if I am "off" I will cross the street to avoid having to handle someone because I am just not in the mood to handle them and may wind up hurting myself in hurting them so best not to engage at all.

About religious talk, I have a friend who's every answer is his religion and church and I steer out of those conversations because, though I love him dearly (big teddybear kinda guy), he's got a pretty big set of blinders on. My spiritual beliefs, (ha, and probably the fact that I have some pretty deep faith based ones) would astound this guy but he never inquires and I don't offer to share because he would no doubt not understand why I am not jumping at the chance to join his church if I feel "that" way. Despite my strong beliefs, I stay away from most religious talk unless the signs are there that opinions can be expressed safely and respected. I know some people who speak the words but don't live them and when they utter phrases like "Praise the Lord" my skin crawls. There are a lot of people in my life that I love being around, religious and not, and I modify my words and behavior to suit the surroundings. I am careful never to enter into the religion realm with certain people because they throw what they "know" at me beating me down to show how superior their knowledge is to mine. Sadly, most people can't handle religious talk, non-religious people think you are trying to convert them because a lot of focus of organized religion is to convert more people to their religion.