Today Is My Stephanie Nielsen Day

Today is the day I'm going to do some hard things.

It might hurt a little.

It might be a little scary.  

I might not feel strong enough to fight the fight.

But, because I met Stephanie Nielsen, over the weekend,

I'm starting a new tradition.  

Today is my Stephanie Nielsen Day.

She gave me the little push to find more courage within.

Have you read Stephanie Nielsen's blog or book?

You know her as the plane crash survivor and mother of five

who blogs at www.nieniedialogues.com.  

She was so inspiring at the Healthy Woman Conference,

in Evanston, Wyoming, where I was invited to speak in a breakout session (can you believe it?!!!).  

Stephanie was the Keynote speaker, and I met her and her husband (such a wonderful couple!!!)

Stephanie witnessed of miracles, courage, and the importance of choosing your destiny.  And, to top it off, her love story with husband Christian (hmmm how I love that name because that's my hubby's name, too) . . . well, it's the THE BEST ROMANCE YOU'LL FIND!

I am loving her New York Times Bestselling book . . .

 She is truly an Esther of our day!  

She reminded me that
 loving ourselves and the life God has given us is a 

CHOICE we make every day.

So today, I will make the choice to have courage 
and do hard things.  

Because she made the choice to do something incredibly hard things for the good of others--her family--she is now blessing millions.  She made a choice to live and love again, and as she puts it, "I wanted my job back as mother.  Nobody could do it like I could.  I knew my children would suffer without me.  
They needed me."

Surgeries, too many to count.  Unbearable pain and suffering.  A face and body, forever changed by burn scars, making her unrecognizable even to herself.  And yet, she chose to overcome.  She is definitely ONE OF THE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN I HAVE EVER MET.  

I always say, "True beauty is felt more than it is seen." 

I could FEEL her beauty.  It is definitely SOUL DEEP BEAUTY.  

So, today, there are some hard things I have to tackle.

And I pledge to find the courage to triumph over things 

that seem hard, even impossible.

I'm calling it my STEPHANIE NIELSEN day.  

And it's about time.  :))

Twelve Steps to Recovery--A Mighty Miracle that Changes Lives

"I believe that people are good if you give them half a chance and that good is more powerful than evil."  Lois Wilson—birth mother of AL-ANON

Sitting on the window ledge in my kitchen is a geode. It was given to me by my friends at House of Hope, a drug recovery treatment center in downtown Salt Lake. For ten years, I've spent most of my Friday's teaching motivational and life skills classes to women trying to overcome substance abuse.  When someone new shows up in my class, her insecurities, despair, and hopelessness are not hard to miss.  Her countenance is dark.  She is clearly unsure of House of Hope and most certainly is unsure of me.  She questions if she's even going to make it.

Some women come in fighting, full of anger at the "world" for doing "this" to them that, at first, they are hard to reach. But then something miraculous happens.  They spend time in the program and they begin to soften. They begin to, as their counselors call it, "trust the process." In group and in one-on-ones, these women begin to learn tools and coping skills that help them deal with life's stresses.  They slowly uncover the reasons for using drugs and drinking alcohol and then a new acceptance emergers as they admit they need help and surrender to their higher power. I've seen it happen over and over and over. Women who have been to jail. Women who have lost custody of their kids. Women who have experienced domestic violence, done drug deals, prostituted themselves.  Anything and everything that comes with drug life, they've seen and done it; and I've watched them shed their skin and transform into beautiful, confident, radiant souls anxious to tackle the world clean and sober.  It happens. And it happens every day at House of Hope.

So, back to my geode. Lisa presented it to me at the Alumni Tea, a yearly celebration for all those women in recovery. Almost two hundred were in attendeance this year.  Lisa placed the broken rock full of crystals in my hands.  She said, "Jodi, this is how you see the women of House of Hope. When the world sees the rough, rock exterior. You see the crystals inside." And I do.  Thank you, Lisa.  I will treasure that rock and every time I look at it sitting on my kitchen ledge I'll say a quick prayer for a woman still living in her addiction.

"I never thought I was good enough," one woman told me. "I didn't deserve to be happy," another shared. Oh, the tragedies of living at a time when the Adversary wreaks havoc on the self-esteems of young women and women.  As we journey towards becoming better people, let us understand as C.S. Lewis did:

"(The Christian) does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us." — C.S. Lewis

 Beautifully said.

If any of you watched the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV Movie on April 25th, Sunday night, it was fabulous.  The Lois Wilson Story reveals the dedication and devotion one woman had in her quest to help her husband overcome addiction, a courageous journey that gave birth to Al-ANON.  So, in honor of AA founder Bill Wilson...and his angel wife, Lois Wilson, who stood by her husband to witness the making of a new man, today I post the Twelve Steps.  

Thank you, Bill Wilson. Because you chose to turn your addiction into a miracle of change, millions upon millions live free of their addictions. And thank you, Lois, for bringing millions of women support and help through your brainchild, AL-ANON. 

You don't need to be a recovering-anything to recognize we are all in need of reaching out to our higher power and surrendering our will. Let the steps inspire you as they have me.  And to my friends at House of Hope...NEVER give up! 

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

 1. We admitted we were powerless...that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to [others], and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

 Copyright _ A.A. World Services, Inc.