Wow!! Hashem loves you! You are an inspiration to us all.

May you keep having ever greater Hatzlacha in everything.

Gevura!

Someone just sent me this email. It may be copyrighted but this Forum is anonymous so you don't know who I am anyway. What better place to post it than here.

A Conversation With Hashem...

>Me (in a tizzy) : Hashem, can I ask you something?

HASHEM: Sure.

Me: Promise you won't get mad?
HASHEM: I promise.

Me (frustrated): Why did you let so much stuff happen to me today?
HASHEM: What do you mean?

Me: Well I woke up late,
HASHEM: Yes

Me: My car took forever to start,
HASHEM: Okay....

Me (growling): At lunch, they made my sandwich wrong and I had to wait
HASHEM: Hmmmm..

Me: On the way home, my phone went dead, just as I picked up a call
HASHEM: All right

Me (loudly): And to top it all off, when I got home, I just wanted to soak my feet in my foot massager and relax, but it wouldn't work. Nothing went right today! Why did you do that?

HASHEM: Well let me see..... the death angel was at your bed this morning and I had to send one of the other angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that.
Me (humbled): Oh...

HASHEM: I didn't let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route that might have hit you if you were on the road
Me (ashamed): ............

HASHEM: The first person who made your sandwich today was sick and I didn't want you to catch what they have, I knew you couldn't afford to miss work
Me (embarrassed): Oh.....

HASHEM: Your phone went dead because the person that was calling was going to give a false witness about what you said on that call, I didn't even let you talk to them so you would be covered
Me (softly): I see Hashem

HASHEM: Oh and that foot massager, it had a short that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn't think you wanted to be in the dark.
Me: I'm sorry Hashem.
HASHEM: Don't be sorry, just learn to trust me.........in all things, the good and the bad
Me: I WILL trust you Hashem

HASHEM: And don't doubt that my plan for your day is always better than your plan
Me: I won't Hashem. And let me just tell you Hashem, thank you for everything today.
HASHEM: You're welcome child. It was just another day being your Hashem and I love looking after my children.

Reb Yoel,
thank you so much for sharing that. wow. you are talking the talk AND walking the walk. kol hakavod
keep on shteiging

ur-a-jew, ur-a-jew wrote on 26 Feb 2012 11:28:
.  Toomuch.  Thank you for your love. It matters to me.  All brochos needed. Amain.

TehillimZugger,  TehillimZugger wrote on 26 Feb 2012 12:17:
speaks volumes.  thanks mate.

chaimyakov, Thank you for your brocho.  Amain

Gevura ShebYesod, Yeah, Hashem loves each and every one of us, every bone, every cell in us.  He loves nothing more than to share his love with us, his bochrim.  Thank you, too, for your brocho.  Amein.

BB, my friend, I continue to pray for the individual you mentioned to me.  Please keep me posted.  I don't know where or how you found that vort, but how perfect is it for what I've been trying to express?!  Just amazing.  I printed it and there are just so many people I want to show that to.  Thank you for everything. Much love.

and Zemmy, yeah, literally walking the walk.  Thanks for always staying in touch.  Showers of brochos for you and yours. 

My friends, to quote TehillimZugger, I'm just speechless.

You guys are kvetching about your wives and Pesach.  I ain't got no wife. Nuff said.

After the back surgery, which B"H went well and recovering, I hired someone to come help with the cleaning.  She calls, her cat died, she can't come.  From there the vacuum cleaner broke. And something else went wrong, I can't remember.  So I figure yh is working overtime so I must be becoming a holy guy.  Until I realized that even thinking that was another yh posession.

Short story, I just closed up the whole kitchen.  I'll make do at other people's places until chol hamoed.  The vacuum cleaner started working again, miraculously about half an hour later.

Update on new relationship.  Sheesh!  I've been reading and reading you guys' posts about how hard staying sober, let alone respectful of the wife, in a relationship is.  So could someone please make room on the bench?  I got to enjoy the rush of a new relationship for about two weeks, and then all the fault-finding started up.  I remember this happening in all other relationships.  For the first time I recognize the yh at work.  I let it go.  It comes back.  I let it go.  It comes back.

Now I go back and read your old posts, guys.  Major chizuk.  thank you.  I don't daven that the relationship should go well.  I daven not to completely fall in.  I'm so busy keeping my eye on the negative that I've forgotten to thank Hashem for bringing me real marriage material, like I begged him to do.  I'm such easy prey for the yetzer.  I guess I'll be posting and being more active on GYE now.  Dov, you picked the wrong time for me.  And isn't your being here on GYE just for me?  Failed again!

Tatti, each day you teach me and keep me sober.  You bring me to just the right chizuk I need to read on GYE.  Thank you for handling all the myriad details of today for me.  Thank you for this new relationship with a truly good woman, steeped in Yiddishkeit, who asks me if I've davened Mincha already.  How much chessed is this!

a Ziezen Kasheteh und Freilichin Pesach, Chag Sameach to you bros.  Be glad for you wives.  Hashem wants us flat and humble, yes?

Joel

Joel,
Your posts are beautiful.  It's taking me time to work through all of them, but it's a good and inspiring use of time (MUCH better than an alternative activity on the computer...)
I wish you continued hatzlacha with everything and a refua shleima!
Chag Kasher VeSameach
-IGW
(and, blind beggar, by the way, your "conversation with Hashem" made me cry)

joel i am speechless!

Shmeichel, great to hear from you. Speechless? I think that's a nice thing. Ch'vSh, a larynx problem?

I am working on three things: 1) "Oneg is the highest form of holiness"; 2) how to handle how frightened and angry I get when I have to speak to my ex-wife, even though she is always warm and friendly. What is going on in my head, and what can I do. Or is it one of those things I just have to turn over?; 3) How can I do the things I want to do. Sounds stupid, I know, but I make lists and write in the journal, and some things just don't change.

At this point, I am so flummoxed that I just think about those things and mostly just do nothing and ask Hashem for help. It's like I lose my keys and I've stopped trying to make systems so I don't lose my keys. Yesterday I left the keys in the front door of the shul. I handed in my key. It has a tag that says the name of the shul on it. If that got in the wrong hands it could be disaster. But somebody always calls and tells me they found my keys. Or they show up. Or, like the story I told early on in my thread, how my keys went missing for days, and then I went to talk with the postman and he opened a mailbox to put mail in it and my keys fell out.

Maybe the answers will come. Maybe there's a maloch whose only job is to answer my questions and give me the experiences I need to have so I improve, who tells me what to say and what not to say, who sends me to GYE, who who who. Whatever, I know we're supposed to work at this. But I'm just too tired. Filters, look at the license plate of the car in front, go leyn instead of messing around with the computer. it helps. I still get triggered every day. But Bz'H it doesn't go any where for this last little while.

So now is the time to watch out. It starts with little tiny eensy weensy little "suggestions". "Woah!!! Did you get a load of THAT! You can't help yourself, chap just a quick peek." That's how it starts by me. I'm such an easy lay. The yh just has his way with me. I gotta just keep it very very simple. One little day at a time. Tatti, Tatti, just for today.

blind beggar i really liked the conversation with hashem you posted thanx and keep up the good work!

BB, our talk helped. Got Garden of Emunah. Thanks for that gift.

So my daughter tells me I've been depressed ever since starting the narcotics after the surgery. After a little denial, I got the point and had to admit I'd been less than wonderful to be around.

So I called the psychiatrist right away and we made a plan for me to get off the drugs, even though I might have to deal with some pain in between the longer spaced doses. That was Wednesday. So I'm at the Rav's for Shabbos, and who's the orach? A frum doctor from Harvard who specializes in physical medicine and pain management. And he spends about an hour with me Shabbos by day setting out a program for me to bring down the pain and have an easier time of it backing off the drugs.

I am now down to two doses a day from taking doses every four hours, and almost no pain.

I'm not sure if I'm not depressed yet, but I'm getting off the narcotics which can only be a good thing. Especially for a recovering drug addict.

I don't need to belabor the obvious. Hashem sends a doctor, an industrial strength doctor from Harvard, no less, in exactly the specialty that I need. What a G-d! Daily, I forget. For those of you who haven't heard me say it before, one of the most important words in recovery is, "Remember". That from an old grizzly sponsor who's answer for almost any suffering I brought to him was, "Sounds like self will run riot to me." I forget. And instead of punishing me for forgetting His Presence with every breath, what does He do? He sends me another reminder. "Here's a good frum world-class doctor in Pain Management for you, Joel".

Thank you Hashem. Eyn Maspeekim. I am so little and You are so big, and You love me, after all I've done to spit in your face. Still you love me. You show me Yourself in my suffering, so that I can bear it. You bless me with a ladyfriend, frum, loving, modest. I know I don't deserve any of this, not the parnassah, not my children who now not only all talk to me, but after many years of not talking to each other, have again started talking to each other like it was yesterday. Not my health back, and mostly, not You. I deserve nothing, so that's how I know it comes from You as Your gift. I don't know why. I'm just so grateful You let me know You again.

So, on to the lady friend. Here's the deal: I'm 65. Not so bad. She's 65. Big problem. You see, for years I've sat in front of the screen, and I am used to being ooh-ed and ah-ed over by all the young women of the internet who are there just for me, their perfection all just for me. Wow! What a man! Now, I'm probably, Bz"H, going to marry a wrinkly old lady. Me! Imagine! The youngest, most handsome, smart, wise and humble man on the planet. I must be crazy to be even thinking about settling for her.

Heeeeellpp, guys. BB turned me on to Garden of Emunah, which is helping a lot. But I could use some gritty chizuk from my bros.

Hi Joel,

All I can say is WOW!

And ;D

And Good Shabbos!

I'll leave the long speeches to the guys who know how

Gevura!

Help? Here it is:

Understood, about the screengoddesses. I (and everyone who does the 2nd step the way i try to do it) know that I truly tend to worship them and their sweet perfection in behavior, shape, etc... I (and...ditto) know that Pavlov and B. F. Skinner are correct: we are always trained by something and viscerally mesugal for a pattern, as a result. Powerless, really. We have emunah peshutah - as powerful as that of any heiligeh bubby in the shtetl - but in the wrong stuff. In powers we make greater than ourselves, that keep us in insanity, rather than restoring us to sanity.

OK. So? You know all this, I guess.

So...marry one of them instead, I say. Aside from the excitement of the, umm, activities...what else will there be? And these women we really worship, they are usually sick in the head - or selfish pigs. Probably mostly a little of both, mostly the latter. I know some of them. OK, so, I see I will not get one of those, either - it would be a living nightmare. Empty and lonely, hopeless and useless for me. And you are even more spiritual than I am, so it'd be really unsatisfying for you, brother Daat (gevalt, I used your fake-o bake-o GYE name for I forgot your real name - you posted it, was it Joel? Yoel? David? See - we are both getting old!!)

- Dov

Good shabbos Joel

keep on rocking and rolling
i am hanging on to your truck

It's been a MONTH since I posted??? I'm clean still. tell me there's no G-d. The summer avodah begins.

Life has been about pain management, a new relationship (we navigated our first "bump" yesterday with gentleness, respect and dignity. And nobody woosed out. I've never had such a conversation with a "significant other".), and a generally amped up Yiuddishkeit, though davening times are still dreadful.

Don't think you're out of sight out of mind. For each of you I said I'd say a rephua shlema for, or for a loved one, I continue to do so. And when I bench Shabbos licht I have you all in mind and many of you individually, and you probably know who you are.

Last week I was mowing the lawn and felt a pressure in my chest. It went away. Next day same thing. Went to the hospital. 2/3 of the heart wasn't getting blood. Immediate stent put in and left the next day. The nurse said, "consider this the luckiest day of your life". I thought to myself, "You should only know about 'luck'"

Also they found a "nodule" in the lung area. More will be revealed as I know more. your Rephua Shlemas will help.

Tatteh, I come here to this holy public forum to shout your praises, to say out loud, to pay my debt before the tzibur what love you have for me, this dust that you've, for some unfathomable reason, taken under your wing. To shout to the chevra that this whole website isn't just about getting clean. It's about getting clean so we can just be stupefied sometimes at what Your love really is, and how little I'm able to be like you. To be able to say, out loud, that getting clean has brought me to be able to say I want to make You happy, I want to do something, beyond myself, for Something and someone else. How does someone so narcissistically obsessed with himself, his suffering, his tayvahs, his this, his that, come to be able to actually WANT to do something for someone else? If only I had the words, maybe somebody would think and turn away from the shmutz for just one time. It's not just about getting clean. Clean for WHAT??? So we get a medal for being clean for a long time? Bragging rights? Really?

I'm sorry I've been so selfish and not posted around a lot more. I'm still pretty selfish. I'm still, at the end of the day, an addict in progress.