GRACE

Definition of Grace:
Unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification

Synonyms for Grace:
Benevolence, boon, courtesy, favor, indulgence, kindness, mercy, service, turn, etc.

These notes are from recovery in AA and/or related 12 step programs. Readers are encouraged to click external links for more detail. We hope you find them helpful.

Love in fellowship.

Grace is love and comes through no effort of our own. Not until we felt defeated would we open ourselves to this gift of help from our Higher Power.

Grace comes in many forms. It is in the hope we feel in the morning after a night of rest, and it’s in the good feeling we get attending our meetings. Before this program, most of us were trying so hard to control our lives we couldn’t notice any gifts that came from outside our efforts. –Touchstones | More…

Why should you unduly worry or fret over the problems that arise today? Your attitude toward them can be changed by putting yourself and your problems in God’s hands and trusting Him to see that everything will turn out all right, provided you are trying to do the right thing.

Your changed mental attitude toward your problems relieves you of their burden and you can face them without fear. –24Hours | More…

Each individual has the ability to do good works through the power of God’s spirit.
This is the wonder of the world, the miracle of the earth, that God’s power goes out to bless the human race through the agency of so many people who are actuated by His grace.

We need not be held back by doubt, despondency and fear. –24Hours | More…

Each and every one of us have what we have only by the Grace of God. Even if we acquired all our possessions through our own industry and intelligence, Still you must admit that you gave yourself none of these attributes that made your acquisition possible.

These were not necessarily inherited traits, for geniuses have had morons for children. You have what you have because God (HP) so willed it, so use them as God would will it.  –Eye-opener | More…

When God finds two or three people in union, who only want His will to be done, who want only to serve Him. He has a plan that can be revealed to them.

The grace of God can come to people who are together in one place with one accord. A union like this is miracle-working. –24Hours | More…

We have been endowed with all the things we need to be successful in recovery and in life. All we have to do is step up and claim them. –One Day At A Time 23/04 | More…

I will try to make the world better and happier by my presence in it. I will be gentle with all people. I will try to see other people’s difficulty and help them to correct it. –24Hours | More…

Grace is the love and generosity of God
The grace of God is an assurance against all evil. –24Hours | More…

Amazing Grace
The power of gratitude never wanes.
Grace wasn’t following me; grace had found me.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun.

-Judy Collins sings Amazing Grace | Listen here
–Journey To The Heart/Melody Beattie | More…

I can remember … how the agonies of alcoholism, the pain of rebellion and thwarted pride, have often led me to God’s grace, and so to a new freedom. –AA Co-Founder, Bill W., March 1962  “What Is Acceptance?,” The Language of the Heart/Grapevine

I need grace to recover happily, to be comfortable in my sobriety, and to be able to help others do the same. –Ottawa, Ontario, April 1992/”Grace”/Grapevine

I’m still mystified by how I got sober, and the only answer that makes sense is that I stopped drinking through the grace of God. I was thinking about the difference between those of us who get sober and those who are still drinking, and I believe the difference is that we have accepted the grace that was offered. Every day, my Higher Power gives me the grace to be sober, and every day I make the choice not to drink, to accept the grace. –Grapevine: La Crescenta, California, February 1993

We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will become too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. –John Newton, author of, “AMAZING GRACE

Through the grace of a Higher Power and the Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous, our ideas of fun have changed radically. Today when we are up to see the sun rise, it’s usually because we went to bed early the night before, not because we left a club at six in the morning, eyes bleary from a night of drug use. And if that’s all we have received from Narcotics Anonymous, that would be enough. –Just For Today | More…