By Thoughts of Recovery
It had rained all night.
Not the gentle kind, but a wild, thrashing sort of rain. The kind that seems to come from somewhere older than weather—a rain that cleans things. Reminds you that you are small, and alive.
By morning, the garden was slick with mud and renewal. The rosemary bush bowed low, water clinging to every needle. I stepped outside in wellies and a worn hoodie, warm coffee in hand, expecting a quiet morning. A reflective one. But that wasn’t the day I got.
“Oi! Over here!”
I spun around.
There he was—Bertie. The hedgehog. My strange little companion from the edge of the ordinary. But this time, he wasn’t waiting calmly by the bush. He was running. And, behind him—yes, actually—a crow. A big one, flapping low and hard, clearly not in the mood for spiritual metaphors.
I didn’t think. I just moved.
Bertie zipped past my boot, and I did what any recovering alcoholic who’s been mentored by a possibly imaginary talking hedgehog might do: I threw my coffee at the bird.
The crow veered off with an angry squawk, and I stood there, mug empty, heart pounding.
Bertie skidded to a stop and looked up at me, breathing hard. “Well,” he said, “that was dramatic.”
“You alright?” I asked, crouching beside him.
He brushed a bit of mud from his spines with dignified irritation. “Fine. Bit rattled. That thing’s been shadowing me all morning. Nothing like a near-death experience to sharpen a metaphor.”
I laughed despite myself. “What metaphor would that be?”
He looked at me, those eyes deep and unreadable. “Control. Letting go. The illusion of safety. You know—Step Three stuff.”
Ah.
Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
“I thought I’d already made that decision,” I said. “I mean—I said the words. I prayed. I let go.”
“Did you?” Bertie asked gently. “Or did you just promise to let go and then keep white-knuckling the steering wheel?”
I didn’t answer straight away.
Because the truth is, I hadn’t let go. Not really. I was still managing everything—my feelings, my fears, my image, my little future plans. I was sober, yes. But I still wanted control. I still didn’t trust the river to carry me.
“Step Three isn’t just a prayer,” Bertie said, climbing onto a dry stone by my side. “It’s a surrender. And real surrender often looks like falling. Or failing. Or flinging your last bit of coffee at a bird in a panic.”
He smirked. I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t like not knowing what’s next,” I admitted. “Turning my will and my life over… that’s big.”
“Yes,” Bertie nodded. “And necessary.”
The sky began to clear then, the first pale rays of sun sliding through the clouds like hesitant hands. The storm had passed.
“Step Three,” he continued, “isn’t about giving up. It’s about giving in. To something wiser. To something deeper than your fear. You don’t lose yourself in the turning—you find the self you kept drowning.”
I sat with that. The rain. The crow. The moment of panic. The reminder.
I didn’t need to understand the whole road. I just needed to say: Here. Take the map. I’m tired of pretending I know where we’re going.
Bertie hopped off the stone and began waddling toward the far edge of the garden. “Come on,” he said.
“Where?” I asked.
He looked back, eyes twinkling. “No idea. But the Way knows. Let’s follow it.”
And so I did.
Message for those in recovery – Step Three:
Turning your will and life over to a Higher Power doesn’t mean abandoning reason. It means loosening the grip. It means trusting that your path is held, even when it disappears into the mist.
You don’t have to be fearless. You just have to decide. One small step. One act of surrender. Again and again.
Let the crow fly off. Let the storm pass. Let the Way guide you.
And when the moment comes, throw the coffee.
You’ll know what I mean.
The Way Knows
It had rained all night.
Not softly, but with the voice of mountains collapsing.
With the memory of oceans before they learned to be calm.
It washed the world like an old priest rinsing bones clean,
not to destroy,
but to reveal.
In the morning,
the rosemary bowed low,
its fragrance more honest than incense.
Mud clung to the soles of my boots,
like a lesson not yet learned.
I held warm coffee like a shield,
but the day had no use for stillness.
A cry broke the air,
not of Spirit,
but of feathers and fear.
There was movement.
A hedgehog,
a friend,
a teacher without credentials.
And behind him,
a crow, all wing and hunger.
I did not think.
I flung the coffee.
The heat flew, the crow veered,
and I was left with an empty mug,
and a heart fuller than before.
“Dramatic,” he said.
Truth wears a smirk, sometimes.
He cleaned the mud from his back,
as if brushing off the weight of the world.
We spoke then,
as seekers do,
who have nearly been unmade.
“I thought I had surrendered,” I confessed,
like a general who still draws maps in secret.
He looked at me,
his eyes like small wells,
dug deep into the quiet earth.
“To speak of surrender,
is not to do it,”
he said.
“To let go,
is not to loosen one finger at a time,
while calling it faith.”
And the rain,
though passed,
still echoed in my bones.
“I don’t like not knowing,” I whispered.
“Then you are ready,” he said.
The sun reached out from behind cloud-curtains.
Timid at first.
Then sure.
Step Three,
is not a step.
It is a fall.
It is a floating.
It is being carried by something,
that knows,
the shape of your soul,
better than you do.
Surrender is not defeat.
It is the exhale,
after a lifetime of holding your breath.
It is the hand releasing the reins,
because the horse,
has always known the Way.
We stood.
The path was not marked.
But it shimmered, somehow,
just ahead.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
The question itself,
was the last weight I had to lay down.
“No idea,” he said.
“But the Way knows.
Let’s follow it.”
And so,
at last,
I did.
