I am sober but now what??

My name is Lindsay and I am in long term recovery from a heroin addiction. I thought get getting sober was the hard part. I mean how could anything be more difficult that withdrawing from heroin on the floor of a jail cell right with haunting memories flooding your head. I couldn't walk or talk and felt like I had awoke from a terrible nightmare, however it was my life and I had made the choices that led me to the point of my life where I was being told when I could eat, sleep and use the restroom. How could this be? Oh, the fear and the anger and the absolute desperation and hatred I felt toward myself. Those agonizing hours and days and even the months seemed to go by so slow. I felt like I was on a tightrope creeping along and with one tiny error everything would go crashing and utter destruction and doom lay just beyond the horizon. How could anything more difficult? Well, what people seem to fail to talk about when we are first getting sober is that even though recovery is amazing (which it totally is and wonderful and great and beyond anything I could have literally imagined) it is life and life is full of ups and downs. I didn't use drugs and lose myself and everything of value and meaning in my life overnight and I certainly haven't gotten it back overnight either. Recovery has been a process, a process of healing and healing means discomfort. My daughter is quite the tomboy and always seems to have cuts and scrapes and bruises. When she gets a really nasty cut with particles of the road and dirt stuck in her tiny leg, although I know it will hurt and I absolutely hate hurting her, cleaning the wound is an absolute must. I would never put a bandaid over a wound without properly cleaning it and this is true for my life and journey in recovery. I always want the easier softer way and a quick fix and I constantly try to take my will back and tell Heavenly Father that Im ok and I just want the bandaid, but Heavenly Father knows better and knows that my wounds need washing and mending and cleaning. I sometimes hear people give feedback and encouragement to others when they are in a dark place and struggling and tell them that things will get better. I have a hard time with this because although they will get better and I have no doubt about that, many times things will get worse before they better. I feel like I have had more trials in my sobriety than I ever had in my addiction, however the blessings attached to enduring these trials are also so much more great. The life I have is by far better than anything I could have imagined. What I have learned is that the Lord wants to bless us with our righteous desires and according to our faith. You know, the righteous desires that no one else knows about. The desires and dreams that we have a hard time verbalizing because maybe we don't feel worthy or capable of having these things become a reality in our lives. These precious desires are the very make up and fabric of our spiritual selves. The Lord knows us and loves us so much that he wants us to be happy and cultivate these desires into attributes. Getting sober was hard but staying sober is much harder but with hard things come the fruits of amazing blessings. Today, I have a testimony that when all things seem to be falling apart that eventually the big picture will show on the screen and I will have an understand and love for everything in my life. It is truly darkest before the dawn and as I never give up or give in and take one step at a time, the Lord will strengthen and guide me and make me so much more than I am without him. He is our constant companion and this is His work for his purposes. I know that when everything seems dark and hopeless, that he must be working on something really freaking terrific today. He is a God of miracles just as he always has been and He stands before us with his had outstretched always.