An online Al-Anon friend just sent me a website where you can look up your birthverse. I'd never heard of such a thing. I looked up mine and here it is:

1 John 4:12 NIV
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.


I am so grateful to have this as my verse!

Here is the reading from my Advent Meditation booklet:

Despite Many Losses, We're Never at a Loss

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lost their life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 10:39

We don't like to dwell on our losses, but our whole lives are filled with losses, endless losses. And every time there are losses there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression, and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper. The question is not how to avoid loss and make it not happen, but ow to choose it as a passage, as an exodus to greater life and freedom.

O God, may your redemptive love showered upon us in Jesus lead us to live holy and happy lives despite out losses.

P. S.
Just got notice that Joey has been paroled. Don't know how to feel about that.

P.S.S.
No sooner than I found out he'd been paroled, he called. I didn't recognize his voice at first. Isn't that weird? I have no feelings one way or the other. He has his life and I have mine. Seems almost surreal. Maybe I've made a choice toward something better. Maybe that's why I felt very little about it.