The chapter on the fourth step in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions describes our dysfunctional relations well: "But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most. We have been especially stupid and stubborn about them. The primary fact that we failed to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being."
I went through my entire life unable to interact with others on an intimate level. I was incapable of allowing others to experience me as I truly was and I was unwilling to allow others to share with me their own true self. I would present to the world what I thought the world needed to see about me so I could feel good and safe about myself. In the past, the relationships I did have were of the type which, when I was done taking that which I wanted from them and them from me, the relationship was over. I was incapable of FORMING AND SUSTAINING RELATIONSHIPS in an honest and caring way with other human beings.
The greatest gift I have received from developing a personal relationship with God is the ability to interact with other human beings at an honest and true level - therefore forming and sustaining relationships that are caring and loving, loyal and trust-giving. My landing on such soil from which these relations sprout was done simply, but not easily, by going through the twelve steps of the program of AA. This can occur for any who return to the being God created and meant for them to be. When this does occur, human potential is maximized and becoming a recovered, unbroken being is completely possible.
The question sounds simplistic and idiomatic. But how could I have had true and lasting relationships with others when I had no relationship with myself? My only form and forum for relationships was the use of my fear-based will to twist your will in whatever way satisfied the insatiable me. When I asked a sponsor how I would know if the specific relationship was so defective that it belonged on my Eighth Step List, his answer was brief: "were YOU a part of the relationship?" Boom!
ReplyDeleteIt was only by integrating all Twelve Steps into my life in such a way that they became my life that I found The Power Within me who could heal me and render me whole. As a whole person, I am not only capable of forming and sustaining relationships, I am a living channel for loving myself, loving others and, most importantly, then giving it all away.
Michael when we become the being that God created us to be by surrendering our nature and living in the will of God we become the vessel of His love that then is shared with others...Thank you...Armand
ReplyDeleteI believe that I am a beloved child of God.
ReplyDeleteGod has helped me find a deeper relationship with him and within myself. I can heal from the brokenness and God reconnects me.
I can be a loving mother, wife, daughter and friend. I learn to live more presently with others, appreciate the people in my life who have helped me grow and change.
I can be there for others and others are there for me. I try to live with an open heart and remain connected with others near and far.
I am learning to live more peacefully within myself, with others and with God.
Jessica God either is or God isn't, what was Our choice to be. Sounds like you made yours...Thank you...Armand
DeleteI believe that I am a beloved child of God.
ReplyDeleteGod has helped me find a deeper relationship with him and within myself. I can heal from the brokenness and God reconnects me.
I can be a loving mother, wife, daughter and friend. I learn to live more presently with others, appreciate the people in my life who have helped me grow and change.
I can be there for others and others are there for me. I try to live with an open heart and remain connected with others near and far.
I am learning to live more peacefully within myself, with others and with God.
From my earliest youth I was taught the Way, the Truth and the Light... but I chose a “Pinocchio" path littered with bleached bones and broken glass. Everyone and everything I encountered was another opportunity to satisfy the growing insatiable attitudes and appetites of a wounded scavenger whose only true skill was deception. Lying was my life. My life was my prison. Drinking my futile attempt to escape from the carnage left in my wake and to justify creating another.
ReplyDeleteBut, somebody was praying for me. I know my mother was. Perhaps it was other family member, perhaps neighbors. Perhaps it was one of the many people I had harmed in my self-centered black hole of a life. But somebody was inspired by God to place me on their prayer list and having been miraculously delivered from a self imposed prison of misdirected survival skills that found me at the precipice of an ignominious death, I was delivered. In the rooms of AA it was confirmed through the 12 Steps that I had to do what I had avoided all my life... Surrender my life to God.
It has not always been without struggle. Life is not a consistent encounter with rainbows and unicorns. I still must contend with the ever-present seductions of the world. And though now graciously subdued, the ever present calling of the appetites of my flesh. But throughout every obtuse encounter His grace abounds. This new life is no longer dependent totally upon me. The internal struggle is no longer encountered alone and the mystery for managing the transition has now been laid before me with a simple clarity that only comes through an ever expanding relationship with the only True Source of Power, Light and Love.
That divine gift of willingness, that "Grain of a mustard seed of faith," spoken of in Matthew 19-20; is no longer light years away from understanding. My willingness now grows by every encounter with life's former problems and perplexities into a deep and abiding faith. I now experience Gods people as true brothers and sisters and desired gifts from above, as every encounter reveals the only true touchstones of faith, hope, love and compassion growing an unyielding devotion to the Author and Finisher of this new journey and the unspeakable richness of the mind and plan of God.
In Steps 4 and 5 The Author provided the Holy Spirit who now resides within me. He teaches that truth without love is pride and that love without truth is mere sentimentality. That the purpose of life and all of His creation is an eternal relationship by, with and through Him that now allows me to truly love my neighbor as myself, and more! As John 13:34-35 tells us, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” When all around seems vexed and troubled. When external confusion's and conflict's abound. He compels the surrender of every encounter within life's lesson plan and gently reminds it has been lovingly written into eternity, just for me, that I may continue to discover Him as He truly is and you my brothers and sisters as you are truly are..
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic
A Gratefully Recovering Alcoholic love when you wrote "a pinocchio path littered with bleached bones and broken glasd... Thank you...Armand
ReplyDelete