After the terrible day I had yesterday - 6 hours of waiting in San Diego at various coffee shops and driving around the city - I never did get to see Louie.
I guess I can't entirely call it a "terrible" day. It was actually the end of a pretty hard week, and it culminated in my complete deflation and acceptance of God being in charge. Yeah - God, whom I haven't mentioned once yet on this blog besides saying I was listening to Christian radio yesterday, is really the One calling the shots, and things are much better when I let Him.
Last week was my week to work on step 7, when, after having identified which character defects stand in the way of my usefulness to God and my fellows, I ask Him to remove them and replace them with their opposites - character virtues. Really it's the 7 deadly sins and 7 heavenly virtues, by don't think for a second that this God whom I'm turning my life to is some orthodox Bible God - no, He's just a God of my own understanding, and if you were working the steps so you didn't drink and die, you'd get to choose your own concept of God, too, because that's how it works. I guess you could supposedly choose a doorknob, they say. If you do, let me know how that works for you - me, I need something a LOT bigger than me.
So, my sponsor said if I wasn't willing to let a certain defect go (mine in order of frequency are Sloth, Pride, Wrath, Lust, Envy, Greed and Gluttony), that I should embrace it and do all the things I want with it - I mean really follow the defect as far as it can go. I started the week off thinking that I was letting them go; on Sloth day, I prayed, "My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character - especially sloth - if it stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Grant me strength - and diligence - as I go from here to do Your bidding. Amen."
I wanted sloth gone. It's really in the way; sometimes I go months without opening my mail, and my former roommate and my boyfriend can both testify to the fact that I don't do enough laundry, dishes, cooking, or other chores. At work, sometimes I get comfortable and don't work as fast as I should to get everything done. I could even be working harder as a mother; giving up custody to his dad is the easy way out.
So, praying that prayer, I'm really asking for God to change me and make me a better person, if it be His will, and then I take actions towards that end, like opening my mail, cleaning, cooking, calling Louie and planning our visits.
Sloth day was good; then came Pride > Humility, Wrath > Patience, Lust > Love (Chastity ain't happenin', so don't even), Envy > Kindness, Greed > Generosity, and Gluttony > Temperance.
Now, apparently, and I won't go into specific details, the rest of the defects were much harder to let go of. I mean, I would do the prayer, and then throughout my day I would notice myself doing the exact opposite, and every single time, the consequences were terrible. Even yesterday, I was a bitch to Louie's dad in the morning - wrathful instead of patient - so naturally he was a jerk right back (it took my boyfriend to point this out to me - I thank God for that man). And don't even get me started on Gluttony. My best friend Jessica and my sponsor both know where that one took me, and it wasn't pretty. Greed and Envy - that one affected my work relations, as suddenly I was trying to get more hours at work or a raise and making people's lives more difficult than necessary, when really, shit, if I opened my mail on time, or shit, if I PAID the toll on those two toll roads in the first place, I wouldn't have an $80 bill that turned into a $205 bill because I didn't pay it because I didn't open my mail and because I thought I could drive on toll roads in Otay Mesa and get away with it.
After all my pondering this week on the human condition, with evolutionary psychology and all that crap, really the thing that gets me to change my ways is acting like the biggest douchebag possible and dealing with the painful consequences.
That's when I surrender to a Power greater than myself, and I really, finally, do mean it when I say:
My Creator, I am NOW willing that You should have ALL of me, good AND bad. I pray that You NOW remove from me EVERY SINGLE defect of character which STANDS IN THE WAY OF MY USEFULNESS to You AND my fellows. Grant me STRENGTH as I go out from here to do YOUR bidding. Amen!"
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