The Twelve Steps and Lent: Step 10
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Once is just not enough. Just as sure as you will begin to reap the benefits of freedom that come along with succeeding in these steps, a snag will pop up.
Our long-standing coping mechanisms or our additions or our character flaws came not as the mischevious neighbor sowing weeds among the good seeds... over night... in a flash. Nope. Some of these flaws are more like bulbs, hidden deep below pop up at certain times under certain conditions.
Annoying still is having a beaufiful, fertilized, crab grass free lawn. You have seeded and weed whacked and watered and are sitting on your front stoop out on the wonderful work that you and God have put time, sweat and tears into with some satisfaction. You may be so enchanted with your newly restored lawn that you have not looked to the lawns on either side of your property speckled in bright yellow dandelions.
Step 10 asks us to keep an eye on the prize and an eye of the clean slate you have worked on. If you are surrounded by those things which would damage your sobriety (of whatever variety), be vigilant. Make sure you put down some weed-be-gone and have your dandelion lance at the ready because - as sure as the wind blows, the dandelion seeds will float through the air and end up on your 'perfect' lawn. Take inventory of that lawn and take care us business - stay on top of it!
Or maybe - just maybe the weedwhacker is not your own...... you borrowed it from your cousin 3 years ago and never brought it back! Take a deep breath, clean up the whacker and give it back to your cousin with an apology and a thank you - and then get one of your own to stay of top of the nuisance weed that can spread like willdfire without attention.
After the initial inventory, keep your heart and mind keen to maintain and sustain your clean conscience with an open lifeline of prayer and gratitude with your Higher Power. And with Spring coming on..... see what your lawn and garden will grow!
Once is just not enough. Just as sure as you will begin to reap the benefits of freedom that come along with succeeding in these steps, a snag will pop up.
Our long-standing coping mechanisms or our additions or our character flaws came not as the mischevious neighbor sowing weeds among the good seeds... over night... in a flash. Nope. Some of these flaws are more like bulbs, hidden deep below pop up at certain times under certain conditions.
Annoying still is having a beaufiful, fertilized, crab grass free lawn. You have seeded and weed whacked and watered and are sitting on your front stoop out on the wonderful work that you and God have put time, sweat and tears into with some satisfaction. You may be so enchanted with your newly restored lawn that you have not looked to the lawns on either side of your property speckled in bright yellow dandelions.
Step 10 asks us to keep an eye on the prize and an eye of the clean slate you have worked on. If you are surrounded by those things which would damage your sobriety (of whatever variety), be vigilant. Make sure you put down some weed-be-gone and have your dandelion lance at the ready because - as sure as the wind blows, the dandelion seeds will float through the air and end up on your 'perfect' lawn. Take inventory of that lawn and take care us business - stay on top of it!
Or maybe - just maybe the weedwhacker is not your own...... you borrowed it from your cousin 3 years ago and never brought it back! Take a deep breath, clean up the whacker and give it back to your cousin with an apology and a thank you - and then get one of your own to stay of top of the nuisance weed that can spread like willdfire without attention.
After the initial inventory, keep your heart and mind keen to maintain and sustain your clean conscience with an open lifeline of prayer and gratitude with your Higher Power. And with Spring coming on..... see what your lawn and garden will grow!
posted by Joanna Depue | 12:52 PM
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