The Twelve Steps and Lent: Step 6

Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Steps 4 - 7 are all about something that seems to be in short supply most of the time: forgiveness.

What the discipline of following these steps...in sequence...in increments amounts to can be nothing short of amazing and life transforming.

We are learning to look at ourselves, our actions (and their repercussions) and our reactions with a kindness that comes from a Higher Power.

We are motivated to be honest and vulnerable - INTENTIONALLY - for perhaps the first time in our lives without strings attached - through the strength given to us by our Higher Power.

Although we may have gone to a minister of the church to speak the truth of our failings and shortcomings, some part of us may still want to hang on to old patterns. The patterns may be faulty, flawed, gnarled with complexity - they are comfortable and predictable. Step 6 delivers us to the threshhold of our freedom from the bondage of our misguided manipulations. We have come to a believe that we need what our Higher Power can give us and are ready - despite fleeting or lingering questions - to step into a new Light and a new Life. We offer ourselves to be transformed into our truest self and reject the characature we had drawn.

Six down and six to Go. Thanks be to God!