I haven't posted a devotional for a while. Okay. I posted a couple on Wednesday, but I don't think I wrote them on Wednesday. Anyway, this isn't a devotional. I don't think.
It is, however, a report on how it was, what happened, and how it's different.
I lived stretching the limits of my small life, but it remained a small life. That's how it was. What happened is I found these rooms, and nothing's been the same since. That will be eleven months tomorrow. Wow, what a transformation!
How it is today. Wonderful. What an empty word to attempt to describe how it is, despite the fact I'm tired. But the reason I'm tired is that it's wonderful. I have exploded the limits of my small life, and I'm stretching the limits of an unlimited life. Wow!
I knew my world was growing, and I was pushing on it, encouraging it, watching God do what I hadn't even imagined in it. Then Tuesday, the dam burst. My three partners and I--well, we are. But the enterprise was new enough we haven't signed a partnership agreement. I guess now it's time and well past that!--had with sane, logical steps started a new business enterprise, stretching our worlds, but testing the strength of each limb before we ventured onto it. All of a sudden our group conscience (thanks for letting me borrow the term for non 12-step stuff) was challenged, declared wrong and invalid by a professional. Individually each one of us might have caved in and submitted to the "better" judgment of somebody with experience. With the strength of our commitment to each other and to our common idea, goal, project--dream--we stood our ground, reduced the participation from one plus four back down to four, and became a business. My heart still speeds as I type that "became a business." But we're going to do it, we're going to do it our way, and we're going to do it up right as well as right.
I'm spent a lot of nights lately at the computer until about midnight, back on it at 5, and I'm tired. I'm tired, but actually, I'm not really lazy. I lied to you. I apologize.
What's your dream? It can come to fruition if you work these steps and put it all in God's hands then let go and let him use you. I promise.
The Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous
The Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Permission to use the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for adaptation granted to Overeaters Anonymous by AA World Services, Inc.
Although Overeaters Anonymous is a spiritual program, it is not a religious program, and use of OA material in the present connection does not imply OA’s affiliation with or endorsement of any sect, denomination or specific religious belief.
I am the author of Slender Steps to Sanity - Twelve-Step Notes of Hope. You may order a copy at Amazon.com (print or Kindle) or BN.com or the publisher's website.
Give a copy as service.
1. We admitted we were powerless over food — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Permission to use the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for adaptation granted to Overeaters Anonymous by AA World Services, Inc.
Although Overeaters Anonymous is a spiritual program, it is not a religious program, and use of OA material in the present connection does not imply OA’s affiliation with or endorsement of any sect, denomination or specific religious belief.
I am the author of Slender Steps to Sanity - Twelve-Step Notes of Hope. You may order a copy at Amazon.com (print or Kindle) or BN.com or the publisher's website.Give a copy as service.
I am an author of A Cloud of Witnesses – Two Big Books and Us by Barbara B. Rollins with OAStepper. You may order a copy at Amazon.com (print) or BN.com or the publisher's website. Kindle and Nook versions coming soon.
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