“See to it that your relationship is right with Him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the Great Fact for us.” Big Book, 4th edition, page 164.
On August the 4th I celebrated my 35th abstinence anniversary. I could not have reached this happy occasion if my relationship with my Higher Power remained as distorted as it was when I entered program.
I have always believed in God. However, my infantile concept of God was that he was a Sugar Daddy. He was to be at my beck and call, providing me with everything I felt entitled to and more. He was my lackey, my gofer, my servant. If He did not perform as expected, He got my angry, resentful, pouting persona full blast.
In 1985 when I came to OA, I was 39 years old. Talk about a case of arrested spiritual development!!!!
The program taught me that my concept was preposterous. I had the cart before the horse. No wonder my life was not going anywhere. As it reads on page 53 of the Big Book: “… either God is everything or He is nothing.”
Before program, God could not be everything. That place was occupied by food. It took me 4 years in program, putting my body through the torture of losing and regaining 100 pounds again until I finally got the message contained on page 62 of the Big Book.
A substance cannot be my everything.
My selfish, self-centered ego cannot be my everything.
God makes it possible to for me to have Him as the Director, and the Principal. He is my Father. I don’t tell Him what to do. I ask for good orderly direction in Step 11 to serve Him. He tells me what to do.
Are you struggling with program? Could it be that, as I had, you have the cart before the horse? The Big Book contains wisdom that got me straightened around. Try studying it and may God bless and keep you coming back until the miracle happens for you.
Love,
Jacqueline
Length in program 39 years (June 1985)
Length of imperfect but enduring abstinence 35 years (August 4, 1989)
100+ pound winner
Disclosure: personal stories express the experience, strength, and hope of the individual member and not of OA as a whole.