The Steps Between Steps
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What does the journey look like?
It depends where you are and where you want to end up.
Alice: “Which way ought I to go from here?”
Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
Alice: “I don’t much care where, so long as I get somewhere.”
Cheshire Cat: “Oh, you’re sure to do that, if you only walk long enough!”
The twelve step journey of recovery doesn’t end until the end, by which I mean it takes a lifetime. Therefore, it results in, for those who choose (always a choice), becoming a way of life, aka lifestyle.
No one at first wants to hear this.
The alcoholic hopes to drink again.
The controlling co-dependent wants to nag again.
But for those who truly surrender (step one), this means, given enough time, we will reach the twelfth step, and will then be prepared to step anew into step one.
And each time around we discover new truths about life as it really is.
Slowly insane thinking becomes more rational and the more rational we become the more our lives blossom with peace, joy, and all the other fruits of the Spirit, even in the midst of storms, including stormy circumstances and storm-generating people.
Step two is out of the despair of step one. We had to start at the bottom, but the good news is we don’t have to stay there. Hope comes with step two and relief with step three.
But how many steps between the steps? What should be my pace? What is expected of me?
When I discovered the answer to these questions, I was gob smacked. That’s when I knew this to be a God-ordained (and world-dismissed) recovery process.
The answer is -
It is completely up to me.
I am not here to live up to anyone else’s expectations. I will do it the way I decide best for me. It’s my choice.
Always my choice.
Every step of the way.
Which also means my life is my responsibility in the sense it is up to me to decide which road I will take. Will I head in the direction of this Higher Power, or run back the way I came?
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.