Can'y Wait

I’m spent my life waiting, preparing, perfecting. When I lose ten more pounds, when that dress fits again, when the kids grow up and leave, when the dog dies… It never happens. Oh, some of it does. Sometimes even the weight and size, but the perfect tomorrow scheduled at the crossroad never comes. Because it’s a lie. It never existed, never will except in my mind. What comes is now, today, this weight, this size, this me. This I have to work with. Waiting for different only makes me miss what I wanted to live.

Accept People and Confront Problems

Doing otherwise invites shame, hostility, defensiveness, and rebuttal. These factors set us up for nonproductive negotiations. ~ Beattie, Melody. Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time (p. 195). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition. Too often we begin "resolving differences" by confronting people while feeling obligated to mitigate issues. We've got that backwards and in the process destroy the possibility of mutually acceptable outcomes. Let's not discount the people involved because there seems to be no middle ground.

Hiding Behind a Mask

If you could see me, you’d run, screaming, alarmed, terrified. Surely you’d cross yourself, toss salt over your shoulder, do anything to avoid the curse, to distance yourself from me. So I hide. I hide in food like a child, covering his own face and assuming invisibility. I hide in people pleasing to act as if I were finished, polished, real… I hide in silence, knowing you can’t judge words I don’t speak. I hide in ferocity making myself unloveable so I can believe I’ll never be loved. I hide in monotony, not doing the things that would lighten my load. I stand here in my mask, eager, hoping you won’t jerk it away, toss it beyond the moon.

To Caesar

In Matthew 22, we read that a group of Pharisees confronted Jesus and asked for a yes or no answer on whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, the Roman emperor. Jesus responded by asking whose face was engraved on the coins used to pay the taxes. When they answered it was Caesar’s face, Jesus replied with the now-famous verse, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21 NASB). The dreaded day...or the dreaded month! Anxiety rules when tax day approaches, at least at our house. For months we've collected the data in "the pink tub" ignoring the fact there are three stacked tubs... Tension rules the household, as husband queries why I gave that much to a charity, what it does, and such. Then he tells me to import my accounts and I figure it out again... after a few hours' effort. I write the check then he critiques my bank records and handwriting. And after his mulling it over a while I take it to the Post Office. Caesar gets his share, the nonprofits have theirs and peace again reigns but next April is already on its way!

Patience

Patience is the art of concealing your impatience. ~ Guy Kawasaki

Opposites don’t always oppose each other. Patience and impatience are brothers. Patience is forbearance or restraint. Tolerance is the state of tolerating, or putting up with, conditionally. Patience, maintained long enough emerges victorious. It’s an allowable amount of variation of a specified quantity, and not just scientifically speaking. Practice patience and relish victory as it emerges!

We Pay the Price

One day at a time, in small installments, we pay the price of our new growth and progress. What we gain is infinitely more than worth the cost! ~  L., Elisabeth. Food for Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters (Hazelden Meditations Book 1) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

We pay the price! But it's a bargain basement price! Grab it before it's revealed to be a steal!!  After all, we're paying a pittance for a life beyond our wildest dreams!!  Get it before they charge what it's worth!!!

They Call the Role

The Aggies of Texas assemble each year by tens and by thousands in towns far and near. The twenty-first day of the fourth month they stand, solemn and somber, at sea or on land, while up at the rostrum a roll call begins, the roster of those who’ll not be there again, for each name they call is an Aggie who passed from this life since they read from the muster list last. But present in spirit, they stand nonetheless, Aggies forever, a brotherhood blessed. The voices now silenced will answer the call as brothers and sisters respond for them all. My father and son are Aggies. I’m not. Enrollment at muster will not be my lot. But still as a symbol of love muster stands a solid, fraternal mass joining of hands. And I have a Brother, creation’s first-born, who’ll answer for me when they sound judgment’s horn. My name will be called and his voice God will hear at muster call yonder I’ll surely be there.

OK

“I'm not OK, you're not OK -- and that's OK.”~ William Sloane Coffin

Are you OK? I am, sort of. And that's OK. I sometimes believe I'm OK but doubt it most of the time. It's easy for me to decide you're not OK when I doubt I am. But God made me, and God don't make junk and God made you, and the same truth follows. I don't usually feel OK and that's probably your belief as well, but God looked at humans and declared we're good, so let's latch on to that and know we're OK!

We Deserve Peace

Dedicate yourself to the good you deserve and desire for yourself. Give yourself peace of mind. You deserve to be happy. You deserve delight. ~ Hannah Arendt Our job is to find happiness and offer love to others. Nothing can better us more than this. ~ Casey, Karen. A Life of My Own: Meditations on Hope and Acceptance (Hazelden Meditations Book 1) . Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.Dedicate yourself to the good you deserve and desire for yourself. Give yourself peace of mind. You deserve to be happy. You deserve delight. ~ Hannah Arendt

Peace I ask of thee oh river, peace, peace, peace. When men learn to live together, cares will cease.* We have a right to peace. We can claim our right to peace. Give yourself peace of mind. You deserve to be happy. You deserve delight. Be a carrier of peace. *Traditional song

*Traditional songΩ

DON'T BE STUCK

“Fear is the glue that keeps you stuck. Faith is the solvent that sets you free.” ~ Shannon L. Alder

Are you stuck? What do you wish you could do but believe you can’t? I began writing here with the quote, by Werner Erhard, “Whatever you are pushing against, you are stuck to” but got hung up on the implied adhesive. If like the Greek god Sisyphus you’re pushing uphill it makes sense you never can stop, that the boulder goes down when the pushing stops, but I prefer not to assume glue. I choose to recognize a god who furnishes the solvent when we produce the debacle of getting stuck!

Just Take a Bite!

We know her well, wearing many faces. "Come on, just taste it. I need to know if the seasoning's right." It's just a bite. That won't hurt your diet." We all know her/him so well. They would swear they mean no harm. They do not understand it's like suggesting to an addict they try just a little heroin! I am an addict and I have no use for your permission. I do not have mine and that's what matters. It's like Peter in Matthew, when Jesus said, “But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” Thank you, no. I will not take a bite. I have no use for your attempted kindness. It's a kick in the face to me!

A Mother's Love

Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired. It need not be deserved. ~ Erich Fromm

Most of us were blessed with a loving mother. We may have ideas of better ways to raise a child, but we realize our mother did the best she could. After all, I didn’t come with instructions. I doubt you did either. Let us be grateful today, every day, for our first teacher, our mother!

Allow the Breakthrough

Life is a Gentle Teacher. She will keep repeating the lesson until we learn. It is okay to become frustrated. Confused. Angry. Sometimes it is okay to despair. Then, it is okay to walk away and allow the breakthrough to come. It shall. ~ Beattie, Melody. The Language of Letting Go: Hazelden Meditation Series (p. 129). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

I’ve heard it said you can choose your path despite being confused by asking God to pull you toward the better choice. My examples of God’s guiding me are rare and limited, but I can assure you they’re memorable forty-two years later, and I never in those years questioned the rightness of my path-correction! Life is a Gentle Teacher. She will keep repeating the lesson until we learn. God loves us even more than his guidance to us to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Recovery

No matter how it feels, we’re moving forward. No matter how good it gets, the best is yet to come. ~ Beattie, Melody. Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time (p. 224). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The rooms of Recovery wait for us with open arms. They wait to hear the hurt, the trauma, the desperation they remember so well. They wait to discover our entrancement when we begin to believe we’re in the right place, They wait for us to hear the old-timers share the lessons they’ve learned, the truths that have become the lives they live. They wait for us to find the truths that will leave us happy, joyous and free the rest of our lives as we share our wisdom, our Recovery, with the newcomers who have taken our place!

Madness

Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

The opposite of sanity is madness when we take it literally and of those of us who have been restored to sanity most would vehemently avow our previous state was madness!

Missing the Hugs

Three years now, the Covid years... We meet very week for Recovery, use the same script, the same schedule of twelve-step literature for the first through fourth weeks, a speaker if there's a fifth. We've many new friends across the country, and in other lands even. Our meeting will continue zooming and not return to face-to-face. Heck, we can still see the faces. I abstained when we voted, and know it makes sense this way, but it will never be the same.... I miss the hugs and always will!

Scorn

Scorn is the feeling or belief that someone or something is worthless or despicable. Scorn is my attitude about myself when I've attempted...or actually usually done...what I know better than to do. As Paul told the Romans, For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing. Like Paul I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. But God can change me, make me no longer a woman to be scorned!

I Got a Second Chance

How many years had I  "been on a diet?" The truth is never, though  I had tried for decades. The one when the goal  was wearing the wedding dress came closest but Mother let the seams out when the day drew near! I had tried for decades until a counselor gave me the book Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition. I read it and decided to try after Christmas...don't start a diet in the fall!!! But I remembered the stories, knew I needed it. So December 17th, 2007 I got in the car with sweet treats and told God, "This is Stupid!" That day I claimed my second chance and I continue to "Keep coming back!" Let me tell you why if you're longing to get your own second chance!