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Willing
Aug 28, 2010 9:34:37 GMT -5
Post by caressa on Aug 28, 2010 9:34:37 GMT -5
To be willing is to hold ourselves ready and available for God's direction. We do not jump into situations prematurely, and we do not close our minds in refusal to change. We are willing to grow and serve and, especially, willing to believe.
Increase my willingness.
- Food for ThoughtSo many times, I have had to pray for the willingness to be willing. Willingness came easy for the most part, I just didn't want to be where I was in before. Often though, there were things I didn't want to give up, and I had to pray for the willingness to be willing, to be willing. Since I have been diagnosed as diabetic, there are so many things that I just loved. When they were gone, for the most part ( ) I was left with very foods that I did like. I found I am a very picky eater. I have a thing about texture - like don't hand me anything mushy unless it is mashed potatoes. Don't like thngs milky especially if they don't have a certain texture too them. I guess it is just me, I like whipped cream and sour cream, I like creamed sauces and ice cream and frozen yoguart and fruit bottom yoguart, but don't give it to me without the fruit. Don't pre-stir it either, I want my own fun. It is my inner child's favorite thing to do, She enjoyes the ability to be able to 'muck' and make a mess. Well as the reading says, "I didn't get this way in one day and there are no quick fixes." I am a real work in progress believe me! www.hazelden.org/web/public/thought.view?catId=1903
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Post by BW on Aug 28, 2010 12:59:01 GMT -5
"Willing to be willing" is a prayer unto itself...In the margin of my original Big book is a prayer I heard that I wrote down and I still use it today when I am stuck on stuck.."God I believe...help my unbelief..God I am willing...Help my unwillingness" When I met my sponsor one of the questions she asked me was if I was willing to go to any lengths..I didn't have a clue what that meant but I was desperate enough to say yes. Over the 224 hours I'v been on this journey my willingness has become a passion. So much so that my heart breaks each time I see someone go back out to do more research. And my heart breaks even more each time I have to attend a funeral of ones we've lost to this disease, and there have been many. Just last year we lost 5; only 2 of which passed clean and sober; the others at their own hands.
Yes, God.. keep me willing
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Willing
Aug 28, 2010 13:30:21 GMT -5
Post by BW on Aug 28, 2010 13:30:21 GMT -5
For some reason I felt the need to add this next quote from the book about willingness....
My thoughts aren't real clear as to why I just felt compelled to add this...and I've learned that if God writes something on my heart...I got to follow thru..so here goes
When And How To Give, p.239
Men who cry for money and shelter as a condition of their sobriety are on the wrong track. Yet we sometimes do provide a new prospect with these very things--when it becomes clear that he is willing to place his recovery first.
It is not whether we shall give that is the question, but when and how to give. Whenever we put our work on a material plane, the alcoholic commences to rely upon alms rather than upon a Higher Power and the A.A. group. He continues to insist that he cannot master alcohol until his material needs are cared for.
Nonsense! Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn this truth: that, job or no job, wife or no wife, we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place material dependence upon other people ahead of dependence on God.
Alcoholics Anonymous, p.98
NO MATTER WHAT...willing to be willing
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Willing
Aug 28, 2010 14:48:30 GMT -5
Post by caressa on Aug 28, 2010 14:48:30 GMT -5
Good thoughts. Thanks for the quotes. I love the prayer. It is along the same line as the 11th Step Prayer.
I had the willingness to stay sober when I got here. I found a group of people, doing what I had been trying to do for 8 years and failing miserably. I could stop, but couldn't stay stopped. It blew me away that people actually had years of sobriety. Six months was awesome because I could never put together three months. I didn't know about AA. Even had a resentment about that. I learned that , even when I did know and go to my first meeting, I thought it was good for my dad and ex-husband. Absolutely no identification for myself, yet in today, I know they were both drunks, I was the alcoholic.
Recovery had to come first. It was even about me then, it was the fact that do I live or do I do. I chose life.
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Post by BW on Aug 28, 2010 16:16:45 GMT -5
I have to tell you something funny... When I came in ...when I was dragged in..]literally and there were claw marks on the doorjambs] I was so full of anger and rage which only escalated whewn I saw so many people so happy. Then I heard them say "Keep coming back...I knew they could only be so happy if they were smoking some of that "funny stuff" so I kept coming back so I could find where they were hiding it..It had to be pretty good stuff for so many of them to be that happy... and I wanted that stuff 'cuz the stuff I had been smoking had been cut with some bad stuff that made me crazy as a loon and paranoid...I wanted to be happy...and I knew there was good pot and I swore they had to have had the inside track on the good pot...
Thank God I was wrong...and tho I kept coming back for the wrong reasons...I am grateful I did keep coming
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Willing
Aug 29, 2010 2:33:46 GMT -5
Post by caressa on Aug 29, 2010 2:33:46 GMT -5
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Willing
Aug 28, 2020 22:49:50 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by caressa222 on Aug 28, 2020 22:49:50 GMT -5
So many times when caught up in my pain I have to pray for the willingness to be willing.
It is so important to live in the now and practice honesty, open mindedness and willingness.
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