In me there is darkness. But with you there is light. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A speaker at a meeting said, "To continue something when I'm making mistakes takes emotional courage." She was talking about making a decision to turn her will and life over to her Higher Power, and how it works in her life. To keep turning our wills and our lives over to God's care moves us into unknown territory. We will make mistakes, which is why we need God's care as we experience it in the Third Step.
It's hard to keep going after we stumble, especially when we keep stumbling over and over again. With abstinence comes the clarity and awareness to look honestly at ourselves and our mistakes. We want to stop making them. We want to be perfect. We're impatient to change. But change doesn't work that way. Instead, a caring God cushions us when we fall, loves us without conditions, and gives us everything we need. If God can forgive us when we make a mistake, how can we not do the same?
If I fall today, I will fall into the arms of my Higher Power. And then I'll get up again.
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Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss
Tolerate our quirks, our feelings, our reactions, our peculiarities, and our humanness. Tolerate our ups and downs, our resistance to change, and our struggling and sometimes awkward nature.
Tolerate our fears, our mistakes, our natural tendency to duck from problems, and pain. Tolerate our hesitancy to get close, expose ourselves, and be vulnerable.
Tolerate our need to occasionally feel superior, to sometimes feel ashamed, and to occasionally share love as an equal. Tolerate the way we progress - a few steps forward, and a couple back.
Tolerate our instinctive desire to control and how we reluctantly learn to practice detachment. Tolerate the way we say we want love, and then sometimes push others away. Tolerate our tendency to get obsessive, forget to trust God, and occasionally get stuck.
Some things we do not tolerate. Do not tolerate abusive or destructive behaviors toward others or ourselves.
Practice healthy, loving tolerance of ourselves, said one man. When we do, we'll learn tolerance for others. Then, take it one step further. learn that all the humanness we're tolerating is what makes ourselves and others beautiful.
Today, I will be tolerant of myself. From that, I will learn appropriate tolerance of others.
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"LOVE" devoid of self-gratification, is in essence, the will, to the greatest good...of another.
