Lesson 7 - Moral

Lesson 7 gets me started on my moral inventory.  This can be a difficult lesson.  In fact, this is where many people stop the 12 step program.  It is not easy facing your mistakes or even your successes.

One of the questions asked in this lesson is "List the things you have used to block the pain of your past."  This was a hard one for me.  I have to admit that because I do not drink and do drugs that I took a while to answer this.  This narrow-minded thought process is shameful.  There are so many ways to block the pain.  Alcohol and drugs are just one of the ways.  So now the internal struggle began as I tried to discover what I was doing and why.

I am one that tries to please everyone.  There is that darn co-dependency again.  The pain I felt from all those type D personalities was masked by me trying to gain their approval.  I tried to dress to please them and prevent negative comments.  I tried to do everything to appease them.  I had to realize that I would never do that.  My haircut was never going to be just right.  The way I disciplined my children was never going to be correct.  The way I cooked was never going to be above "OK".  I was never going to succeed.  I blocked my pain in denial and in striving to be someone I was not.

I once told someone in our small group discussion (I can repeat this since I was the one saying it) that my organization and anal tendencies were not the real me and not my nature.  Now those same type D people would say that I was not organized enough, but my immediate family would say that I was on the road to being too anal.  Why is that if that is not the real me?  Because I spent my life trying to be what others said I had to be.  I used to work about 50 hours a week in downtown Milwaukee.  My husband was home more than I was and the kids were always beating me home by about an hour.  One day a relative stopped by to visit.  She asked where the broom was so that she could sweep up a mess that was just made.  I answered honestly that I did not know.  Where I would place it was never where it could be found when I got home.  She looked at me in shock and dismay.  It was my responsibility to know where that broom was she informed me.  It was my house, right?  When I said that with me being gone at work so much, that there was a lot that I did not know.  I was informed that that was beside the point.  I should always know.  That weighed on me for years.  I put so much pressure on myself to work full-time and to be in control of a house that I really had no control over.  I mentally beat myself daily on how much of a failure I was because I did not have control of my house.  This also strained my marriage and my relation with my children.  I became an ogre and began to yell a lot.  Why weren't things left where I put them?  Why couldn't I do it all?  I was supposed to.  What others did not realize was that I was to work, manage a home, follow behind my children and my husband and still meet other responsibilities as they arose.  I began to melt down.  I could not do it all so why should I?

I hid my sense of failure in striving harder.  This made the number of failures increase and be more obvious.  I could not do it anymore.  The day this realization hit was painful.  I'm learning to be me.  I'm learning to look at others and say, "I don't care."  I will not live my life to please them.  I will live it only to please God.  If they don't like it, take it up with Him.  I cannot please everyone.  I will not try anymore.  I will not agree to things just so that they will think better of me.  I will not give up my family time to appease others.  I will not re-create myself to be what they want.  I will be what God wants.

Lesson 6 - Action

One of the questions asked in Lesson 6 is "What have you been able to turn over to God?"

This was a hard one for me.  After all, I am co-dependent which means that I do not have anything that I have control over to turn over.  Well, I might not have control over anything, but I do still have my clutches on things that I need to relinquish to God.  I'm trying to control it.  Though I never seem to have control.  I need to turn my day to day schedule over to God.

One night at about 2 am God and I had a very long and deep discussion.  I was about to pull my hair out.  God is not a ruler or creator of chaos.  So why is my day so chaotic?  Come on, God.  I'm trying to put order in my life.  Why does it seem that You are fighting against me and allowing the chaos to reign?  I could not get past these statements.  I repeated them over and over.  It was then that wonderful James rose up and spoke.

"Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."  As it is, you boast and brag.  All such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." (NIV, James 4:13-17)

I was trying to determine my day and what was going to happen.  There is nothing wrong with planning and making sure that crucial things are not missed.  What was I doing wrong?  Not dedicating my day to God and looking to Him about what I should and should not do.  That was my problem.

Do you know how hard this was for me?  I am not naturally an organizer.  I like to get up and go about my day doing whatever is before me.  The world around me forced me to change.  I was an accountant for 20 years.  Much of my job involved a multitude of tasks that had to be scheduled and could not be missed.  Lists became my best friend as they helped me to remember duties that had to be done.  This spilled over into my personal life.

I married an ADD guy.  Life with him was a roller coaster.  You never knew what each day held.  Unfortunately, that included the bills, where we lived, and other important things.  I began to create lists to help us to remember to pay bills, feed the pets, do regular chores, and such.  Why?  Because if it was not on the list, he would not do it.  Even if it was on the list he might not do it, but I would remember amid all my other "normal" duties and get it done.  This grew and grew to where everything in my life was a list.

Now, I still have to have lists.  My memory is getting way too faulty to cope.  God is not banning lists in my life.  What is He doing then?  Asking me to let Him make the list.  That's right.  Give Him the ultimate control of my life - my lists!

How do I do this?  I go ahead and make out my list for tomorrow as normal.  I never realized how ambitious I was.  When the list is made, I pray and ask God to take what needs to be removed and add what I have missed.  I about cry when He has me remove some items that I really want to do.  But in all honesty, I would not have been able to get it all done.

I feel better each day.  My lists are not as long and when they are they are made up of what He wants me to do and not what I want.  This is a huge difference.  He never fails.  His plans never are wrong.  Mine on the other hand.......