Keep
On Keeping On
“When
one door closes, another door opens—but sometimes it's hell in the
hallway.”
Anonymous
I
went to an Al-anon meeting with a friend of mine this week. This was
one of the slogans I heard, and tucked away for future use. The topic
was prayer. Several people talked about the difficulty of letting go
of the ones we love and really allowing our higher power to take
charge. We spoke about how much clearer and wider the vision of that
higher power is—about the many choices available to the One
that we would never have thought of.
Several
people spoke about their inexperience with prayer when they first
came into the program—they didn't know how to pray, or what to ask
for, and especially didn't know how to let go and get out of the way.
We spoke of the hardship of waiting, and wanting answers, and trying
not to do things our way. Co-dependents want to get in there and DO
SOMETHING!! Most of the time, we do the wrong thing.
For
me, letting go and letting God is a lifelong challenge. I will always
want to take care of the situation. I will always want to impose my
will on the one I see as helpless. Prayer for me does not consist of asking for
things; it is begging for the courage to stay out of God's way. It's in my cells, in
my very DNA, to be a care-taker, and to not trust that God knows more
than I do, and may have a different way of going about business. My
mind sees a solution and wants to put it into action, but when I do
the result is typically not what I expected.
When
we truly let go of trying to control the person who's on our heart, a
door closes. We may wait in that dark hallway for longer than we want
before another one opens. But it will open. And it may be better
than we could possibly have imagined, better than any of our plans or
schemes would have produced. Another AA slogan is “fake it til you
make it”—act as if God is in charge until it's a reality for you.
Keep turning over control until you can feel God's hand in yours, and
you know you are not, and have never been, alone.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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