[bluidkiti]

March 22

Quote of the Week

"I can’t, God can, let Him."

I remember how unmanageable my life used to be. The more uncontrollable it became, the more I tried to control it. The weird thing was, this only made it worse. I felt like that Dutch kid who sticks his finger in the dike to plug up the hole, but when he does, two more sprout up. As I tried to control the ongoing deluge, I finally became overwhelmed and gave up. Peering up from a very deep bottom, I could barely make out a pinprick of light—and that light was Alcoholics Anonymous.

When I entered the program, I thought that—besides not drinking—I would be taught how to manage and control my life better. Instead, I was told the craziest thing: I was told to “let go and let God.” That sounded way too esoteric to work in my case. I mean, God wasn’t going to fix my career, pay my rent, and repair all the damage I had caused. “That’s right,” my sponsor said. “Your job will be to take the action. The results, however, you will leave up to God.” That seemed even crazier, but I was willing to learn to try.

I’m a slow learner, so I only let go a little bit at first. But each time I did, things got better. And what was truly miraculous was that when I completely trusted God and let go of the results, things turned out better than I could have imagined. My sponsor taught me that by doing this I was working the first Three Steps in the program, and he recommended I try it not only on my problems but in my life as well. He said the shortcut to remembering Steps One through Three was to simply say, “I can’t, God can, let Him.” And I’ve found that it works when I’m willing to work it.