Day 811
I read a prayer today that touches me deeply in its earnestness and invasion into my soul.
"...help me to see myself not as I fear, but as I am today — a work in progress, an accepter of grace, and a person willing to change."**
I have always seen myself as the 'good guy' that I thought others believed me to be, wrapped in the enigma of a pervert on borrowed time waiting to be discovered. That's an awful way to live, and I don't even remember thinking I had a choice, not until my acting out was out of control, at least. By then, the choices were more like the least of the evils than options to consider.
I've never been good at accepting grace. Whether it was because I thought I didn't deserve it, or it was because my addict knew it would be the beginning of healing, or if I just bought into the image of my goodness so much that I was not in need of grace, I never knew how to do it. Now I'm stopping in those moments of deflection and taking a breath before saying 'thank you' or some other appropriate expression of recognizing both my error and someone else's forgiveness.
Grace for the big stuff is easier for me to accept because the error of my ways is non-debatable. What I'm experiencing now is with the little things, the lies about things that don't matter, and the lies about the lies. Being forgiven for that, without making an effort to explain the unexplainable, is just not something I have a lot of experience with.
Becoming a person willing to change usually takes landing on more tangible bedrock than I've had to endure. Jail, divorce, financial collapse are too often the rock bottoms that get people's attention and convinces them that change is necessary. I've been fortunate, as well as unfortunate, to avoid those disasters. 'Unfortunate' because public humiliation seems to be a great motivator for change. I know I am willing, and I know it is critical to my long-term survival that I change. Still, I do not know whether I have the personal fortitude to continue pushing through the difficulties and disciplines ultimately required for self-change.
Actually, I know I do not have what it takes. I've proven that too many times. That's why the quote above is in the context of a prayer. My Higher Power can do those things through me and for me, if I'm willing to let that be done.
This shouldn't even be a question. But it is.
–JR
**Sex Addicts Anonymous.
Voices of Recovery.
Health Communications Inc.
Kindle Edition.
Hope the most high
Can see my heart is
In the right place
My hands are folded
My knees are bending when I say
God
Help me make it
–Raphael Saadiq, “Sinners Prayer"
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