Day 27-Better

Here is the next installment of my Five Minute Free Writes Challenge.

Sitting at the kitchen table chain smoking and choking. I was doing an inventory-the fourth step in a 12 step program. Listing every wrong, perceived and real, done against me and every wrong I committed. The list was daunting. So many wrongs against me-no wonder I drugged and drank-you would too if you were wronged in the same way. No wonder I acted the way I did. I was feeling justified.

Then I had to look at this list and one by one see my part in each of the items on the list. One by one I would seek God and ask him to show me my part and show me he did. With each cigarette I smoked I would cough and choke. With each item listed, I saw my part and one by one I realized I was the problem. Even with things done against me as a child. There was nothing I could do as a child, to prevent some things from happening to me, but as an adult I and only I could control how I lived. Would I be the victim forever and justify uncontrollable behavior or live victoriously despite what had happened?

With each one I saw the problem was the same..ME!! I called my friend, who was taking a group of us through the steps, and said I see the problem, do I need to continue? Yes he said. With each one I began to start laughing. I lived as though it was everyone else’s fault. It was easy to live as a victim but if I was the problem that was a whole different thing.

As I saw myself in each and every item, as I continued to smoke and choke on cigarettes, I cried out to God, “I hate this woman, I can’t change I make the same mistakes over and over. Change me and help me stop smoking!”

That was the beginning of changes for the better. I never smoked a cigarette from that moment on and I began to change for the better. I admitted to God that I had no ability to choose a man and vowed to stay away. In His timing He put a wonderful man in my life.

I wish I could say my life changed as quickly as my cigarette habit but it didn’t. I had lots of healing to go through, lots of growing and I am so grateful for the man God put in my life because he was sober 19 years more than me and was very patient. He has been with me ever since and continues to offer me grace and love.

God changed me for the better and as long as I continue to focus on HIM I will never go back to the person I used to be but, instead, God will use me and my past to help others who need to see hope. To know that I was where they are now and I made it through. Then we, together, can then help the next one suffering.

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. Genesis 50:20 (ESV)

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Ecclesiastes 4:9-10(ESV)

If you would like to read more blogs in this series click here 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes Challenge They are written by my Five Minute Friday friends!