accepting limitations

[honeydumplin]

Recovery Devotional Bible
p. 1056
Matthew 14:17-21

Accepting our Limitations

Sometimes after we read the newspaper or watch the news, we feel
painfully aware of the enormity of the world's problems and the hope-
lessly inadequate resources to solve them. In our own recovery we often
experience similar feelings. Our problems seem enormous, and our
personal resources incredibly limited--as useless as a couple of loaves
and fishes before a crowd of thousands. Part of us wants to believe
that our own willpower and ingenuity will be enough to solve our problems.
But the truth is, we will need much more extensive resources than our own
to make any progress in recovery.

Fortunately, God has a long and consistent history of working with people
who have limited means. Rather than spend time with those who think they
can get along without him, God chooses to invite limited people like our-
selves to take part in his kingdom.

When we see how few loaves and fishes we have, we conclude that our
need for nourishment will not be met--and we will certainly have nothing
left over to share. But our hopelessly limited resources somehow turn into
abundance when we offer them to God. Not only will he meet our needs,
but he will give us enough to share. Each day, one day at a time, God
accepts our limited resources and surprises us with what can be done.

--Dale and Juanita Ryan

Prayer:
Show me what you can do with me today, Lord, in spite of my limitations.

[MajestyJo]

Acceptance is the key. The problem for me was putting the limitations on and not keeping an open mind and not willing to go outside of the box that I grew up in. All I seemed to do was go from one box to another.

I limit God by my narrow outlook. I limited myself, by not wholly depending on my God.

[MajestyJo]

From Alkie Speaks:

I realized I had a body which can't tolerate alcohol, which is OK. except that I had a mind that can't leave it alone. I'd always said that I could take it or leave it alone - I couldn't do either.

- Doug D.

Because I had a high tolerance for alcohol, I thought I wasn't an alcoholic. I labelled my dad and my ex-husband as alcohlics because they passed out, fell down, staggered, were violent, couldn't walk or drive a straight line. I once said to my dad, "You drove in that condition?" He had just come from his girlfriend's. He looked at me and said, "Well I certainly couldn't walk and proceeded to fall flat on his face and I had to help him to bed.

The reality was that I could match them drink for drink, drive them home, function and resented them for drinking all the booze, before they passed out. I wanted to party and there wasn't much for me. That is when I started hiding my booze. I couldn't have consumed all that liquor and been sober although I never saw myself as drunk. There was only a couple of times that I recall taking the stairs on my hands and knees.

When I saw myself in my dream, because I was wearing red high-heeled shoes and walking a straight line, I was sober. Then I saw myself in living colour and saw the person I changed into when I did drink. It wasn't what or how much I drank. It was what it did to me when I did drink it.

[MajestyJo]

I have found for the most part, most people don't want to hear.

My evening meditation cards:

"Enlightenment is seeing the unseen itself, and in this there is no seeing and no seer - only beginningness, endless calm."

ATISA DIPANKARA SHRIJNANA (980-1054)

"HE WHO DOES HIS DUTY IS TOLERANT LIKE THE EARTH, FIRM AS A PILLAR AND CLEAR AS A LAKE: NO FURTHER BIRTHS WILL BE IN STORE FOR SUCH A ONE.

DHAMMAPADA (1ST CENTURY BC)

"THERE IS ONLY ONE MOMENT IN TIME WHEN IT IS ESSENTIAL TO AWAKEN. THAT MOMENT IS NOW."

ATTRIBUTED TO THE BUDDHA (C.563BC-C.483BC)

"IF WE CAN BE WISE, AFTER LISTENING TO THE LAWS WE BECOME SERENE, LIKE A DEEP, SMOOTH, STILL LAKE."

DHAMMAPADFA (1ST CENTURY BC)


FROM: The Buddhist Prayer Deck

Don't like talking about my pain, it is part of my life and the reason I used for so many years. I mention it because it is always there and I want to share, that just because you are hurting, doesn't mean you have to go to a drug.

We can do what I can't do alone.

[MajestyJo]

Quote:
One of my favourite sayings and I have seen it happen so many times. I am grateful for the people who did the research for me so that I didn't have to go back out and discover for myself. Once I found what I wanted here, I stayed.

Quote:
"Walk Softly and Carry a Big Book" - Book

If you fail to change the person you were when you came in, that person will take you out!

As the slogan says, "If nothing changes, nothing changes."

It makes me sad when I hear people say, I have been doing things this way for 10, 20, 30.... years and it has stood me in good stead, why should I change now. Why wouldn't you want to change it if it brought you to your bottom and you want to learn to live clean and sober?
So glad that this is a one day at a time program. The new awareness and experience along the way and the many blessing that have happened as a result of working the program.

One of the reasons I went back to school in 2001, was that I became aware that I was so involved in service, taking the newcomers in the group through the Big Book and the Twelve Steps and Traditions, that I was again, focusing on people, places, and things outside of myself, and not always looking at me and my issues. One of the things I did was go to an out-of-town meeting with a friend that I volunteered with at the jail. Her husband would come and pick me up, they lived in Dundas, just outside of the city and drive me to Burlington, which was another city, which was part of our cities for a meeting.

I need to be at a place where I wasn't giving and was in a meeting where I could top myself up. Giving is good, it is good to get out of Self, but when I exclude myself to look after others, it takes my life out of balance. Like in today, my son doesn't see me as working or doing anything when I am on the computer. As much as I tell him it is my lifeline, he chooses not to see it. That is not surprising considering the fact that he is still using, and he often uses me if I don't set up boundaries.

Putting someone else down to make myself feel better, isn't my idea of recovery and the kind of recovery I want for myself. I know I have health issues, many in fact, but the good news is I don't have to use in order to deal with them, unless my coming to the boards is an addiction. Truthfully, at one time it was. It wasn't so much the boards as the computer, and me again, getting out of self, and not looking at myself. The difference today, is that it is my only Source of Recovery contact. In the last 6 months I have not been to a f2f meeting. I can't go out in the night air, and with my cough, it is annoying to me, let alone the people around me.

I special thanks to those who I have met on this site who have send me private messages.

My spiritual adviser told me many years ago, "You have a message that people do not want to hear. Don't worry, it is their denial." I had to laugh when one guy said he doesn't read my posts. That is OK, I didn't post for him. I post for myself and my healing, with the hope that there is someone out there who is helped as a result of my sharing.

I know that I suffer from chronic pain, but when it flares up and I get several messages in a day, I know it is my emotions or something I am doing or thinking, which is causing the pain. What I really need to guard is taking on someone else's pain, especially when people don't want to help themselves, they project there stuff onto me.

They can't do this unless I allow them. It is so easy to point the finger.

Posted on another site in 2013

[honeydumplin]

A friend sent this to me a few weeks ago.
And it seems to fit here for some reason.

"Please, Lord,
teach us to laugh again;
but God, don't ever let us
forget that we cried."
--BILL WILSON


IN SPITE OF US

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship designed and
administered by a bunch of ex-drunks whose only
qualification for membership is that they can't hold
their liquor and don't want to learn how. It has no
rules, dues or fees, no anything else that any sensible
organization seems to require.

At meetings the speaker starts on one subject and
winds up talking about something entirely different
and concludes by saying he doesn't know anything
about the program, except that it works. The groups
are always broke, yet always seem to have money
to carry on. They are always losing members, but
seem to grow. They claim AA is a selfish program,
but always seem to be doing something for others.

Every group passes laws, rules, edicts, and
pronouncements which everyone blithely ignores.
Members who disagree with anything are priveleged
to walk out in a huff, quitting forever, only to return
as if nothing happened and greeted accordingly.
Nothing is ever planned 24 hours ahead, yet great
projects are born and survive magnificently. Nothing
in AA is according to Hoyle. How can it survive?

Perhaps it is because we have learned to live and
laugh at ourselves. God made man and He made
woman. He made laughter too. Perhaps He is pleased
with our disorganized efforts and makes things right
no matter who pushes the button. Maybe He is
pleased, not with our perfection, but with our sincerity.
Maybe He is pleased with our trying to be nobody but
ourselves.

We don't know how it works but it does and members
keep receiving their dividend checks from their AA
investments. It is smart to be sober, and it is much
easier, my friends, to STAY sober than to GET sober.


SOMEHOW IT WORKS FOLKS, IN SPITE OF US
-- KEEP COMING BACK! --

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The humor description letter posted was written in
Danbury, Connecticut, around 1956 by 2 (now Deceased)
members of A A. It was originally entitled, "A A Odity."
The 2 members were Bill Mcdonugh, and Bill Starberd,
and was written as they were fooling around with a
typewriter that Mcdonough was required to learn to
operate for his new job.

[MajestyJo]

We so often limit God by our narrow outlook and closed mind. He can only work as much as we allow Him to, so often we are surrounded by blessing and gifts of love and prayer and we don`t even know it is there, because we are not open to receive. We look at the messenger instead of listening for the message.

Recognizing my own limitations was important, even more so was accepting them. I qualified for the program at 27, and here I am at 72, still learning to accept life on life`s terms. It was so important not to project expectations on others who can`t meet them, they have their limitations too.

Thanks for all the sharing that you do.