>Turn It Over< >Step 3<

We made a decision to turn our lives and our will over to the care of God

This is a tough step for no other reason other than it requires trust. For most of us coming into recovery trust is a very hard thing to do. We have trusted and we have been hurt. We have trusted and we have been betrayed. We have trusted and our bodies have been used or broken. We have trusted others to the point that there is really nothing left to give. As for me…I couldn’t even trust myself.

I remember praying these words:
“God, I want to trust you. But I can’t yet. Is saying that I want to trust you enough for now? Can you work with that?”

And do you know something? It was enough. I can tell you that when I got to this step I had to realize that there was a God that loved me. I didn’t see it. I didn’t feel it. I didn’t know it, I mean really know it in my heart. I wanted to believe it. But there was nothing solid for me to grasp. But I prayed these words with my mouth and with the longing in my heart. I prayed with expectancy that if he was God, then He would be able to make it real.

The lack and loss of trust didn’t really come from the incest by my father. Although it damaged me beyond belief. The deepest harm that caused the inability to trust was created by my mother. I could never count on her to keep her word. She was absent. She was disconnected from me. She always said words and made promises and then she’d shift again and the bottom dropped out. I never knew what it meant to be stable. As a child growing up very poor I never knew what it was to be provided for. I never knew safety. I never learned reliance.

I took all those feelings into adulthood with me. I married two men who ultimately lived out the same pattern I had as a child. I had married men like my mother. I married men who could not keep their word. I married liars. I married men that undermined what little confidence I had in myself. I became so bound up in expecting disappointment that I lost all my ability to trust. I just went thru my life expecting that it was not going to get any better. All trust was broken. Shattered by affairs. Damaged by drained bank accounts. There was nothing left to give. I was empty.

Getting to step 3 was pivotal awakening for me. I had admitted I was powerless. I admitted that my life was unmanageable. I realized that I could not fix it. I even stepped up and admitted that I further damaged it myself. But even realizing all that could not change the fact that there had to be something greater and bigger out there. I had to get to the place where I knew that there was a God and that he loved me. I had to accept that He loved me. He loved ME. I had to believe that I mattered to Him. That He sees me. He hears me. He wants me. He desired me. I had to get thru all those barriers before I could trust Him.