|
|
Freedom Statements
For today I am free to pace myself by not tackling all my problems at once. I can do something for twelve hours that would overwhelm me if I felt I had to keep it up for a lifetime.
For today I am free to choose happiness. According to Abraham Lincoln, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
For today I am free to strengthen my mind by studying or learning something new.
For today I am free to adjust myself to my circumstances, rather than trying to adjust everything else to suit my desires.
For today I am free to exercise my soul in three ways:
I will anonymously do something for someone else;
I will do at least two things that I have been procrastinating on;
I will exercise compassion and empathy to a person in need.
For today I am free to be agreeable, act courteously and to refrain from fault finding and criticism of others.
For today I am free to spend a quiet half hour all by myself for my own betterment in whatever way I choose.
For today I am free to choose inner peace and serenity, regardless of my outer circumstances. I will seek to be free from fear and to believe that as I give to the world, so the world will give to me.
~Adapted from For Today Prayer by Kenneth L Holmes~
|
Letting Go
Letting go does not mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else.
Letting go is not to cut myself off, it's the realization I can't control another.
Letting go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
Letting go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
Letting go is not to try to change or blame another, it's to make the most of myself.
Letting go is not to care for, but to care about.
Letting go is not to fix, but to be supportive. It's not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
Letting go is not to be in the middle arranging the outcome, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
Letting go is not to be protective; it's to permit another to face reality.
Letting go is not to deny, but to accept.
Letting go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
Letting go is not to adjust everything to my own desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
Letting go is not to criticize and regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
Letting go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
Letting go is to fear less and live more.
~Author Unknown~ |
Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time:
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as Jesus did,
this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with you forever in the next.
Amen
~Reinhold Niebuhr~ |
What If God Forgets My Name
What if my life never brings some meaning to my years?
Just meager days as pointless as the lonely rushing surf.
Yet God has wrought amazing things through ordinary lives.
He shapes the choices we each make into exquisite gems.
So perhaps I’ll find, somewhere within, His measure of my worth.
What if all the wounds and fears I buried as a child
Distort how I now see myself and fracture who I am?
But God knows all my brokenness and longs to make me whole,
To take the pains that still remain, that grip the boy within.
So perhaps I’ll give my hurts to Him and liberate my soul.
What if in my kids I see the legacy I’ve built
Is absent days and distant ways and memories unspent?
Yet children follow children who learn love transcends life’s trials.
The time we’ve lost can be restored in stories not yet told.
So perhaps today my child and I can walk and talk a while.
What if jobs are hard to get and I’ve not worked in weeks?
When money’s gone and bills are due, just what will happen then?
But God desires we all have work and meet each others needs.
Yet those of faith must sometimes wait to see what God provides.
So perhaps I’ll rise and look today for how and where He leads.
What if illness steals my strength or ravages my mind?
Or what if cancer racks my frame with never ending pain?
Yet God will give us what we need to cope with life’s harsh edge,
Then come to carry us through death and make us new again.
So perhaps I’ll make the most today of all I still can do.
What if raging storms descend and tear apart our homes?
Or what if terrorists destroy the safety we have known?
Yet God has never promised us a life of ease and peace.
But only that He'll rescue us to be someday with Him.
So perhaps I’ll pray and trust the One where hope and strength begin.
When close friends die,
When marriage fails,
When children wreck their lives.
Can rage by stilled?
Can grief be quelled?
Can dying dreams revive?
When morals fade,
When justice wanes,
When people lose their way.
Can wounds be healed?
Can rifts be sealed?
Can truth again hold sway?
And what if God forgets my name or isn’t pleased with me?
Then must I walk through chastening pain before His grace receive?
But God has sought me with a love that nothing can withstand.
He’s always near to calm my fear and right the wrongs I choose.
So perhaps I’ll take a step or two while reaching for His hand.
~Robert Thomson - August, 2009~ |
I Don’t Want This Anymore
It is almost Easter. About 2-3 years ago Easter, our church showed clips from the Passion of the Christ—tears filled my eyes as my heart broke. Jesus, why did you go through that? How could you love me? I don’t even like myself most days, how could you love me? Why do you love me? How can I accept that love, a love that is greater than all, how can I fathom that kind of love? People tell me to just accept it-I want to but I feel as if I must somehow bring a sacrifice-because I deserve the pain that You received-I should suffer. I know that I needn’t do that, but I am afraid my scarred heart isn’t enough-I’ve pushed You away for so long-do you still love me? Do You still want me? I need You and I don’t know how to live without You but how do I know You still want me? I feel so alone and I know my emptiness and loneliness will not be filled with food, attention, friends, or family- only You can fill my heart and make me whole. I am so weary and exhausted from trying to fight this battle on my own. You say in Your Word that You will give strength-I need strength because I cannot go on much longer.
My mind races with calories, fat grams, weight, food counts, exercise time, and other things such as school and trying to keep everything hidden and under wraps. I have migraines and I’m constantly physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. I want to sleep all the time because at least sleep quiets my mind (but not always loosens Satan’s grip).
Failure is my weakness, I feel I must be perfect—Perfect Daughter, Perfect Christian, Perfect Sister, Perfect Friend—whenever I fail to meet those circumstances I must be punished. I must have some sort of sacrifice to pay for the failure. I have long used my body for this purpose. I began cutting-shedding blood-to pay for my mistakes, big or small. I also denied myself food, forced myself to vomit, forced myself to exercise, scratched, picked, hit, and bit myself—Pain became my way of “cleansing” myself of the blemishes I caused. I have to be perfect, including Perfect Anorexic, but that’s where a conflict begins, I can’t be a Perfect Daughter/Christian/Sister/Friend and a Perfect Anorexic. Therefore, according to my own logic, if I make a mistake, I must be punished. Ana tells me to work harder, eat less, be thinner, but also screams that I am failing in all the other areas. A war breaks out around me, I fail no matter what I do, I must be punished. But my punishment also makes me a failure as it hurts those who I love most—I am hurling down a spinning vortex of a rabbit hole – and it never ends. I can only go deeper. Part of the reason I only want to sleep is because then my mind has a chance of being free of this storm.
Even though I know I don’t want this anymore, I want recovery, in order to go to treatment and get help in recovery, I first must be the perfect anorexic-no matter how long I’ve been in treatment, how far I’ve come, I must be the perfect anorexic to get help out of anorexia. I can never get out of this as this black hole never ends. I feel so alone in this because I’m always disappointing someone.
~Ashley - March, 2010~ |
|
|
Home
