Step “1. We admitted we were powerless, that our lives had become unmanageable.”
Since I posted the 12 steps for life I have been thinking about how they have worked in my life. Step 1 causes us to think not about being powerless but admitting it, particularly when we have not managed our lives.
It reminds me of the saying of Eashoa, “It is only the sick that need a Doctor.” I have met many people in the course of my life who believe they are managing their lives. They may well be but Step 1 is for people like me who live in unmanageable lives.
So what is an unmanageable life for those who don’t know? It is a life that you find yourself in you. Often the first experience is as a young child. The step says ‘our lives’ it doesn’t say ‘my life’. Maybe it says ‘our’ because a young child is not expected to manage yet if they are born into lives of parents who are finding life unmanageable that child is born into an unmanageable life.
That child will seek stability for something to hold onto as it feels powerless in a world where the adults seem to have the power but are not managing it.
School can become a place of stability as can church. God’s house is owned by no-one but open to all including little children. Inside the four walls, a message can be heard that speaks of a way through the unmanageable. There is a teacher his name is Eashoa and he is ready to help whoever calls upon him.
If there is not enough love he will provide it, if there is not enough peace he will give it, if there is not enough faith he will distribute it.
He is a story-teller and those who hear will learn the power of stories to create belief when there is doubt, to create love when there is hate, to create faith where there is fear.
The children are special for they are open to the full possibilities of Eashoa’s stories, they believe for there is no-one else.
For the adults who may have missed it as children or forgotten it, there will come times when having done everything they knew they still remain in a mess. There are stories for them too of how when no one else could Eashoa came not judging but ready to save them.
In those moments of powerlessness, the choice was to admit or deny. The only way to receive from Eashoa was to ask thereby admitting that we were powerless and our lives had become unmanageable.
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