Three-stepping

As many of you know, I have been in an intensive 12 step study.

My class has been specifically for codependence.

Through this class and working the 12 steps, I have personally experienced God's healing hand.

I wish everyone could feel the peace and power that I have.

It has been hard work, but worth every step and every tear.

I wanted to share the first three steps in abbreviation.

1-I can't do this anymore.

2- God can.

3- I think I will let Him.

I have learned that I will be "three-stepping" for the rest of my life. It can be a one step occurrence, but in that one step, we figure out that we can hand ourselves over to God's care. And when we do it, it feels so good that we want to keep doing it. This simple concept actually works. It works miracles.

LG asked me last week how I had become the zen master. He wanted to know what I had done with his wife. I am living in a state of peace. And that's not like me. Not like me at all.

How did I do it? I let God do it for me! For the first time in my life, I learned how to hand my whole self over. The 12 steps taught me how to get past myself. I literally had to take myself out as the boundary between God and me. Taking out the unhealthy Alice gave God the power to emerge a whole new creature. My new creature knows how to trust. And she places her trust in God. Because why place my trust in anything else? God is the one who is all powerful. Before I thought I could pretend to be Him; I tried to control the universe. And all I was doing was getting in God's way.

I can't believe my mouth. It is constantly saying things like this:

God's got my back.

God knows what's best.

God can deal with that.

God won't let me suffer anything that isn't absolutely necessary.

God loves me.

God will bless me.

And I believe all of these things with all my heart. Because God showed me how to trust.

So when you see a US coin, and it has a simple little message in it. "In God we trust." Know that those four words really do hold all power to your happiness.

You probably think that you already trust God. I sure didn't think that I wasn't trusting God adequately. At 21, I turned my whole life over to be a full-time missionary. Hadn't I got married to who He told me to marry? I had kids way earlier than I wanted to because He told me to. I kept the commandments to the best of my ability. I went to church every Sunday. I paid a full tithe. I prayed and studied scripture.

But it was all mechanical. And I was a mess. Because when the mortgage wasn't going to get paid, I fretted. When the kids fought, I felt like a failure. When I couldn't really be there for people like I thought I should, I couldn't deal with it. When people were unkind to me, I fell apart. When I didn't get my way, I would be angry.

And now, you can slap me in my face, and I will praise my God for giving me a face and you a hand. And I will know that if you walk away from me forever I can stand on my own two feet because God will hold them in place.

And that is the power of three stepping. In God I trust. And you just can't believe how good God really is. He wants to hold me and comfort me and make me happy. He doesn't want to tell me what I am doing wrong. He wants me to know how everything He created in me, was by His hand and for His purposes.

I have learned this concept of trusting in the Lord my whole life. It had specific relativity in 1994 when I met my husband while we were both missionaries, yet he had a girlfriend waiting for him at home. I knew he was my husband yet there was nothing I could do but keep serving my mission and hope for the best. I couldn't even talk to LG about it because missionaries don't date. I read this message over and over. You would think I would have gotten the hang of trusting then, but I didn't completely.

It wasn't until I went back to the little girl Alice and convinced her that trusting was the right thing to do, that I could give my whole self over. Somehow the little girl Alice who had been disappointed or neglected or let down wouldn't let the grown up Alice let go.

But the little girl Alice and her 37 year old counterpart have finally come together because of God's power. And the only way I could make it happen was by letting God do it for me.

Can you tell I am in a really good place right now?

Trusting is phenomenal. And I just learned how to spell that word this morning. It took me 15 minutes of searching online. Phenomenal is a great way to feel.

Trust = phenomenal.

If you aren't feeling phenomenal, then ask yourself what is keeping you from trusting? And go back to that time and place and tell yourself to trust in God. He's got your back. Really.