A series on Addiction Recovery

I was out last week at a family reunion, so did not post. While I was gone, Real Intent ran a great series on Addiction Recovery that is worth a look, even if you aren’t directly affected by addiction. There were four posts. (Ok, so I wrote two of them….)

A series at Real Intent on Addiction Recovery and the church’s 12-step program:

Addiction Recovery for Real Life

ARP and me

Addiction and Recovery Questions

Relapse, Repentance and Redemption

I hope you enjoy them.

On Playing God

I did a workshop at our stake’s women’s conference, and I blogged about it at Real Intent (you can read that blog here).

The presentation was based on the 12-steps of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program which are, in turn, based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which are, in turn, a straightforward way of applying the atonement to our lives.

The first three steps are all about our relationship with ourselves, God and other people. And they’re especially important for people who aren’t necessarily addicted.

One of the cornerstone doctrines of the gospel is agency – the ability that we have to act for ourselves, to make our own choices and enjoy (or suffer) the consequences of those choices. “God will force no man to heaven,” or so the hymn says.

In the first three steps of a 12-step program, once acknowledges his own powerlessness over his addiction (and, in the case of a program like AlAnon or Families Anonymous for co-dependents, over other people), the power of God to restore us, and the willingness to turn ourselves and our lives over to God.

For people who grow up reciting the first few Articles of Faith, this should be boilerplate stuff.  We believe in God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost; we believe we’ll be punished for our own sins and not Adam’s transgression; and we believe that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. We are taught from our earliest years that we get to choose, that we are agents unto ourselves, and that the fact that we are here on earth is already proof of our having chosen well at least once.

And yet, most of us who grow to adulthood try to limit the agency of others at one time or another. After acceptable rules of persuasion fail, we try to force our friends or our enemies to do things our way as kids. As parents, we learn by trial and error how much we can force our children to behave. As spouses we learn, often through sad experience, that D&C 121 is right – we really can’t compel others to behave in a certain way.

I’ve heard some say that trying to control outcomes for others is trying to play God. But even God does not control the outcome. He offers a choice and we make a choice. Our choice determines the outcome. Of course God facilitates the choice, and the path back to Him if we choose poorly. After all He loves us and His grace extends to each of us if we choose to accept it.

As a parent, the hardest lessons I’ve learned have been the understanding that I must let go. Now a loving parent doesn’t hold a child out a third story window and then let go. Instead, the parent does all he can to teach, guide, direct, protect, make safe, and then he lets go. And even when a parent lets go, he doesn’t leave his child alone. Good parents establish rules and boundaries with real consequences so that children learn early that with choice comes accountability. And consistent and fair consequences often do a better job of teaching than any lecture Mom or Dad could give.

Now six of my seven children have approached that point at which they begin to separate from us. All kids do it (or should), usually in the mid-to-late teenage years. Some of the separations have been easier than others. Some of our kids have separated but maintained the standards and patterns they learned at home. Others couldn’t run for the exit fast enough. A few have separated in fits and starts – wanting to be independent, but not really wanting to be independent.

Our job as parents – impossible as it seems – is to prepare them to leave, not to prepare them to stay. I learned some time ago that I cannot judge my success as a parent by the choices my children make. But I have learned there are things I can do to help them learn to separate themselves from me. I can help them see consequences. I can help them think a little longer term than the end of the hour or day or week. I can engage them in conversation and invite them to formulate and express their opinions (even half-baked ones). I can help them identify their strengths and help them to reinforce those. (Chances are they know their weaknesses better than I do; I am learning I don’t need to point those out, but I can still help them to learn how to work through them if they want to.)

Basically, I do need to play God. He put us here with teachers, trainers, parents, prophets, friends and family to help us to learn to live separately from Him (so we can return to Him). Similarly, I need to help my children to arm themselves to live separately from me.

What do you think? What has worked for you in helping your children to be independent?

Expectations of Control

This is number two in a series of I don't know how many installments, and I don't know how long it will take for me to tire myself out on this subject. I promise I won't only cover this topic over the next while, but it so happens this one follows the introductory post, here.

In 12-step programs, one of the hallmarks is identifying through a personal inventory the sources of resentment in a person's life and working through them. Often, the resentments lead a person to the behaviors that bring him to the 12-step program – substance abuse, eating disorders, co-dependence and so on. It stands to reason, then, that helping to sort through the underlying resentments helps a person to have the strength to deal with the addictive behavior in his life.

(Most 12-step programs will not try to cure a person of his addictions; indeed Step One makes clear that the addicted person cannot resolve the addiction on his own, and most people acknowledge that addiction is a life-long condition that requires management, like diabetes, rather than a cure.)

In my case – and this is true for many people who work through the steps (and I believe that most Latter-day Saints would benefit from working the steps, even though most of us are not addicts) – I discovered that nearly all of my resentments came from unmet expectations.

More specifically for me, I had an expectation about the outcome of events, I tried to control those outcomes, and I failed; resentment (and often more powerful emotions) followed.

One of the hallmarks of the “Anon” programs designed for family members of addicted loved ones (for instance, Al-Anon) is the giving up of expectations. It’s not unusual for a frustrated parent to say, “I expect to be treated with respect,” or “I expect my son to clean his room.” That construction raises a red flag because unmet expectations lead to resentment, and our lack of control over other people leads to unmet expectations. By establishing un-meetable expectations, we set ourselves up for recurring resentments.

A popular saying I’ve heard in 12-step recovery is this: You have a right to be treated with respect, but cannot expect it to happen. What that really means is that one has the right to choose how to react when he or she is not treated with respect, for instance.

Parents sometimes couch their family hopes and dreams in terms of expectations: We expect our children to study hard, to go to church, to serve missions, and so on. Experienced parents learn over time that they do not own their children’s future or their dreams. Just because I think my daughter should be a doctor does not mean she thinks she should be a doctor. And in the end, she will be the one choosing.

When I am successful at curbing my expectations, I am calmer about outcomes that are different from what I may have hoped for. I am more accepting and tolerant of other points of view. And I am happier.

Happiness, Salvation, Redemption, Mercy – Final

(This is part IV. Part I is here; Part II is here; Part III is here.)

One of the hallmarks of King Benjamin’s address to the Nephites is the concept of retaining a remission of one’s sins. I really began to clue into that idea during my freshman Book of Mormon class at BYU (taught, as many of the Book of Mormon classes were, by a non-Religion Department faculty member). And I have continued to mull it over ever since.

In the context of Part III of this series, once we do our inventory, see God’s help, and make amends, then what? How do I go on from there?

First, I need some daily (or regular) way of staying on track. I need somehow to rededicate myself to the Lord each day and to seek His will for my life. And I need to check myself each day to see how I’m doing, and if I get off course, I need to do something about it – fast. I remember hearing Elder Eyring speak about praying in the morning to know who he could help and reporting back in his prayers at the end of the day on how he’d done. This daily checking-in with the Lord helps us to remain on the path back home.

But simply renewing my covenants either in daily prayer or with the sacrament each Sunday is not enough according to King Benjamin.

I also need to reach out to others. King Benjamin speaks at length about caring for the poor, giving to the beggar, meeting the needs of those around us. Of course in the gospel there are lots of cues to reach outside ourselves. Certainly caring for the poor and needy is among those (important enough now to be a fourth part of the church’s mission according to the new handbooks). But we have other ways in which we give service, from home teaching to temple service to missionary service. Not only can we strengthen the financially poor but also the spiritually poor. We can comfort those who stand in need of comfort, lift of the hands that hang down.

To me, it’s important that this service follows the specific self-inventory that I described in Step III. When my father gave his talk in church my first week home from my mission about conducting a personal inventory, it was after he had lived for nearly two years in Africa, away from the organized church where he and my mother held a small sacrament meeting each week in their living room. Sometimes it was just the two of them. About twice a month one other expat in Lagos joined them. And occasionally the missionary couples that had come to Nigeria and Ghana were in town and joined them, too (though usually they were off forming new units of the church). He had gone through that self-inventory process in his relative isolation in West Africa, and he came home with a different view of church service and of himself.

In recovery circles, the last of the twelve steps is about service to the recovery community and sharing the hope of recovery with others who may need it. In the church, we share missionary moments in priesthood meeting, pray for missionary experiences, and seek for ways to share the joy we have found in the gospel. And, as King Benjamin taught, we give of our surplus to the poor – perhaps through church donations and perhaps in other ways, too.

This act of reaching out to others, once we are spiritually healthy enough to do it, is how we can lose ourselves so that we may live.

Happiness, Salvation, Redemption, Mercy – Part III

(Part I here. Part II here. Note: Today's entry is longer than I had expected. I thought about breaking it up into two or three parts, but decided to charge ahead instead.)

Somewhere early in my time in the church (with my parents and siblings, I was a convert at about age 9) I learned the “Rs” of repentance. Today I can no longer remember them all, though Remose and Restitution were among them.

I had it in my head early on that repentance was to be a sin-by-sin experience. Maybe this was influenced by the teaching I received in Primary in those early days, maybe by my Catholic friends who went to confession each week and rattled off the week’s sins to their priest.

I was never quite sure that I was repenting right in those days. Sometimes I’d try to list my daily mistakes in my prayers, and finally as a teenager, laziness or efficiency got the better of me and I simply prayed to be forgiven of whatever mistakes I’d made that day. Once in a great while there was what I perceived to be a bigger sin for which I sought forgiveness and in those instances I spent more time on those items in prayer.

I served my mission in Germany just about the time a newer translation of the Book of Mormon was coming out (that translation has since been replaced by yet another one, I think). The translator spoke to us missionaries about how he translated the word repent, using a verb which mean “to turn” rather than the Catholic expression which had been in the original translation that was closer to “do penance.” Language issues aside, the notion that repentance was a turning stuck with me, and it’s influenced my thinking about repentance ever since.

I was teaching priesthood a number of years ago and the subject of the lesson was repentance. While I was teaching an example occurred to me: If I were one of those people holding on to the iron rod, moving toward the tree with the wonderful fruit, and somehow I lost my hold on the rod when I entered the mists of darkness, what would I do?

The first thing I’d do (I hope!) is stop moving. By stopping I would ceasing moving farther from the rod. Then I would try to find my way back to the rod. That might involve calling out for help. It might involve turning around and going back the way I came (assuming I could figure that out in the fog). But it would start with my stopping and standing still.

Repentance, as the second great principle of the gospel, is a key to having access to the atonement. It is for me not so much a one-for-one accounting for each sin of my life (though it may involve that) as a turning away from my natural man and turning toward the Savior as Moses (and three different Book of Mormon prophets) taught.

In recovery circles, there is a prescribed process that really works. Once one has (as we discussed in the last installment) admitted there are certain things he cannot do (that is, humbled himself), and that God can do those things and more, and that he’s willing to submit to the will of God, then he’s ready to begin the process of repenting.


PERSONAL INVENTORY

It begins with a personal inventory of positive and negative qualities – of strengths and weaknesses, if you will. It’s more than a list. It’s really a personal examination of who we are. You don’t have to be a 12-step program to benefit from this kind of individual analysis. It can help anyone who wants to cleanse the inner vessel.

I remember my first Sunday home from my mission was our ward’s ward conference, and my father spoke in that meeting about the value of an occasional personal inventory in which we evaluate our lives compared to the expectations and standards our Father in Heaven has set. It rang true to me then as a great idea, and it still does.

There are as many ways to complete an inventory as there are people who have done it, but one way is think about the times in our lives when we felt acute emotion – great happiness or sadness, love or resentment, gratitude or stinginess. Write down those incidents in a list. Write enough of a description to know what they are. Then write the emotions felt while the thing was happening. Try to get to primary emotions, not just anger or happiness, and be as descriptive about the emotions as possible. (Think about those “Today I Feel” refrigerator magnets that were so popular a few years ago.)

Then write your part in the emotions. This is the hardest part. Did you feel resentment because you failed to communicate your need? Did you feel left out because you were too shy to join in? The point of this part is to identify not where we are victims (and sometimes we may be legitimate victims, though maybe not as often as we might think on the surface), but where we are actors contributing to our own state of well-being. If we do it right, this part can be remarkably liberating as we realize that, although there is a lot over which we do not have control, there are some things over which we do, namely how we act. Knowing which is which is really valuable.

Finally in our inventory, we can include what spiritual guidance we may have felt as we’ve considered each of these incidents in our lives. Doing so can invite the spirit as we prayerfully consider the scriptures and other material that might guide us.

(Doing the inventory might take months, but it also might take a day; each person is different. One person may be ready to tackle his whole life at once; another might choose to deal with one section of his life at a time. The first time I did such an inventory, I ended up writing my personal history of my first 50 years; it was an awesome experience.)

Once we complete this exercise, patterns are likely to emerge. We’re likely to see that in certain settings our reactions are similar. We’re likely to get a pretty clear view of our own strengths and shortcomings, and that’s just what we want to do.

Once we have that list, we ought to share it, certainly with God, but also with a trusted friend. There’s real power in sharing our inventory with another living and breathing person. Doing so shines light on our list of strengths and shortcomings; it really names those things and gives them weight for us.


ASK GOD FOR HELP

Having done an inventory and shared our list with another person, we’re ready to submit to God again by preparing ourselves and then asking God to remove our shortcomings. This element is really important, because I did not say we take our list of shortcomings and work on them by ourselves. That’s because it doesn’t work to try to do it by ourselves. The power to change is in the atonement, and the only way to have real, lasting, powerful change is to have the Savior do it. Look and live. We put ourselves in the position to ask for that help by honoring our covenants and doing our best to keep commandments. And then we ask God to remove our shortcomings.

Some he might remove quickly. Others not so much. But even if he doesn’t remove them completely, the process of asking puts us in the position as submitting to His will (which is what King Benjamin says we need to do to overcome the natural man). As we do our best (which does not mean “as we are perfect”) in keeping covenants and commandments, God blesses us with insight, understanding, compassion, charity, faith and all kinds of things.

God may not remove the shortcoming that we hate the most. He probably won’t remove all our weakness, because our weakness draws us back to Him. Remember the apostle Paul never had that thorn in his flesh removed, despite his intense desire and his submitting to the will of God repeatedly in his life.


MAKE AMENDS

Once we have done a real inventory and taken our list of shortcomings to God and asked him to remove them, then we are ready to seek to restore that which may have been lost because of our sin. In recovery parlance, we make amends. In my Primary Rs, we’re taking about restitution. Return the value of the chicken we stole. Rebuild the relationship we’ve harmed. Do whatever we can to make up for our shortcomings.

It’s a scary thing, trying to make amends. We may still feel that others owe US the amends because of what they have done to us. But if we’re repenting, we can’t make our repentance conditional upon someone else’s. So in the process of seeking forgiveness from others, we may have to forgive the very people from whom we are seeking forgiveness. Again, this is the time for the atonement to shine in our hearts.

Christ suffered every pain we suffer. There is no pain, physical, emotional, spiritual or of any other nature that he does not understand by his own experience. So he can comfort us as we try to make amends for mistakes we’ve made.

Amends or restitution or restoration is about much more than an apology, but it probably includes an apology. And some wrongs we simply cannot right on our own. We cannot return someone’s faith or someone’s virginity, for instance. But we can lead righteous and virtuous lives and offer as much comfort and support as the person to whom we seek to make amends will allow.

Sometimes that person does not want anything to do with us. That’s ok. Our amends are not about forcing ourselves on someone else. It’s our best effort to make up for what we did wrong. We offer the gift; if it’s not accepted, then we can move on. In some cases, the injured party may need to see a long pattern of new behavior before he or she will accept the amends we offer, and that’s ok.

So, in this installment, we talked about writing an inventory, sharing it, preparing to and then asking God to remove our shortcomings, and about forgiveness and making amends. These actions are, for me, the very key to unlocking the power of the atonement in our lives. I only know that because I have felt the power and blessings of the atonement in my life as I have done these things.

In the final installment, we’ll consider what King Benjamin called retaining a remission of our sins.

Happiness, Salvation, Redemption, Mercy – Part II

See Part I here.

In my last post, I introduced the idea of seeking the blessings of the atonement in our lives. This is, in my view, the essence of the gospel. King Benjamin talks about retaining a remission of our sins, which happens after we first obtain a remission of our sins, which is only possible through the infinite atonement, offered by our perfect Elder Brother, Jesus Christ. It is a gift which we must claim in order to enjoy its full benefits. (Some benefits, such as resurrection, will accrue to us regardless of our efforts, but the full blessings of the atonement require us to seek them.)

For me, the first leg of the journey is understanding something about God and something about me. I must understand that, as Moses said after his great vision recorded in the Pearl of Great Price, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed” (1:10). King Benjamin said something similar in his great address when he reminds us that we are all beggars before God.

In the language of 12-step recovery, we learn that there are certain things we simply do not control, no matter how hard we try. Among those things are other people, and sometimes even our own weakness as human beings. This is a crucial element of allowing the atonement to work on us, realizing that we are not about changing ourselves, but we are working to change through the atonement. (More on that in the next part of the series.)

At the same time, the things we cannot control are things God could control if He chooses to, because he is powerful enough to do it. (He has told us there are some things He also will not control because he has granted man his agency.)

Moses understood his relationship to God: He was created in the image of God. He was a child a God. And he was allowed by God to see the things he saw. He did not have power in and of himself to do those things, but God did have the power, and God allowed him to do it. When Satan came calling, Moses recognized instantly – despite his recognition that he was nothing compared to God – that he had power over Satan. He recognized that Satan was not a source of light as God was. And he recognized that Satan was not someone he had to listen to. And despite his fear, despite the temptation to do otherwise, he sent Satan packing. Awesome story. Awesome lesson.

In the rooms of recovery, they say, “I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let Him.” It means, I know there are things I cannot control in my life, and as long as I try to control them I cannot find happiness. But God can help me live with what I can’t control, and I can give myself over to Him and find peace, so I think I’ll let God do His job and I’ll do mine.

Of course King Benjamin taught the same lesson a different way. He said the natural man is an enemy to God, and we cannot overcome the natural man unless we submit to the will of God, just as a child willingly submits to his father. If I’m really, really ready to turn my life over to God, then I’m approaching where Moses and King Benjamin say I need to be. Then I’m exhibiting the faith in Jesus Christ that I mentioned in the last installment. Then I’m almost ready to be thinking about repentance. Then I’m beginning to look to Christ so that I can live.

In the next installment, I’ll look at specific things we can do, having really submitted ourselves to the Father, ways we can act in faith that will invite the blessings of the atonement into our lives.

See Part III here.

Happiness, Salvation, Redemption, Mercy

You’ve heard of The Plan. I remember a not-too-distant discussion of the Plan of Salvation that bemoaned the fact that we get mired down with roadmaps from pre-mortal existence to earth to spirit world to final judgment to an assignment to a kingdom, and we miss the point.

The Plan of Salvation, The Plan of Happiness, The Plan of Redemption, The Plan of Mercy is all about the atonement.

That is the Good News, the Gospel, that Christ has come to redeem us from our sins.

Alma explains to Corianton (both of whom learned first-hand about redemption):

And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also (42:15).

Alma had explained that without the atonement of Christ, we could never repent; we could not escape the effects of our sin, and we could never return home to Father in Heaven. But Christ did suffer for us in Gethsemane and on the cross. Christ was resurrected. And in so doing, He opened the way for us to enjoy the blessings of His mercy by repenting of our sins, turning from our weakness and turning to Him. (That's Liz Lemon Swindle's depiction of Christ in Gethsemane, by the way.)

Over the next few posts, I intend to talk about the atonement and its effect on my life and on the life of others. I suggest that the atonement is what allows us to change, to improve ourselves. The atonement is the key to the Lord’s mercy, without which we would be doomed.

I do not intend to enter into a debate about faith vs. works. I do not intend to split hairs about grace. Let me simply state that the grace of God allows us the opportunity to repent. Were it not for the grace of God, we would have no such alternative, and we would be consigned to live forever in our sin.

And make no mistake: we all live in sin. All of us. The Savior was the only perfect example. And that means that no matter how moral, no matter how well meaning, no matter how active in the church, no matter what leadership calling one may hold, we are all sinners. Period. King Benjamin was pretty clear on the topic, and if he was a beggar before God, then I certainly am.

So the question is, how do we allow the atonement to work on us? Is there something we can do to take advantage of this remarkable gift, available to all of God’s children?

The first principles and ordinances of the gospel give us a clue: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will lead us to a desire to draw nearer to Him. That desire may inspire us to want to change, to repent, to turn to Him, to look to Him and live. As we do so, we will want to covenant to be His, a covenant we make at baptism and renew with the sacrament. And as we remember Him always and seek to keep his commandments, He will send the Comforter, the right to which we also receive by priesthood ordinance.

Having said that, I hope in the next few posts to think about how we can walk that path. My thoughts will come in three chunks: First, what can I do compared with what God can do. Second, What are those steps of repentance, and how do I really do it? And finally, having done it, how can I stay on the path?

I hope you’ll come back for the next three posts. I welcome your comments along the way, as always.

Part II here.

The next step

In recovery circles, one often hears the slogans “One day at a time” and “One step at a time.” Those slogans recognize that for an addict, an alcoholic or a co-dependent, change is neither instantaneous nor permanent.

Of course that’s true for all of us. We take the sacrament each week because we simply cannot keep our baptismal covenant perfectly. We need to repent as we go along.

There’s another less-used slogan in recovery circles that says “Take the next step.” That slogan may refer to moving from one of the twelve steps to the next one. But more often it is about identifying the right next thing to do.

An anecdote: I have this vague recollection of sometime in grade school when a teacher told us that we cannot add three numbers at the same time. I was a bright kid, and have been argumentative since I could walk, so I bristled at the notion that I could not add three numbers at once. I could clearly look at 1+3+4 and know that they equal 8. My teacher’s point, of course, was that my brain actually did it in two steps: 1+3=4, and 4+4=8. Even if I did those calculations very quickly, I still only added two numbers at once.

Just as I cannot add three numbers at once, but must add the first two, then add the third to the result, so I can only take the next step in my life, whatever that is. And the most important thing to my spiritual development is my next step.

Hence, the value of the slogan, “Take the next step.”

Yes, I can fix my eye on the long term goal. I can look to the horizon to see where I am going. But in the end, the only way I get to my end is one step at a time. And my most important step is my next one.

I’ve long held that if we think of our journey back to Heavenly Father as a long path, we’re probably all on different spots on the path. Brother X may be ahead of me, and Brother Y may be behind me, but I am where I am. I can’t judge my progress relative to others, because for me, the only thing for me to worry about is my next step.

Similarly, I can’t judge my fellow path-walkers based on my progress. Brother X who is ahead of me may be having just as great a struggle with his next step as I am. Just because he’s ahead of me on the path does not mean his road is easier than mine. And Brother Y who is behind me needs to concentrate on his next step, not mine. I may offer Brother X the security of knowing someone is behind him to support him if he stumbles, and I may offer Brother Y a hand as he steps forward, but for my progress, my next step is my concern.

Especially since we are a missionary church, it should not surprise us that we are scattered all over the path. Some may hear a talk about family scripture study and find it inspirational and uplifting and encouraging because it matches well with their next step. Others may hear it and dismiss it because they aren’t there yet. Both responses may be completely appropriate.

Acknowledging we are at different places on the path does not excuse sin, nor does it eliminate the need for standards of worthiness. But it may help us to view one another with compassion as we move along our way.

From weakness strength

My present church assignment is to work in the Addiction Recovery Program as a group leader. The Addiction Recovery Program, and its companion the Family Support Group (not yet available everywhere), are there to assist those struggling with addiction and also to assist their loved ones. They are twelve-step approaches to help one -- either an addict or a loved one -- learn to enter recovery.

I’m not new to twelve step programs; I actively participated in another 12-step program before working with ARP (and I still participate there). One of the things we do in a 12-step program is to acknowledge our own powerlessness over addiction and over the lives of others. In accepting our own powerlessness, we also admit our own weakness.

We spend a lot of time in addiction recovery talking about weakness, and one of the steps of recovery is to prepare to have God to remove our character weaknesses; the next is to ask God to remove our shortcomings.

What I’ve wondered about over the last while is the difference between our weakness and our weaknesses.

Often when people (including me, like here) paraphrase the weakness scriptures (2 Nephi 33:4, Jacob 4:7, Ether 12:27, to note a few) they say God will make our weaknesses into strength. But Ether 12:27 reads:

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

This verse talks about weakness, not weaknesses. In fact, all of the verses in the topical guide on this subject use the collective noun weakness, not the plural noun weaknesses.

It makes me wonder just what that weakness is. I think about what King Benjamin taught:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father (Mosiah 3:19).

I wonder if our weakness is our natural-ness –- the fact that by our nature we are not submissive; by our nature we do not yield to the enticings of the spirit. Any individual weaknesses I have stem from this overarching weakness, namely that I am natural.

In both Ether and Mosiah we read the remedy: we must come unto Christ. We must humble ourselves. We must yield to the enticings of the Spirit. We must accept the blessings of the atonement in our lives. We must have faith. We must submit.

In those acts of submission, those acts of humility before God, those moments of faith we become strong. We receive the power of the atonement in our lives and become prepared to yield to the enticings of the spirit.

As we, through the grace of Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice, conquer our weakness as humans, God will help us conquer our weaknesses through the blessings of the atonement.

God: Good; Me: Bad? No!

I listened to a Mormon Channel Conversations podcast yesterday featuring Rodney K. Smith, former president of Southern Virginia University. I’d recommend the interview to anyone: Brother Smith is a legal scholar and educator and an experienced academic administrator. He articulated a unique vision for SVU that I had not previously appreciated, and his own conversion story was great to hear.

That said, Brother Smith mentioned a concept in relation to his own life and to one of the guiding principles for SVU that stuck in my craw. It’s not an uncommon idea, and it’s frankly one I have espoused in my life before. Basically, he said that when something good happens, he thanks God; when something bad happens, he blames himself. He calls it accountability. I used to call it humility.

Now I call it unhealthy.

Don’t get me wrong: I started this post speaking highly of Brother Smith. I do not intend to attack him or his ideas here, and I suspect I’ve drawn more meaning out of his two-second comment than it deserves. This post is about my idea, one that I myself used to espouse, not about Brother Smith. He simply reminded me.

We should be accountable for our failures and our successes. It’s healthy to examine what went wrong and what we have power to change in the future. But it’s equally healthy to examine what we did right that led to success so that we might repeat it.

Attributing all success to God and all failure to us robs us of a part of the blessing of the atonement, namely the power to improve.

Don’t get me wrong (again): We should praise God. We should thank him for every blessing in our lives. Without Him, His plan of happiness, the atoning sacrifice of His son, we would be nothing. As King Benjamin teaches, we are beggars, and we are regularly blessed, even in ways we do not see. We owe our Father in Heaven a debt of gratitude, and we should offer thanks continually. The very fact that we can improve is by the grace of God and through the atonement of our Savior.

Still, when I stay up late working on a project for my employer and deliver more than is required I want my employer to reward my efforts. I don’t go to work for the fun of it; I go to be compensated so that I can support my family (and I’m very fortunate – even blessed! – to have the job I do). So when I succeed at work, I also want the commensurate rewards. Do I also thank God for facilitating that success? Of course I do: He gave me opportunity in my life to learn; He gave me intellect; He gave me health. But I used those God-given gifts to the advantage of my employer. And so I want my employer to reward me (and I believe God does, too).

Attributing all success to God and all failure to ourselves is not humility. And it’s not accountability.

Accountability is reporting on my stewardship – good and bad. When the ruler gave various talents to his servants (see Matthew 25), they then accounted for their efforts – one returning ten for five, one four for two, and one returning only his original talent. Each of those servants was held accountable; two were rewarded and one was not.

Focusing only on my failures is false humility, and it is unhealthy. If I see myself as one who only fails, how can I enjoy the blessing of the atonement in my life? The Savior suffered that we might live. Failing to accept that gift suggests that it has no value to me.

In twelve step programs, participants engage in a fearless written moral inventory, including their weaknesses and their strengths. Most veteran 12-steppers understand the value of remembering our strengths as we engage in self-examination. There is something of value in each of us, something worth saving, worth building upon. If we seek to be like Christ, then we must also find his qualities in us, however weak, however small, so that those qualities may grow. As we see them grow in us, we recognize that the atonement is working for us and on us; we value the Savior’s gift.

Let me conclude with the words of Elder Uchdorf from the Priesthood session of conference in October 2010. He was speaking about pride, as a postscript to President Benson’s landmark address on that subject just over two decades earlier:

I also remember one interesting side effect of President Benson’s influential talk. For a while it almost became taboo among Church members to say that they were “proud” of their children or their country or that they took “pride” in their work. The very word pride seemed to become an outcast in our vocabulary.

In the scriptures we find plenty of examples of good and righteous people who rejoice in righteousness and at the same time glory in the goodness of God. Our Heavenly Father Himself introduced His Beloved Son with the words “in whom I am well pleased.”

Alma gloried in the thought that he might “be an instrument in the hands of God.” The Apostle Paul gloried in the faithfulness of members of the Church. The great missionary Ammon gloried in the success he and his brothers had experienced as missionaries.

I believe there is a difference between being proud of certain things and being prideful.

I do, too. I believe we can feel good about our successes. We can thank God for our blessings, but still recognize the value of what we, as His children, can do.

The Power of Worrying

There’s plenty to worry about in the world. Macro events, micro events. Global warming, unusual weather patterns, natural disasters, war. Family concerns. What the kids are up to. Will one's job last? Will one finish school? Will one get accepted into school? And on and on.

All of these things (and more!) can disturb our peace of mind.

The question is, does worrying do any good?

Not for me.

Part of the point of the gospel is to bring us peace. Consider the Savior’s words to Peter and the apostles prior to the Lord’s atoning sacrifice. Just after he prophecies that Peter will deny him three times, the Savior says, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). Later in the same chapter he says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (verse 27).

Don’t worry. (Resist the urge to hum like Bobby McFerrin.)

Telling someone not to worry is a little like telling someone not to think about an elephant. The first thing that comes to mind is the elephant. The best ways not to think of an elephant is to think actively about other things. In John 14, the Lord reminds his apostles of the many mansions in his father’s house. He does the same thing in Doctrine and Covenants 98. Think about those mansions in heaaven.

Taking the long view seems standard counsel for those who suffer privations in this world. And it works for me.

I often write about my experience with the 12 steps of recovery. The first three steps are commonly summarized in this triplet: “I can’t. God can. I think I’ll let him.” Those first steps are all about what’s in my power to control and what isn’t. For the alcoholic or addict, the addiction is not in his control. For the loved one of an addict, the addiction (or any person) is not in his control.

A friend of mine recommended once that I ask myself a question when I begin to worry: “Whose problem is this?” If it’s mine, then I can worry about it only enough to do something about it. If it’s not mine, then I ought to stop worrying about it and focus on things I can do.

One way for me to stop worrying about things that aren’t mine is to focus, as my friend recommended, on my own knitting. Another is, as the Savior taught, to take the long view. Sometimes I do an exercise that walks me to the most awful possible conclusion of a particular concern. Then I take a deep breath and tell myself (out loud), “And that’s ok.” And it is. In the long run, the eternal scheme of things, I can accept much more now than I used to.

But if I had to rely on myself alone, I doubt I could do it. I also require the grace of the atonement to calm my troubled heart. My faith lifts and supports me when I need it most.

In the end, Emma Lou Thayne’s text describes my experience. The last two verses of “Where Can I Turn For Peace”:

Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.

He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end. (Hymns, 129)

Turning Weakness Into Strength

Ten days ago I wrote about personal inventories, and a week ago, I wrote about sharing those inventories.

An inventory will likely include at least three things: some strengths (what we’re good at), some weaknesses (what we’re not so good at), and maybe some sins (what we’ve done wrong).

There is for me a key difference between weakness and sin. To me, a weakness is a lack of strength. It is an area where I may not have a natural talent, or where I may struggle with a particular temptation. A sin, on the other hand, is action taken by me to transgress God’s law. My sin may grow out of weakness. But it may also grow out of strength if my pride (a weakness) leads me to overestimate my strength.

Scriptures teach us that the redemptive nature of the atonement can save us from sin if we repent, and it can help us turn our weakness to strength. If I identify physical weakness, I might engage in a program of exercise and physical training to overcome that weakness. I may be more successful if I engage the help of a guide who understands the science of exercise. My personal efforts may lead directly to my overcoming my weakness.

Heber J. Grant is famous for overcoming his weakness in baseball and handwriting. Persistence and exercise helped him.

When I struggled with my response to stress in my life, a professional therapist helped me work a series of exercises that allowed me to have better control over my response to that stress, contributing to an improvement in my relationship with my wife and children.

Our trials may reveal weaknesses. In Ether we read:

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them (Ether 12:27).

In addition to whatever we may do by ourselves, the power of the atonement can also help us to overcome our weaknesses. That change may not come on our timetable, and we may not be able to control the outcome of that change. But it can come.

In the twelve-step program, the next step after sharing our inventory is preparing to have God remove our weaknesses, and then asking him to do so. Those steps make me think of Lamoni’s father who was willing to give away all his sins to know God (Alma 22:18). I think of preparing ourselves to have God remove our weaknesses like a visit to a chiropractor: the chiropractor aligns the spine for optimal performance; we align ourselves to God’s will for our optimal performance.

In the case of sin, we can repent. In the case of weakness, it’s not really repentance we need, but grace. In the case of our strengths, it’s humility. All three come to us through the atonement.

After Inventory, What?

On Monday, I posted about the value of a personal inventory.

Once we’ve done the inventory, then what? On the surface it seems pretty simple: repent where we need to. Once we recognize our sins, we can feel remorse, seek forgiveness, restore what has been lost and never repeat the sin.

But the inventory is about more than sin. It’s also about what we’re doing right in our lives. And it’s about identifying weaknesses that may be different from sin.

Twelve-steppers will move next to confession: telling God and another person about the inventory they’ve done. For me, telling someone else (in the church’s Addiction Recovery Program, a bishop is also included if needed) has a curative effect. It takes the weaknesses that are buried inside of us and puts them on the table, so to speak. We share the burden. Someone can comfort us, mourn with us, help to bear our burden.

The Savior counsels us to share our burdens with him:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

That passage of scripture actually shows what’s next for twelve-steppers (and the rest of us if we’re wise): after we share the burdens, then we take up the Lord’s yoke. We put ourselves in a position to have him remove our weaknesses.

More on that in my next post.

But as for that sharing of our inventory: it’s not as scary as it seems. I have done a personal inventory and shared it with my wife. She was not surprised by anything on my list. She had been living with me for over 25 years and knew me pretty well. In fact, my list had some positives and some negatives. And, bless her heart, she added another positive item to my list that I had left off.

But the power of sharing the list gave me courage to seek to turn weaknesses into strengths.

Fiery Serpents or Closed For Inventory

My first Sunday home from my mission was ward conference, and my dad was a high councilor at the time. He happened to speak that Sunday in sacrament meeting about the importance of personal inventory. His perspective was interesting. He had recently come home from a long term (about the time of my mission) assignment in Nigeria for his work. While they lived there, my parents had sacrament meeting with just the two of them, plus one other fellow about every other week.

That time was a chance for my folks to think about their relationship with the church, absent church buildings and friends and missionaries and all the trappings of our normal church experience. It gave them a chance to do their own personal inventory.

Participants in 12-step programs are encouraged to do a fearless moral inventory. It’s a critical part to their recovery from addiction or co-dependence. In the 12-step process, the inventory follows the humbling steps of admitting one’s powerlessness, and admitting God’s power in our lives and submitting to His will.

That the inventory is fearless does not mean it is without fear. Everyone I’ve talked to who has undertaken a “Step 4” in a recovery program has done so with some fear. But fearless means in spite of fear, not without fear.

A friend compared that inventory with the fiery serpents. The children of Israel were beset with fiery serpents. Moses put one on his staff and told the children of Israel that they needed to look at the serpent and be saved from their poison.

When we do our inventory, we look at our fiery serpents. We examine what it is in our life that does us harm. We examine our own weakness and our own sin (those aren’t the same, by the way – subject of another post to come). Rarely can we do this once and be done. We (and Ogres) are like onions. We will get so deep in our self-examination in one round and come back another day for more.

The inventory is that first “R” of repentance we learned in Primary: Recognition. It’s that chance for us to stand up against the sign at the roller coaster to see if we measure up: are we tall enough to ride?

What the inventory isn’t is a chance for self-loathing and self-blame. It’s not about how bad we are, but rather about where we are. When Matilda – that voice in my car that gives me turn by turn directions – plots my route, first she has to find out where I am. The personal inventory helps me figure out where I am.

And where I am is a great place to start.

Read my next installment, After Inventory, What? here.

Update: I'm of course not the first to talk about inventories. As Stephen mentions in his comment below, he posted on the same subject at Wheat & Tares in April. I should have referenced his post in my OP, as it was in part the inspiration for mine.

On whether all roads lead to Rome

While I was on my mission (back when we rode dinosaurs to appointments), my last companion somehow got invited to present a paper at a local university in Saarbrücken during a symposium on religion. There were other papers to be presented on a variety of topics, but his was entitled “Alle Wege Führen Nicht Nach Rom” (Not All Roads Lead to Rome).

 

His point, as one might imagine an LDS missionary’s point would be, was that there was only one way back to Heavenly Father, namely through the authorized ordinances of the restored priesthood. He did a credible job presenting; his non-native German was wonderful, and he was well received by the small crowd at the lecture. (We were actually working in a different city; he’d been transferred after he’d committed to present, so he got permission to go back.)

 

As I’ve grown older, I’ve had some different thoughts on the matter. While I agree with my companion that the saving ordinances of the restored priesthood are required for exaltation, how we get to those ordinances may be on very different paths.

 

I have for several years participated in 12-step programs. Part of the concept of most such groups is the acceptance of a Higher Power whose attributes are not specified except to note that the power higher than ourselves can restore us to sanity. The lack of specificity allows people of diverse beliefs to share the benefits of the 12 steps without reference to a particular religion. Many participants I know are Christian, so they have a similar (though perhaps not equal) concept of God to mine. But others do not worship God as we understand him, and still they are able to find a place on the spiritual journey of the steps. I should add that some who come to one of  my 12-Step groups without religion take some time to sort out how to get past the idea of a Higher Power, but many eventually do, finding their higher power in nature or in the group itself or some other way. (The church’s Addiction Recovery Program is different in this point, as one might expect. There, one openly acknowledges Christ’s role in allowing us to change, and rather than restoring us to sanity, he restores us to spiritual health.)

 

I quietly worried about this Higher Power model for my first while in my non-LDS 12-step program. Should I not confess Jesus Christ as my savior? The answer is yes, but the traditions of the program I attend prohibit the discussion of specific religions. In the end, here is how I sorted it out:

 

•  I can believe as I do, but “check my belief at the door” when participating in discussions of a Higher Power in order to allow the group to function as it does. In so doing, I can contribute to the greatest recovery for the greatest number (another part of the organization’s traditions) by avoiding polarizing discussions of religion that have little bearing on the other elements of the program. I do this already in many other aspects of my life. I do not discuss religion at length in the workplace. Nor do I discuss my faith with my doctor or mailman or plumber.

• I can also acknowledge God’s power to reveal Himself to people when He and they are ready. It occurred to me that if others in recovery accept a Higher Power to allow their progress on the spiritual journey of recovery, they will also find God eventually. As they work the steps, they will apply the lessons and blessings of the atonement to their lives, and in that process, God will speak to their hearts in His way and His time. And eventually He will help them to be prepared to take another step and learn about saving ordinances of the gospel. I can respect that God’s timeline is not mine, and I can strive to see if I have a place on His timeline, and I can be patient if I don’t.

• I can share my faith quietly and privately as moved by the Spirit (or invited by others) to do so, just as I can with my co-workers, my doctor, my mailman or my plumber. In the meantime, I can recognize that God has far greater power than I do in the sharing of His word. In recognizing that, I don’t seek to avoid my responsibility to share the gospel, but I recognize that since it’s His work, I can seek to understand His plan for me and act upon that.

 

Gospel truth is gospel truth. If someone learns truth in an LDS sacrament meeting or in self-study of the Bible or in the hands of a Buddhist monk or at the tables of recovery, it is still truth. In time, a person can learn enough truth to begin to want the ordinances of the priesthood. The paths to that point may be quite diverse. And that’s ok.

 

Addiction -- A Family Disease

This is Part II of my wife’s notes from her ward conference presentation to sisters on addiction. Part I is here. I’ve edited her notes slightly for reading.

Addiction is a family disease—the effects of one person active in an addiction will be felt by all who are close to him or her. Family and friends of addicts can feel emotions of hurt, betrayal and loss. They may be overcome by feelings of anger, fear and sorrow. They may ask themselves why this is happening to them or what have I done wrong? They may feel responsible for not helping in the right way or protecting or nurturing family members well enough. They may be trying to keep up appearances that all is well when it is not. They also might feel like they are in a situation that they don’t know how to escape.

Feelings of fear, guilt or shame may dominate their thoughts and affect their relationships with others and with God.

Trust in their addicted love one may be shattered and some even feel that God has failed them by allowing this pain and suffering to come into their lives.

If any of you are like me and have been in this cycle, then you know that where anger and fear exist, there is no peace and faith: one’s emotional and spiritual health are affected. My greatest crises of faith have been a result of my reactions to my loved ones’ addictions.

Even though the snare of addiction is vicious and the consequences of addictive behaviors are destructive -- even disastrous -- to both the addict and his /her loved ones, there is a way to heal and find peace.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Our Savior promised that as we surrender to Him the burdens we carry that we can receive his promise, “…my peace I give unto you…Let not your heart be trouble neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). Healing and lasting peace can come by letting the Savior step in. Using the power of the Atonement to heal the wounds gives us strength and guidance to carry on.

Elder Ballard counsels:

If anyone who is addicted has a desire to overcome, then there is a way to spiritual freedom—a way to escape from bondage—a way that is proven. It begins with prayer—sincere, fervent, and constant communication with … our Heavenly Father. It is the same principle in breaking a bad habit or repenting from sin of any kind…fervent prayer is key to gaining the spiritual strength to find peace. Heavenly Father loves all of His children, so thank Him and express sincere faith in Him. Ask Him for the strength to overcome the addiction [or destructive emotions and thoughts] you are experiencing. Set aside all pride and turn your life and your heart to Him. Ask to be filled with the power of Christ’s pure love. You may have to do this many times, but I testify to you that your body, mind, and spirit can be transformed, cleansed, and made whole, and you will be freed.

A way to follow Elder Ballard’s counsel is through the Addiction Recovery Program.

The Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) is specifically designed by the Church to help those suffering from addiction heal by applying the Atonement through a 12-step program, but makes clear that family members can also benefit from participation. The Family Support Group (FSG, a program similar to AlAnon; FSG is still in the pilot phase and has only limited availability) offers that same help for family members. The first “12 step programs” were developed in the 1930s by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. This inspired program has helped countless individuals find and maintain sobriety and peace in their lives over the years because it is based on the principles of faith, hope, repentance and forgiveness that, when exercised, can allow the Atonement to heal all wounds and change hearts.

The church has based its Addiction Recovery Program and Family Support Group on these 12 steps but has also included teachings from Latter-day Prophets and LDS scriptures in its readings. The program is intensely spiritual and confidential. Anyone can attend these meetings. For more information about these meetings you can ask any member of your Relief Society presidency or your bishop, and there is a geographical listing of meetings online through lds.org.

For any of you who may be suffering any of the effects of addiction your life or the life of someone close to you please know that you are not alone. The Lord loves you and all those around you; He will help you as you come to Him and release you from the bondage you feel. I know because He has been with me as I have walked this path.

FHE Lesson on Overcoming Addiction? Really?

This week’s LDS Living Family Home Evening suggestion was on overcoming addiction. You can read more here.

I’ve been trying to figure out in what context that FHE lesson could possibly make sense. I suppose that FHE lessons by nature tend to be general and require refinement for application in any given family. And the 12-step slogan, “Take what you want and leave the rest” applies, as well.

If the lesson helps families to be aware of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program, then great. Elder Ballard’s talk on addiction, referenced in the material, is also great in its own right. But packaged as a Family Night lesson? I’m still trying to make sense of that.

You see, I have addicted loved ones. I’ve been involved in a 12-step program for several years and my wife and I now serve in our stake’s application of the Addiction Recovery Program and the church’s pilot of the Family Support Group (for families of addicted persons).

The lesson presented in the link introduces the ARP guidebook, tells a story of someone who is coping with his addiction while attending 12-step meetings and then has a family activity of an obstacle course. I can’t imagine that a family with young enough children to use the obstacle course (which does provide an elegant lesson by itself) would also use the story of Jeff, a lifelong member who overcame his issues with tobacco and alcohol on his own, but needs 12-step help with his pornography addiction.

I can’t see parents teaching this lesson in FHE in the hopes that a child might therefore agree to enter treatment. (That said, if I squint really hard I can imagine using something like this lesson to explain why a family member is in treatment, though the confidentiality of recovery and the need to allow each person to tell his own story would still require significant modification in the lesson.) My experience is that addicts don’t seek recovery until the pain of recovery is less than the pain of their addiction. And I’m all in favor of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program. I’ve watched it change lives in the 18 months I’ve been participating in it. And family members of addicted persons need their own recovery as much as the addicted persons do; the 12 steps have blessed my life in incredible ways. And any member could benefit from working the steps of recovery.

But the FHE lesson as outlined just doesn’t seem to be the way to get there for me. Far better in my view is to teach the pure doctrine of the Plan of Salvation, to teach repentance and atonement, to teach submitting to the will of our Father in Heaven. That is what one learns working the steps. Indeed, one could teach a series of lessons based on the steps themselves.


UPDATE: This post seems to draw some traffic from Google searches. I wanted to link to another helpful post on the blog.

12 Steps to the Atonement

I have an addicted love one in my family, and therefore I have participated for several years in Families Anonymous, a 12-step program. I've debated about writing about my participation because there is a great need for anonymity in recovery programs to protect everyone involved. But I feel strongly enough about what I'm writing today that I decided to take the plunge.

Before coming to my 12-step program (they're all quite similar, and grow out of Alcoholics Anonymous' 12 steps, though AA does not affiliate with other 12-step programs), I assumed such programs were for people who were too weak to overcome their problems. After years of failing to come to terms with my own problems, I finally began my walk along the steps.

As a faithful latter-day saint, I can tell you that it is embarrassing to contemplate the need for such a thing in your life. In a culture where "perfect" families are the goal, such glaring imperfection is heart breaking on many levels. But in my case, I'm glad that I finally overcame my pride enough to seek help for myself. (Of course, it wasn't until I began my work on the steps that I really understood what pride I had.)

I learned many things along my path with the steps (I'm still on it, and will be for life, I suppose), but the most startling thing I learned is that the 12 steps are little more than a clear method of applying the atonement to our lives. Although I did not participate in the Church's version of the 12 step program, I found nothing in the steps to be inconsistent with what I had learned in all my years in the church. In fact, working the steps forced me to reexamine how I lived my life, how I applied the teachings of the Savior, how I prayed, and how I exercised my faith.

My first round through the steps was not a walk in the park by any means. The 12 steps are for personal healing, and that healing rarely comes without opening up and cleaning out some wounds, nor without identifying and rectifying some pretty self-destructive (and sometimes just plain destructive) behaviors. Such self examination is not for sissies, but the rewards on the other end are sweeter than one might imagine.

Those twelve steps encourage us to recognize our own powerlessness in dealing with certain areas of life, acknowledge that there is a higher power who can deal with those things we can, and give over to the God of our understanding our lives. Then we begin to inventory our own lives for good and bad, to sort out who we may have harmed, to make amends where possible, and then to engage in an ongoing cycle of self assessment and rededication to God, applying the principle of the steps in all our affairs.

The steps are, as my wife observed, a framework for applying the healing power of the atonement in our lives. And they work.

- Paul

For information on the church's 12-step program, check this  website.
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