Are You Running Away From or Running Toward Your Intentions?

You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I don’t know what all. Start over. And then one mornin’ you wake up and look at the ceilin’ and guess who’s layin’ there?

-Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

I did not grow up believing in shortcomings. Shortcomings, I thought, were for sissies. Or lazy people. My way of thinking went something like this: if you see something about yourself that you do not like, change it. This illusion of control was wiped out when my eating disorder stole my life without my permission.

In recovery I learned how to see myself and the world differently. Some limitations are beyond my capacity to wrangle into submission. The Seventh Step offers insights into what we can do about our flaws. It requires us to make peace with the fact that without God’s help, some shortcomings will continue to plague us without abatement.

In the Seventh Step we:

* Ask God to do the work we are ill-equipped and incapable of doing - removal of our shortcomings.

* We ask humbly - which is no small thing and we will need to think long and hard about what that means and how we accomplish humble asking.

* We accept and acknowledge our SPECIFIC shortcomings without excuse, without humiliation, and without equivocation.

For the next few days, we are going to look at Step Seven and consider its value for a person who desires to live a life of integrity and intention.