Wanting and willing are two different things. Wanting is stomping up and down, demanding, insisting. Wanting is pouting, whining, wallowing in self-will and self-pity. I can want to be free, but still not be willing to do anything to cooperate with my want. In other words, I can pray and I can plead and I can beg and express my want and my frustration forever and only make myself more resentful and bitter that God won’t give me what I want.
In contrast, being willing is saying, okay, I’m ready to cooperate. I’m willing to go along with the truth I have to accept and allow into my life. I’m willing to humble myself and to seek the guidance and the grace I need from the only Source that is always with me, always only a thought away. In other words, I have to be willing to turn to God, as I best understand God, as often as I need to during my hours and my days. Really, even in my hours, if that’s what it takes. I have to be willing to cry out to Him in my heart as often as the lying, deceiving, self-defeating and self-destructive thoughts start badgering me again.
©2010 Colleen C. Harrison
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Surrendering to the Truth that Opens the Door to My Freedom
Well, first I have to remember that my unhealthy eating is an addiction and not just a bad habit that I can get under control. You can tell when you’re bad habit has morphed into an addiction when you try and try and try (for weeks, months and even years if you’re as stubborn and proud as I am) to control it and you can’t for more than a few hours or days at a time. Sooner or later it comes back in one of either two ways: ever so sneaky and stealthy, one little excuse at a time, or with a bludgeoning vengeance.
So, I have to remember that in my case my unhealthy eating behaviors are not the sign I have a bad habit. I have an addiction, or in other words a destructive and even potentially deadly dependency that no amount of good intentions, pledges or plans, or personal resolve will control.
Once I have surrendered to that truth–bitter as it may sound and feel–and have allowed it to be established in my mind and heart, then I’m ready to do what has to be done to put my unhealthy eating into remission, one day at a time, for as long as I’m willing to be free of it.
©2010 Colleen C. Harrison
So, I have to remember that in my case my unhealthy eating behaviors are not the sign I have a bad habit. I have an addiction, or in other words a destructive and even potentially deadly dependency that no amount of good intentions, pledges or plans, or personal resolve will control.
Once I have surrendered to that truth–bitter as it may sound and feel–and have allowed it to be established in my mind and heart, then I’m ready to do what has to be done to put my unhealthy eating into remission, one day at a time, for as long as I’m willing to be free of it.
©2010 Colleen C. Harrison
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