My Very Own Third Step Prayer

I keep remembering things my sponsor suggested that I do when we last met. I have been going back through the Steps with her. This time around I feel like my life is really changing. I feel like I am really incorporating the principles of the program into my daily existence - more intensely than before. This time around I feel as if God has told me that I am ready to face the survival mechanisms that I used for survival growing up head on. I really do no longer need them.

One suggestion from my sponsor is that I write my own Third Step Prayer and place it on my mirror or somewhere else that I can see it daily. If you are not familiar - The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous has it's own beautiful Third Step Prayer as follows:

The Third Step Prayer

from page 63 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

God, I offer myself to Thee-
To build with me
and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties,
that victory over them may bear witness
to those I would help of Thy Power,
Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always!

Can I really compete with THAT? No, I can not. Know why? Because this isn't a competition. My recovery is not in a race. I am not lined up in a "Recovery Bee". I must take myself and my recovery one day at a time without judgment, criticism or "shoulds". I have compared my insides to every one else's outsides for a long time. It is no wonder that my first reaction when given this task was one of insecurity. Be gone, insecurity. My Third Step Prayer is mine to write.

And so I begin. Step Three : Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

My Third Step Prayer

God, come into my life today.

Take my thoughts. Take my actions.

Make me a vessel for your doing.

I give you me to do with what you know is best.

I trust you.

Amen.

Please comment with your own! Thank you so very much for allowing me to share. ~H,J&F