Step Three - I Can Let Go

 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

I used to think I understood surrender.

I had surrendered alcohol.

I had surrendered things I couldn’t change.

I had experienced loss.

I had learned, again and again, that life does not always ask our permission before it changes.

But pain has shown me another level of surrender.

Because this time, what I am surrendering is not simply something outside of me.

I am surrendering my need to control what happens inside me.

And that is much harder.

I want certainty.

But perhaps certainty is the very thing I am being asked to release.

My little girl doesn’t understand that.

She wants promises.

And I can’t honestly make that promise.

So I make her a different one.

I tell her:

I won’t abandon you.

I will be here.

Whatever comes, we will meet it together.

That feels much more truthful.

And perhaps that is surrender.

Not saying, Nothing will hurt me.

But saying:

Whatever comes, I don’t have to meet it alone.

Step Three is not passivity.

It isn’t giving up.

It isn’t saying that I don’t care what happens to my body.

It is releasing my demand that life unfold according to my conditions before I allow myself to live.

I can care for myself without obsessively monitoring myself.

I will not make my world smaller just because I am afraid of pain.

There will be days when I forget.

There will be days when fear takes over.

There will be days when I want to know why and when and how long.

On those days, I can come back.

Back to Step One:

I cannot control this.

Back to Step Two:

I don’t have to do this alone.

And then Step Three:

God, I give this to You.

Not because I have stopped caring.

Because I care enough about my life to stop letting fear run it.

For thirty-one years, AA has taught me that surrender is not defeat.

It is freedom.

I think I am learning that lesson again.

Perhaps alcohol was not the only thing I needed to become sober from.

Perhaps I am now becoming sober from the belief that I have to control everything in order to be safe.

And perhaps this is the deeper invitation of the first three steps:

Admit what I cannot control.

Believe I am not alone.

And then let go.

Not forever.

Just for this moment.

This breath.

This day.

And when tomorrow comes, I can surrender tomorrow then.