Step two of the 12 Steps Program overriding emphasis is to offer a message of HOPE. One of my frustrations lately has been that I guess over the past ten years too many of my brain cells have died because I can't remember things like I used to but for some reason tonight I am vividly recalling the acrostic for HOPE from Celebrate Recovery last Sunday night. (that is HOPE in itself five days and its still floating in the abyss of my brain!!!)
H- Higher Power
O- Openness to Change
P - Power to Change
E - Expect to Change
Change is so hard. Period. Oh maybe not the little things that don't matter much but to really scrub our lives clean of the mildew and soap scum that has built up over days, weeks, months, years of living one way and then being brought out of our denial that hmmmm maybe this isn't who I am or how I want to live is not easy. When I was at Harding we had this dorm mother (I wish I could say wonderful but...) Aunt B. Now Harding believed in keeping your rooms clean especially in the new dorms and Aunt B was the bathtub Nazi complete with the white glove. Some of you remember how could you forget? Every week we had a shining bathtub. Well I had enough of that so after about 4 years of NOT cleaning my bathtub in Memphis when I moved out of my apartment well you can only imagine the toil and chemicals (there was no Mr. Clean erase sponges back then) at trying to get all that crud off the bathtub. Now as grose as that may be (I clean my bathtub now) how often are our lives like that?
I often talk to my clients about this techy therapist talk of 1st order, 2nd order, prochaska change I think these 4 letters of HOPE are just as good and a little bathtub analogy. But its still hard. And sometimes that message of hope is hard.
Even when I become open to change knowing how to do it and feeling like I have the confidence and power in me to change especially after trying before and failing leads to no faith in the expectation of change. So in essence I guess the expectation in itself that change can occur must be a change. I asked my supervisor how to give a client hope when I wasn't sure there was any hope and he took the situation and reframed my whole thought process about it. Maybe this is the greatest strenght of therapy or friendship; a different view, a reframe, a different perspective, a calling out, all followed up by walking side by side encouraging and never giving up the Hope they have in the other.
1 comment:
E-Expect to change. I agree with you. This concept is perhaps even more difficult to embrace than the others. For one thing, if you don't change your view and Expect to change, then the H, O, P, part of the equation is shallow and holds no sticking power. In fact, it is then "hop". Which is basically what recovery would resemble. A hop or a short break from the ordinary that quickly or at least evententually returns to its original state.
The "E" takes more faith the the first three. The "E" tests the validity and the sincerity of the first three. Admitting we are powerless is one thing, truly believing and expecting God to bring change is quite another.
Here is another wonderment. With repentance, there is redemption. Through Christ, God forgives us and wipes the slate clean, the tub glistens like new, or your life is new again. Where I think we trip up is that we haven't wiped the slate clean. It's like the tub is clean, yet we grab buckets and pour in the old, dirty bath water (then wonder why we don't feel clean). Here's how Jesus describes it:
"No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then, the new garment would be ruined and the new patch wouldn't even match the old garment." Luke 5:36 He also gives a great illustration using wine and wine skins. I'll make you look that one up on your own. :)
So, to bring all my thoughts together and back to the original "E" of expect to change. I think expecting to change calls us to have faith that God is BIG and can do more than we can imagine, including change, enduring change. Expecting change means filling the bathtub that is our life with clean water. It is rising up out of that water just as Christ rose from the grave...transformed.
I thank you, God, in advance for the change you are making and will make in my life, in Rebekah's life, and in whoever else is reading this right now. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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