Twelve Step Reflections

The GPS, Me and God – Step 11

September 23, 2008 by Nannette Wiggins Leave a Comment

Hi, my name is Jane. My sister Nan, was unable to write today, so she told me I could take a stab and write an experience of my own. We think a lot alike, so hopefully this will help give you a lift for the day.

The other day my son, Todd, came to pick my husband and I up from the airport after returning from a trip. This was the first time I had ever had exposure to the new technology of our day called “GPS”. It’s a little black box that sticks to the front windshield. He was showing us how it worked. The first thing you do is to enter your final destination, so he entered our home as that final destination. The next information you put in the system is where you are at present, which for us was the Salt Lake City Airport. With this information the GPS then calculates the fastest way to get to your destination. After beginning, we noticed that several hundred feet before a turn, the GPS would speak to us making us aware of the upcoming turn so we would be prepared to take it. I thought it was a great! Shortly after leaving though, Todd showed us another interesting feature of the GPS. He said that he didn’t really believe that taking I 15 going south was REALLY the fastest way home, even though the GPS had told him to do it on the way out. So, he decided to not obey the GPS and he turned onto I 215 going south. Immediately the GPS started speaking to us. Instead of telling us we were wrong and to go back, it started saying, “recalculating, recalculating, recalculating.” This was interesting to me. After recalculating, the GPS started telling us how to proceed forward to get to our destination instead of turning us back to where the mistake was made to begin over again.

The other day I got to thinking about this. I drove over to the high school to go running and I accidentally locked my keys in the car which, I thought, left me with no other way to get home but to walk the extra mile or so. I did have the impression to find another runner or walker to see if I could borrow their cell phone to call my husband to come with another set of keys, but I didn’t want to bother anyone, so I decided to start walking. While walking along I saw the elementary school and thought it might be a good idea to stop there and call, but again, for whatever reason (mostly pride), I didn’t follow the prompting. After passing the school, I passed a couple of friends along the way, but they didn’t have a cell phone. I felt like I had blown my chances of quickly getting back to my car that day, as my husband was shortly, if not already gone to meetings and I didn’t think I could get home soon enough to have him help me and I certainly didn’t want to bother anyone by asking them to go out of their way to take me back to the car! Then I had the thought that maybe a friend of mine could help me when she went to that school to pick up her daughter at lunch time. After returning home, gratefully, my husband was there and we were able to get the car.

After walking and passing up all my obvious options I began thinking about the GPS. I thought about all the opportunities I had been given to get my car. My first prompting might have been the one Heavenly Father wanted me to follow, but my unwillingness to heed it for whatever reason didn’t deter God from giving me other promptings to solve the problem. His job was to do everything he possibly could to help me “get home”(which in this case was to get the car). It was up to me to decide if I would follow that prompting. I never felt chided for not following the prompting, I just felt bad for the precious time possibly lost because of my stubbornness.

I began to see how this analogy applies in my life in general. Maybe because of stubbornness (pride), or weakness I get off the best and most direct course to happiness and peace, but I have found that in his mercy, God will take me wherever I am and do all he can to get me “home.” Many times I have felt lost or off track, but he never makes me go all the way back to the start, he takes me WHERE I am, “recalculates”, and we proceed forward.

By Jane M
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Copyright 2008 by Jane M. All right reserved.
Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

Morning Glory, Weed or Flower? – Step 7

September 21, 2008 by Nannette Wiggins 1 Comment

When I first became the proud owner of a yard, my most familiar enemy was the morning glory. It seemed to spread everywhere, wrapping itself sneakily around the roses and in and out of the evergreens. One day I was perusing my book “Wildflowers of North America” and was surprised to see my weed listed and described as a flower. Flower was certainly not the name I had given my pest.

The question came to my mind, “When does a flower become a weed?” And the answer, “When the environment is so supportive to the particular flower that it grows out of control, entangling, crowding out, and eventually killing all the other flowers.”

Our Heavenly Father has made available to his children the riches of the earth, good things that can enrich our lives and be a blessing to us. Occasionally something that was meant to be a blessing becomes a curse, a flower turned weed. Examples of these mixed blessings might be food, money, love, and medication. Why is this so?

Let’s look at the morning glory for our answer. Morning glory is not inherently bad, and yet given the right living conditions it can totally crowd out other growing things. The flower becomes a weed. Food, money, love, medication and other seemingly good things can become weeds to our souls as they flourish in a particular environment and run rampant, crowding out our relationship with God. How do we stop the infiltration of soul strangling weeds?

Let’s look again to the morning glory. I can never get rid of the morning glory completely once the seeds have been sown. I labor to keep the weeds in check. So it is with food, money, love, drugs etc. To keep these flowers from becoming weeds we try, we labor, we work at self discipline trying to keep these things in check.

The only way to truly rid my yard of morning glory completely is to change the environment so that the seeds no longer lie on ground that promotes growth. I imagine I will be controlling morning glory forever as I have little influence over Utah’s morning glory producing environment. So I keep it in check.

In regard to my soul I strive to keep it’s garden in check also, weeding daily through repentance and forgiveness so that nothing runs out of control on a mission of destruction. But at times even with “weed” in hand, the futility of the task becomes overwhelming. I often despair knowing the living root is buried just under the ground, out of sight, and in such rich soil.

For some known and unknown reasons, the environment, which is me, and has been inherited from God and man, is more conducive to the rampant spread of some things over others. I have and have had little influence on the making of it and seem to have even less ability to change it. I am in fact powerless to do any more than to weed it by repenting of excess. I’m trying not to add things to my environment that encourage weeds.

But there is one Jesus Christ who has purchased the right to transform my nature. It is only through and with Him, because of Him that the soil of my soul can be changed, that my environment of self can be altered. If I allow the Lord to do his work, no longer does the flower of food become the weed of compulsive eating or compulsive starving. No longer does the flower of success become the weed of materialism. No longer does the flower of sorrow become the weed of anger and hatred. No longer does the flower of love become the weed of lust.

It is not because He is out there weeding the garden and keeping excess in check. He is capable as a result of his love and sacrifice for us, and our willingness to be altered, to actually change us so that weeds cannot flourish. The very nature of the ground upon which seeds fall has been transformed.

By Nannette W.
Posted Sunday, September 21, 2008

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All right reserved.
Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.

Catch a Falling Star – Scripture Study

September 20, 2008 by Nannette Wiggins 1 Comment

Those of you who know me know that I love the scriptures. I don’t think there is anything more fantastic than slowly feasting on the word of the Lord, as recorded by His prophets.

I’m a slow reader. The unhurried style suits me just fine. I take time to write and think and counsel with the Lord and allow the Lord to counsel with me through the Spirit. I’m never disappointed. I’m always well fed, even if all I cover is a verse or two.

I look up words in the dictionary for greater understanding. In my ward and family I’m known for carrying around my little electronic dictionary along with my scriptures. I often search cross-references, and as I study I always record the Lord’s message to me in my journal.

This way of coming unto Christ has been a great blessing to me. It has awakened a love and appreciation of Jesus Christ and His work in my behalf, that has literally transformed my life.

I want to share an experience I had with President Hinckley’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon quickly. I say challenge because that is exactly what it was for me. One week I wrote in my journal: “President Hinckley has challenged all members of the Church to read the entire Book of Mormon by the end of the year. To accomplish such a task I have to read six pages a day. I am doing it, but it is very frustrating! I feel like I am being asked to eat thanksgiving dinner in five minutes.”

I finally started using my Book of Mormon CDs to help me move along. One particular day, as I was listening, following along, and finishing up 2 Nephi, I was particularly amazed at the number of verses I was familiar with in my six-page reading:

“For ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ…Press forward with a steadfastness in Christ…Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ…Feast…The words of Christ will tell you all things what you should do…I glory in plainness…in truth…in my Jesus…”

These were verses I had come to love during my slow study. They were verses preciously associated with my love for Jesus. They had become beautiful to me. As they whizzed by on this particular day a new picture came into my mind.

I recalled our late-summer family trip to Yellowstone. After an evening rain, the sky cleared and we were in a privileged position to view a wonderful meteor shower. “Did you see that one! Oh, Look! That was a bright one! Wow!” We must have exchanged comments like that for an hour or more before settling in our tents.

Using this memory, just as I began to feel frustrated over not being able to catch a verse “and put it in my pocket,” the Lord reminded me that the quick read is a great opportunity to go “star gazing” in the scriptures. Now, instead of bemoaning the quick trip through God’s word, I find myself saying: “There’s another one. Wow, that was beautiful.”

By Nannette W.
Posted Friday, September 19, 2008

“The Second Mile” – 12 Step Parenting and Perfectionism

September 18, 2008 by Nannette Wiggins 1 Comment

I would never want to stand before the Judge and plead guilty to the charge of hindering my children’s righteous use of agency, of squelching their freedom and desire to do good and so I “encourage” the children in my life by saying things like: “Don’t just do what’s required! Go the extra mile! Butter the edges!”

When the kids were little they seemed to have a lot of enthusiasm for doing just that. As they grew older the response to my “suggestion” to “Do a little more!” to “Raise it up a notch!” was not always well received. I have direct experience with the grunts, groans, moans, and non-translatable mutters, spoken under teenage breath. I’m the mother of five human beings who’ve traveled through the second decade phase (10-20 year-olds) where grunts, groans, moans and mutters were the weapons of intimidation.

So what happens between ages four and fourteen? Where does all that enthusiasm go?
Well, a lot of things happen and I’m not going to take responsibility for all of them, but as I pondered this phenomenon one day I was reminded of the following experience and was taught a principle that helped me take some inventory and make some changes.

One night as I as hurrying to get away for my weekly Friday night retreat with my husband, my nine-year-old Jenny walked through the kitchen. I quickly asked her if she would butter the toast. She agreed and I left to dress for my date. Now that’s ALL I really wanted her to do. I had things planned to the minute, and if she would just follow this simple instruction I could have things “my way.” Dinner would be over; everyone bathed and in pj’s, beds turned down, and every light in the house turned out except for the one over the TV. I was not messing around! (Can you tell why I attend meetings for those struggling with compulsive behavior)

Well, I walked back through the kitchen and Jenny had not only buttered the toast, she’d made MENUES for each child! The scrambled eggs had been moved from the stove and dished into a large SERVING BOWL. She was about to make JUICE and was asking if she could make PUDDING!!!

“Jenny, put the juice away and NO pudding! I don’t have time!”

“I don’t have time?” What did you really mean when I said that, Nannette? You meant, “Jenny, don’t do anything MORE than I asked you to do. I don’t trust you to be responsible and I don’t have time to be responsible for you. DON’T go the extra mile. Don’t use your agency for good unless you clear it with me.”

Because of their lack of skill and our lack of patience our younger children’s “extra-miler” exuberance often ends in messes large and small, discouragement for the child and frustration for us parents. However we may be wise to endure these moments of inconvenience rather that kick ourselves later, when they have developed the skills but lost the desire. I have come to realize that as my children and grandchildren creatively express their sincere love of life by going the extra mile, I would be well advised not to continually act the part of the “road block.”

By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, September 18, 2008

“The Sixth Brave Man” – All Steps

September 18, 2008 by Nannette Wiggins 1 Comment

One day in our home school I read to my children of a fireman and four of his fellows who rescued a man from a burning building. At the conclusion of the story the author referred to “six brave men.” At hearing this, the children said, in unison: “But there were only five brave men!” Of course the kids were referring to the five-man team of rescuers. We concluded together that the sixth man referred to must be the one who was rescued. Then I posed this question to the children. “Does it take courage to be rescued?” “Yes,” they resounded. “The man in the story had to be willing to jump from a window ledge high above the ground, away from a burning building, and grab hold of the coat of a fireman who was dangling over the roof top of a neighboring building and who was being kept secure by four other firemen sitting on his legs.” We concluded that yes, it takes courage to be rescued!

Every day we have the opportunity to observe efforts to rescue those among us who are in trouble or in danger of some kind. As observers we often acknowledge only the brave efforts of those doing the saving. After all, what choice does the endangered man have? Does he have a choice?

He can choose “not to choose” and simply go down in flames! Or, he can exert himself in the direction of his rescuer, reach out, cry out, let go, or just hang on to the will to live until help arrives. No matter what is required, it takes courage to take the action that moves the endangered toward those striving to save him. It required courage for the man in our story to leap into the promising emptiness.

Just as real is the courage required by those of us desiring to be rescued from the deadly flames of addictive substances, compelling destructive behaviors or from any of the trials of life that threaten to destroy. It always requires courage to flee the known enemy and enter the unknown, reach out, cry out, let go, or just hang on. The giant leap toward being saved has been broken down into 12 Steps. They are the detailed directions to those who finally recognize the peril they are in, to those who are being consumed by something beyond their control. God centered, principle-based progress is not passive.

The 12 Steps teach the endangered “natural man” exactly how to reach out to his Rescuer, his Savior, amid the flames that threaten his life. They teach us how to make the saving Atonement part of our lives today. It has been said that taking the steps is simple but not easy. When one is frozen in fear, engulfed by that which would take his life (physically or spiritually) even the simplest act of will takes undying courage, the courage to not die, to be saved from our sins, from our circumstances, from our infirmaries, from our sorrows, and from the compulsive addictive behaviors that threaten our very lives at worst, and at least the happiness of our lives. It takes courage to reach out to The Savior. Taking the structured gospel centered steps represents our brave effort to move in the direction of the Lord’s powerful, loving arms. The temptation to do faithless nothing or to pridefully attempt self-rescue is very real. Yes, it takes courage to be the “sixth brave man” and move toward “The Rescuer.” May God grant us that courage today!

By Nannette W.
Posted Wednesday, September 17, 2008