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Coming to terms with Step 3

A place for rebooters to meet and discuss 12-Step programs in conjunction with their reboot

  1. I am Christian, so in my 12 step journey, I view the Judeo-Christian God as my higher power. I have been struggling with step 3 for some time, because I don't really understand how God actually helps me as my higher power. After hearing a sermon this weekend, I think I learned an important part of the puzzle. The sermon was about the paralyzed man whose friends dug through a roof and lowered him in a bed in front of Christ to be healed. Christ forgave his sins and then healed him. The pastor pointed out that two things were required in addition to this miracle in order to heal the man. First, he needed selfless and bold friends willing to help him, and he needed the forgiveness from God. Thus, this man's healing was made possible through friendship and forgiveness.

    I already believed that the keys to my own healing included informative ideas and support from friends and people on these issues. But the reason why I struggled with Step 3 is because I didn't see how my higher power actually affected me internally in my thought process, aside from bringing the right people and information into my life at the right time. Now, I think I see the missing piece. In addition to bringing the right people and information into my life, my higher power - God - also brings forgiveness to the table as something that helps my healing. I think this is crucial because for so long, most of my shame and attempts at recovery were based on a feeling of being condemned. This paradigm shift has a powerful emotional fallout. Basically, I'm starting to get the vibe that Step 3 is about believing that my higher power will forgive me, and bring tools, information, and people in my life that will help me grow. I will reflect on this for a while more before moving on to work Step 4.
     
    goodnice 2.0 and fabian-nico like this.
  2. Amazing that you’ve came to this realization. Very informative. Sounds like you’re doing well in your recovery.

    I was told that we put step 3 into practice by doing steps 4 to 9. You know, faith without works is dead.

    I started to feel God’s forgiveness half way through making amends in step 9. I had a spiritual awakening by doing that step. It was amazing. The feeling of mending damaged relationships helped me to sleep soundly at night. Every I made an amends to either had no idea what I was talking about bc they didn’t remember or they didn’t think it was a big deal anymore bc they had already forgiven me and had let it go. Meanwhile all these things were eating me alive. It really was a wonderful experience.

    That’s when I realized that if imperfect humans could forgive and forget about things that I thought was so horrible that God who’s perfect in every way wasn’t holding all these things against me either.

    I, too, always felt shame, guilt and condemnation. NF is helping me to get rid of that. Step 9 helps gets rid of the guilt and shame.

    Good luck on your journey. You’re doing great.
     

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