Step 3

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

This is just a partial definition of the word Will in its noun form


noun, verb, willed, will·ing. –noun

1.

the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions: the freedom of the will.

2.

power of choosing one's own actions: to have a strong or a weak will.

3.

the act or process of using or asserting one's choice; volition: My hands are obedient to my will.

  

Each of us was born with free will.   We have made our own decisions.  We have made our own mistakes.  We are either people who learn from those mistakes or we aren't but we are always in possession of an ability to choose where we will go. We use our experiences, intellect, conscience, feelings,  wants and our needs to guide us to those decisions.   Sometimes our wants outweigh the rest and sometimes our emotions guide us to decisions that we know are mistakes but somehow we keep making the same decisions over and over again.

That was and continues to be the center of my compulsive overeating.   I have spent more than 2 decades making decisions about food when I am being led by emotions and wants.   I can no longer rely on myself alone to make the right decisions.   I must turn my life over to God.  I must turn my will over to Him.  I have spent so many years trying to assert my own independence that it is difficult to listen to another voice.  When I remember to start my day with the first three steps from OA my days move by so much more easily.   I am able to listen to God speaking through my mind, my conscience, my heart and make the right decisions when it comes to food.  

When I decide that I am handling things okay and I can do it on my own is when I begin to fail.  My self absorption leads me to believe I am infallible that I can have a bite of chocolate and move on from there with no lasting ill effects.   Oh boy, how I am wrong and how I fail to meet my goals when I don't trust this God that moves in me.  I am not a "religious" person.  I don't push my faith on those around me but I hope that as I continue on this journey that they can see my faith shining through.   

I am Tina, I am a compulsive overeater.   I am learning to heal not just my body but my spirit and my psyche by working the 12 steps of OA.   I have lost 61 pounds over the past 5 months.   I have made amazing changes and have seen myself blossom over these past months.  I am enrolled and am going back to college in January.  I have been actively looking for jobs that will work with my husbands' schedule, around my school and let me be home with all of my children in the evenings.   I have been building my crochet business instead of just talking about it.   I have been seeking out new friends.

Life is in chaos right now.  We found out just a few days ago that we have to find financing for our home or move, our landlords just can't afford to keep renting it.  We are hunting down mortgage lenders who work with people with lets just say less than perfect credit.  We have been juggling back and forth about staying here because if we can find financing we can probably find more house for the same amount of money, maybe even less money.   We love our home though and have put a lot into it, we have put new flooring down through most of the house, we have painted and decorated, we fenced the yard.   We have loved this home and our babies have grown into Kindergartners here.  Our youngest came home to this house as a newborn.  We have been here exactly five years.   I love our neighborhood, I have friends here that I would miss but we are looking at the positives of the situation.  We can no longer sit around on our duffs and let the world move past us, we have to be proactive and figure out where we are going from here.   Luckily our landlords are great and we have some time to figure out financing and exactly what we are going to do.

We are getting ready for vacation, we are taking the kids to Walt Disney World in a few weeks.  The baby won't remember it but the big kids are so incredibly excited.

Needless to say there is lots of extra stuff going on with us.  Halloween was a killer for me.  5 months without chocolate and in 18 hours I ate about 20 bite size candy bars.  Not my proudest moment. 

I woke up the next morning and prayed.  I asked God to guide me, to lead me in each decision.  The past 3 days have been blessedly peaceful.  I will continue to succeed.  I cannot do this without my higher power, I can't do this without my supportive friends at OA and I certainly can't do this without a sponsor who keeps me from getting too far ahead of myself.  I am blessed to have a wonderfully supportive family and amazing friends. 

Through all of this I continue to ask God to lead me.