Unselfishness
Dear Lord,
I must continually work toward unselfishness.
To be unselfish is to be useful.
When I am selfish, I am useless to myself, You, and others.
Help me to stop thinking on only me and to stop hoarding not only material things but also my thoughts and feelings from others.
Dear Lord, grant that I may practice what the Program teaches me.
My life has been saved by what others have given me.
I must, in turn, give it away to keep it.
You are reading from the book:
The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 by Bill P. and Lisa D.
The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 by Bill P. and Lisa D. Copyright 2007 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of Hazelden.
March, April May
Dear Lord,
I must continually work toward unselfishness.
To be unselfish is to be useful.
When I am selfish, I am useless to myself, You, and others.
Help me to stop thinking on only me and to stop hoarding not only material things but also my thoughts and feelings from others.
Dear Lord, grant that I may practice what the Program teaches me.
My life has been saved by what others have given me.
I must, in turn, give it away to keep it.
You are reading from the book:
The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 by Bill P. and Lisa D.
The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2 by Bill P. and Lisa D. Copyright 2007 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of Hazelden.
March, April May
It finally clicked today why I can be so withdrawn and depressed on Sundays. When I was growing up, Sunday was the saddest day of the week. As a family, we’d be hung over from the rage and hurt emotional binges that were typical of Friday and Saturday nights. As a twenty-something, Sunday hangover mornings are ritualized. You spend them with maybe the same close friends that drank with you to near alcoholic coma. Or maybe its just hours after the bar closed down, and you a stuffed into a booth at some eatery which caters primarily to the inebriated. Growing up, my Sundays were reserved for public pretense. We went to church and pretended that we hadn't been crying ourselves to sleep or my father was not chasing my mother or brother around the house intending real physical danger. We were a loving family.
We sat quietly; sang on key; shook hands with and talked to people neither confirming or denying that you felt uncomfortable as the only Black family in a white church. Then, back into the car for the five minute drive back home to pretend you didn’t feel scared, angry, or trapped there in your home: a prisoner of your childhood. Sunday was spent mired. Work, school, with its demands and not being able to talk or spend time together, was the best part of the week.
My mom, dad, and brother have their birthdays in May, April, and March. I do sort of get lost in sadness this time of the year; every year for as long as I can remember. Happy things just do not happen in these months. Valentine’s Day is the last normal day for me before the sadness and bad memories roll in for me. I’m sort of in a stupor until June. Then I realize that summer is about to happen and I can’t tell you what happened between February and July.
