I have been in this program for over 10 years and I continue to ask questions to help me understand, answer questions, and see what it was that played a part in my story. It isn’t to find something or someone to blame. There is a more fundamental question lurking. If I was on track to destroy my marriage, my career, my life, why would God intervene and stop that runaway train? I know that I am asking a question that has befuddled theologians forever – why does God have mercy?
I have to acknowledge that I can only understand God’s mercy from a human perspective. Our mercy is triggered by a circumstance, a relationship, a situation. God’s mercy is sourced from His character of being merciful. But I still look for what triggered God’s mercy for me.
The early days of the program helped me see, for the first time, that my growing up years held a lot of challenges for a little boy. There were important building blocks, like reassurance, guidance, and support, that were missing. There were traumatic physical and sexual events in my life that left me questioning “Why me?” I had to come to the conclusion that my parents, my teachers, my coaches failed in protecting and warning me from things that would destroy me.
I have heard this same exact story from everyone that shares in the fellowship. Different facts, dates, and circumstances, but so similar it astonishes us.
But as I have continued listening to those stories, I realize there is another factor. The 2nd wham of the double whammy. There was another safeguard that failed me. Throughout my growing up years, I never had any structure, group, or relationship that invited honest vulnerability to deal with the issues of my life. I have been in countless churches since the day I was born. I have only seen the sad, shaming announcement of someone who is stepping down or leaving because of sexual failure. I have never seen a healthy conversation about dealing with sexual realities. Oh, there were the standard warnings about the evils of [fill in the blank] sins, but nobody ever talked about how that person felt. And even though restoration was talked about, years later, you could never point at that person that had a major moral failure that had continued in fellowship in that group. In every circumstance, they left. Usually never to be heard from again. Something felt broken in that process. And not on the part of the one caught in a moral failure. But on the part of the community that jettisoned and ostracized them from their fellowship.
So when the 12 Steps pointed me in Step 11 to a relationship with my Higher Power, I felt like saying “Really?” Because I assumed that meant I had to go to the religious structures where I had not found health, honesty, and recovery. But I have come to realize that they, the religious structures and culture in my life, also failed me by not providing what was required and needed and described by God.
Why haven’t I seen living examples of the prodigal son returning home or the woman caught in adultery being loved and forgiven? And then the 2nd wham lands. It was the realization that many of the religious structures around us are filled with broken and damaged people that are still using religion as a coping mechanism to find the control and approval they seek.
The 12 Steps suggested in Step 11 that I connect with my Higher Power. It seemed to be subtly saying that perhaps former methods and structures built walls instead of bridges. I realized that had been true for me. I had more erroneous ideas about God than I had correct ones.
I have had to identify and throw out wrong thinking and self-serving lies. I had to allow God to self-describe and communicate however He wanted to. I had to allow God to fix my relationship with Him, as it was broken as well.
And then I had to trust, patiently, that God could fix even the community of faith in my life. And that has been like a river flowing into a desert for the first time.