"I Learned How to Love Them, Dear Mother, from You "– Perfectionism and Step 11

As I live my days, I often find myself overwhelmed at the seemingly infinite number of good things to do. I feel confined by time and space and body. I wish with all my heart that I could do it all. With goals and planners, I try to make sure I don’t miss anything. Even so, it seems I can never hug enough, visit enough, help enough, get everything clean enough, study enough, teach enough, be awake long enough, sleep in enough, sing enough, or save enough pictures or scraps of memory.

It is said that we must ‘seize the day,’ but I swear I cannot take in the whole of it. I try and try, but I am always left with the feeling that dozens of good things are falling out of my arms. The Eternal in me cries out to be free to live and love it all. While all of nature seems to be filling the measure of its creation, I seem to be incapable of filling the measure of my own.

Despite all these feelings, however, I often find myself inadvertently humming a little melody. One day, as I was busy with the many activities of my life, I caught myself humming again. This time I took note of just which song it was and filled in the words:

“I often go walking in the meadows of clover
And I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue.
I gather the blossoms the whole meadow over.
Dear Mother, all flowers remind me of you.”

This song always has and always will remind me of my own sweet mother, but this day, out of the blue, into my mind came a new view and a new understanding. In my imagination the blossoms were transformed into all the good things there are to choose from on this Earth. The vast meadow became all of creation, and my Mother in Heaven became the Mother I am reminded of by every sweet and beautiful thing. With this realization came a definite knowing that once, long ago as Her child, I learned to gather armfuls of flowers all over creation. There was no lack of time or strength or resources. There was only joy and delight in gathering what I saw Her gather. And so it came to my mind that perhaps my love for harvesting every good thing on earth has its roots in Heaven.

As I allowed this image to dwell in my mind I imagined the words she might speak to me and to each of Her daughters:

Dear Daughter,
All good is of God. May you be blessed to discern the will of the Jesus Christ. His word to you, through the Holy Spirit, will tell you the good He would have you do. Remember, that you are in a meadow of darkness. As you search in the darkness, using only His Light to lead you from flower to flower, from good to good, each flower you bring to me is most precious. Because of your willingness and desire to glean beauty even in darkness, every flower you gather is wonderful to me! The value of each Christ directed task you do more than makes up for all the flowers we have gathered in the brightness of Heaven. Peacefully surrender and bring me only those flowers He directs and empowers you to bring. It is enough!

And then, there was only the last verse of the song left to sing. This is my reply:

“Dear Mother, I bring you my love with each flower.
To send forth sweet fragrance a whole lifetime through.
For if I love flowers and meadows and walking
I learned how to love them dear Mother, from you.”

P.S. This is my Earthly Mother’s favorite Mothers Day song too. She’s the one who taught me about His Light and pointed out to me that the finest flowers from Heaven on Earth are the Gospel of Jesus Christ and my family. I thank her with all my heart.

By Nannette W.
Posted Saturday, May 9, 2009

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights 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.

Practice Makes Progress – Principles For a Lifetime

I can’t remember when I took my first piano lesson, but as far back as I can remember, practicing the piano daily was a part of my routine. In my elementary school years my teacher was the traveling variety. She came highly recommended, gray haired, thick-rimmed glasses, and very old. Once a week I would sit at the piano with her and try to demonstrate that I had made some kind of progress in the six days of rehearsal between this lesson and the last. She was what you might call a “hands on” teacher, always grabbing at my fingers, stretching them this way and that, correcting my fingering, not with a word or two, but with what I thought was brute force. My mother sat on the couch at my back. Sometimes I would put my hands behind my back and rub and sooth my poor fingers just to show my mother that I was not a happy musician. Eventually, like most kids, I won out and the lessons stopped. I remember crying though. It’s funny how we know we are going to miss something, even when we have fought so hard and finally won.

In high school I decided to give the piano another try. I had a wonderful teacher. Each week my mother would take me to her home where I would take a lesson in her lovely studio on a shiny, black, grand piano. She taught me how to practice and she taught me to love the piano. My mother was a stickler for daily practice. I got up before it was light and practiced before early morning Seminary. During this time I made great progress. My practice was consistent and I experienced the joy of working until I really felt that a piece of music was not perfect, but was “coming right along.” One of the pieces I worked hard on was by Bach. It was one in a series of Two Part Inventions. It was fast and challenging.

I haven’t spent much consistent time at the piano for many years. I still have my copy of the Bach piece and one day, just for fun, I gave it a whirl. Let’s just say it was only slightly better than if I had never ever laid eyes on it. Not long after, I was preparing to teach the Gospel Doctrine Lesson. The subject was decidedly important but one that would be very familiar to my students. I wondered as I sat preparing the lesson, “Why do we have to go over the same things time and time again?” Then my Two Part Invention by Bach came to mind.

That Sunday I opened the class by announcing I had something very exciting I wanted to share with my ward family, a little introductory musical number. I told them that it was a piano piece from my youth and that I remembered working and working on it hour upon hour for months.

Well, of course, it was terrible! I pretended utter embarrassment, came away from the piano and back to my teaching position. I explained that the constant review and practice of Gospel principles is critical to our progress. What we once knew has to be constantly renewed. Without repeated study and self-examination we not only quit making spiritual progress, we actually regress!

Alma puts it this way, “And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” (Alma 5:26)

According to the prophets, in order to maintain and deepen the progress we have made toward Eternal Life as we have applied the principles of the Gospel, we have to continue our devoted application of the principles that have blessed us thus far.

The same truth that holds true with Gospel principles in general also holds true to the application of the 12 Steps. Without continued practice my answer to Alma’s question will have to be, “No, I cannot feel so now.” I’ve had people ask me, “Nannette, Do you have to live this way the rest of your life? When can you say you’ve “recovered? When do you graduate?” My answer is that I strive to live every day in recovery, in a recovered and growing relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no graduation, at least not in this life.

If I stop practicing these principles, my progress will eventually be as rusty as my resent Sunday school recital. Most of us are familiar with the old saying “Practice Makes Perfect.” I have to admit that as of yet my practice has never made anything perfect. I vote we change the saying to “Practice Makes Progress.”

By Nannette W.
Posted Friday, April 3, 2009

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All rights 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.

Perfectionism Is…

Perfectionism is the debilitating fear
Of being in trouble with myself
and
Always being
In trouble with myself
And
Blaming other people and circumstances
For my private discontent

By Nannette W.
Posted Tuesday, January 6, 2009

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.

Christmas Eve Instruction on Finding the Perfect Gift – Step 1, 2, 3, and Perfectionism

If I wasn’t “finishing up” at Target or All-A-Dollar or Kmart at 5:45 on Christmas Eve I guess the season wouldn’t be quite the same. One December 24, 2002 I was given the following insight. It has made a difference in every Christmas Eve thereafter.

Exhausted and touching on frantic, I completed my Christmas buying that year by going to three stores just as the 24th sun of December was setting, trying to find that perfect, within my budget, healthy (at the request of the children) stuff to stuff in the…(well you know). First, I flew in and out of some store with the word dollar in the name but obviously not geared for the authentic “I’ve got no money left” shopper! Then it was on to The Dollar Store with a big finish at Kmart.

I miraculously ended the Christmas shopping within budget, but as I pulled into the garage I had a sinking feeling that what I had purchased was just not right at all. I entered the kitchen, helloed everyone, turned on the Christmas music and declared that the Holiday could now begin. I noticed my daughters had removed the unfinished chicken, thankfully, from the crock-pot and put it into the ever-faithful oven “in hopes that the dinner soon would be there.” (Is that a line from a famous Christmas poem?)

As I stood at the sink working toward perfection in the kitchen, I pondered as I often do while cycling the dishes. “Just why Nannette, why is gift giving so completely unsettling to you? Why do you put off the thinking of, looking for, purchasing, wrapping and giving of gifts? Why are you so “anxietous” (a family word) over every phase of this activity? I’ll tell you why,” spoke the Messenger to my mind. “It’s because you always want to give the perfect gift, isn’t it. You want it to be just the right thing and there is never enough time or money or creativity or understanding to pull it off. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Then came the instruction. “Nannette, there is only one perfect gift and it will not matter how early you line up at Shopko the day after Thanksgiving or whether or not you have a wheel barrow full of money with which to fight off the crowds and pay at the register. You will not be able to buy it.

Your Heavenly Father already conceived of it and His first born and only begotten Son already volunteered to be it and it has been offered to every one on your Christmas list! So let go of the notion of reinventing the magnificent and allow your humble giving of the less than perfect to be a perfect reminder. Let it bring to your philanthropic heart and near empty hands the testimony that His gift is The Gift that makes up for all lesser offerings. There is no other gift beside Him. Allow the contrast to be a symbol of your humble station and His abundant, priceless, perfect present.

By Nannette W.
Posted Wednesday, December 24, 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.

His “Master-piece!” Steps 1,2, and 3

Outside my fifth grade classroom door, in the hall, there was a glass case on the wall dedicated to showing off exceptional work from students in our room. Every Friday afternoon was devoted to “art” and after our projects were completed the very best were selected, placed in the glass case, and displayed before the entire student body. I don’t remember feeling one way or another about my apparent lack of talent until the end of my fifth grade year.

It was Friday afternoon. We had just finished a still life painting of a pot of flowers. The bell was about the ring when the teacher asked this question. “Which of you have not had a piece of art displayed in the hall this year. Five mortified ten year olds raised their hands. I was one of them. “I would like each of you to call home and tell your parents you will be staying after school to work on your art.”

There I sat at my little desk staring down at the Friday afternoon art project I thought I had finished. Apparently my attempt at capturing the pot of flowers in “still life,” on paper was not acceptable. I kept hoping that my teacher would bring me a clean piece of paper and that I could start fresh, but this was not her plan. For at least an hour I worked over my painting, trying to please my teacher and somehow make my picture worthy to be hung in the hall. The more I painted the worse it got. As the reds and yellows turned to brown I applied more paint hoping to cover up the mess. I worked so long that even the “mat,” which is the top layer of special art paper, started to lift. To my total dismay, mixed in with my paint were little balls of paper. I was half relieved and half mortified when the teacher finally announced that our opportunity to improve our picture was over and that we would find these pictures in the classroom display case on Monday morning. This experience definitely solidified my decision not to continue any further elective study of art. It also created an indelible memory of my seemingly insensitive teacher.

Although memories of the past interactions with grownups (teachers, parents, bosses, ecclesiastical leaders etc.) do not always represent the truth they can sometimes influence our current perceptions of those in authority. Sometimes our past experience affects the way we view God.

The first key to making progress in the area of need that brought us to a 12 Step application of Gospel principles is honesty about our inability to make lasting progress on our own. The second key is to develop hope that God can and will help us. Many of us grew up believing that God would help us with only certain kinds of things. I was of the understanding (or misunderstanding) that like my fifth grade teacher, He was surely disappointed in me, not as an artist of course, but as a person, and that He expected me to clean up and clear up all messes of my own making. Obviously this belief would never lead me to take my struggle with compulsive/addictive behavior to Heavenly Father and to His Son. My perception was that they would help me with “good girl” problems, like having and earache, loosing my keys, or remembering something I had spent hours learning. On the other hand, those struggles that represented my weaknesses or out right sins were up to me to take care of. I was to fix myself so I would be worthy of their love and acceptance.

Like the ten year who old worked over that painted pot of flowers, watching the beautiful colors turn more brown with every stroke, seeing it go from bad to worse until the paper nearly came apart, I worked on my self destructive behaviors until my heart for “self” improvement was broken. There were two options set before me. I could give up, or I could experiment with the idea that God is all loving, all knowing, and all-powerful and that His desire is to extend to me all the love, direction, and power necessary to clean up all messes of my own making.

I chose to practice believing in this very personal loving powerful God and to keep my eyes open for evidence of the reality of such a Being. Today I can testify of His reality. He does not resemble my fifth grade teacher (or my perception of her), bless her soul. He was willing to sacrifice His life for my success.

If we allow Jesus Christ to be the Master, He has all the paper, paint, and patience it will take to help us produce a Masterpiece! A “Master-piece” is anything we are able to do or create or become through the enabling power of our Master. And in the end we will find that His work and glory has been to make you and I His “Master-piece!”

By Nannette W.
Posted, Thursday, December 11, 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.

“That’s Tricky Grandma” – Multitasking or Just Peacefully Do The Next Right Thing – Step 3 and Step 11, Perfectionism

Multitasking has been the name of my game. My husband lives with it. My kids laugh about it. Now, to my total dismay my grandchildren are discovering it. And frankly, I’d like to recover from it! Cooking and ____, cleaning and ____, sitting in Church and_____, visiting and____, watching TV, the game, the baby and_____, driving and_____, eating and ____ and ____ and ____!!!!! There is practically nothing I won’t try to put together in combination so I can GET MORE DONE! I use to think it was an amazing gift, but now I’m beginning to wonder.

A few months ago I hauled a small TV/video player into the family room and placed it next to the family TV. I stuck an exercise video into the small TV and also turned on something I needed to watch on the family TV. I proceeded to exercise, with one eye on the video exercise instructor and another on the family TV. Just toward the end of my workout/TV show Granddaughter Sammy entered the room. “Grandma, are you exercising AND watching TV? (pause, giggle giggle) That’s tricky!”

I laughed with her, finished up and went and got my little notebook. Children have a way of calling it like it is. “Tricky” means “requiring skill, difficult to manage.” I agree with the dictionary. Either my age or my recovery experience, maybe both, seem to be hedging the way between me and my hunger to do it all and do it all at once. I’m starting to understand that a life driven by the need to always be “killing two birds with one stone” is an unfocused, frantic, confusing, fear based, task driven life, and that eventually, one of the dead birds might be me!

I’ll never forget the words my son said to me, years ago. As he helped me into the car with my bags full of projects, just before taking off for a wonderfully planned trip with my husband he said, “What’s all this mom?” I shared with him the nature of my “carry-ons.” His reply, “You must not think you’re going to have a very good time!”

It’s interesting that the word “multitask” is a word my computer will accept but I can’t find in any of the dictionaries around the house. Perhaps it’s a modern word that accompanies modern ailments like addiction and depression and anxiety. Just a thought!

I’ve decided it’s best to leave the multitasking up to the Lord. He is the master economist when it comes to accomplishing more than one thing at every given moment. If I go about peacefully doing the next right thing, one thing at a time, I know multiple things will be accomplished. But, it will not be the result of my being a one-woman show, a three-ring circus. It will be His miracle and I will know it! I won’t say at the end of the day as I run down my list, “Look at me, see what I managed to do in two’s and three’s.” I will say, “Wow! I was just doing the next right thing and look what else God accomplished with me!”

By Nannette W.
Posted Monday, November 10, 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.

“The Second Mile” – 12 Step Parenting and Perfectionism

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

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.

Sunday Dinner – The Picture of Perfect Imperfection

Sunday dinner is generally at my house. We divide up the food groups and everyone brings an offering. We set a general time and as soon as each family has completed their Sabbath day work and their individual dish has been prepared we all gather. Everyone strives to be on time, give or take thirty minutes. We serve buffet style and use paper plates and plastic utensils. Every Sunday there are anywhere between 15 and 25 men, women and children to dinner. One Sunday a month we invite my siblings and their children and grandchildren. On that Sunday we don’t take a count.

As soon as we have a majority we gather in the kitchen and in the family room. Someone stands in the middle, between the two rooms and ask the Lord to bless our food. Next we line up and dish up. Moms and dads place teaspoons of each dish on little children’s plates and then load a plate for themselves. We each find a place at the table and then, snuggled elbow to elbow, we eat and visit, and visit and visit.

It’s fun. It’s tradition. Sometimes it gets a little bit crazy. There’s lots of, “No you can’t get down until you eat you broccoli.” “You have to at least eat four bites because you’re four.” “Could someone get a towel? We’ve got a spill!” The combination of tired parents and children who are tired of sitting and being inside and who have not developed the skill of “visiting” makes for after dinner segregation. Kid-cousins move to the family room with the toys and the Living Scriptures or a very antique video of “My Turn on Earth.” The adults remain in the living room and chat.

It never looks like the Norman Rockwell picture of Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t own any silver and the china remains in the cupboard. No one wants to do all the dishes. We don’t say please pass the potatoes. We just get up and get some more. Sometimes we can’t get the little kids to all be quiet as we pray and sometimes part of the entrée arrives just as the rest of us are ready to eat dessert. The adults take turns solving squabbles amongst the kid-cousins. Generally the parent of who ever cries out the loudest is next in line as the peacekeeping force.

A couple of Sundays ago a blood-curdling scream came from the room filled with kids.

Dad calls out, “What’s wrong Ethan?”

Ethan replies, “Carson bit my leg.”

Carson’s explanation, “I didn’t mean to!”

I Know! We should have stopped and had a little Step 10 mini lesson. “Now you kids need to learn to, ‘Continue to take personal inventory and when you are wrong promptly admit it!’” But a little, “Don’t bite your brother,” and we went on with life.

In the adult room we don’t always perfectly agree about the topic at hand either, but we have learned that it’s better to talk things out than to bite.

A lot has been said recently about the value of the family dinner. Some studies show that kids who regularly have dinner with their families are less likely to turn to drugs for support. President Hinckley was a big proponent of family dinner. Sometimes as a parent I have been discouraged about doing the family things we have been commanded to do (family dinner, family prayer, family night, family scripture study) because the event always turns out less than “perfect.”

The look of our Sunday effort to dine together is not perfect. You wouldn’t find us in a church film on the value of eating together. There will not be a picture of us on the front cover of the Ensign Magazine. But we are trying. We’re giving it the best we’ve got. We believe in perfection but so far all we seem to be able to achieve is progress. No one is learning the art of formal dining on Sunday afternoon at my house. I’m not sure we are learning anything, but we are feeling the reality that we each belong to a supportive, patient, forgiving community called a family and that’s a feeling that can make a lifetime of difference. Sometimes the value of doing the right thing is so high that it’s worth doing the right thing badly.

One of the results of applying the 12 Steps to my daily life is that the Lord has helped me have the courage to do the perfect thing, the thing He asks me to do, imperfectly.

By Nannette W.
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 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.

Coming Down The Mountain – Part 4

Despite the added strain of walking on slippery packed snow, we kept going. We kept hoping the sun would grow warm enough to melt the snow. We kept hoping that each one of numberless bends in the trail would be the last before the lake. Hours passed. My legs were so shaky, by this time, I could hardly put one foot in front of another. With a bit of sarcasm in my voice, I suggested that Mel run up the next hill and see if the lake was just around the next bend. She did. She ran up the trail and turned to wave back. The lake was finally just ahead. Slowly, I hobbled up. It was 1:00 p.m.

We sat down and evaluated our situation. It was still quite cold. There was no hope of the snow melting. My exhaustion and the reality that we could never reach the top and come back in daylight finally pushed us to a decision. We would not go on to the top. Right here, only half way. This was “the top” for me! Again, another humbling thought came into my mind: Nannette, your “top” will always just be somewhere higher than you have ever been before, not as high as anyone has ever gone. Be grateful every time you out-do your old self! That’s the only standard you need to achieve to feel like it was all worthwhile.”

To Be Continued.

By Nannette W.
Posted Tuesday, August 29, 2008

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All right reserved.
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“Surfer Girl”

I know that thismorning is two words, not one, but I don’t ever seem to know it in the middle of writing it. Lots of things are like that for me. I can teach it, sing about it, pray about it, write about it, see it in the lives of others ancient and modern, but when it comes right down to life, my life, my thoughts, my deepest feelings, sometimes I forget. The it that I forget is my knowledge of the love of the Lord for me, my love of Him, and the massive evidence compiled in all the moments prior to this one, that He has the love and direction and power necessary to care for me and enable me to do His will in the present moment.

I can always tell when my rememberer is on low power. There are signs. It shows in the scrambled way I feel: anxious, frightened, angry, overwhelmed and under qualified, confused…the list is probably endless. My inability to recall the divine also shows in what I do: I panic, I start collecting opinions from anyone and everyone on the best course to take, and I do anything but the task that seems absolutely daunting, last years mending, cleaning the drawer under the oven etc. Finally, when my memory of the divine starts shutting down I crave my drug of choice, excess food, something, anything for comfort.

Thismorning (there I go again) as I began to make an account of my day on paper and feeling some of the above signs, the melody to an old 50s song came into my mind. Would the Lord really speak to me through an old 50s song? I guess so! As I began to put words to the tune that was playing in my mind suddenly and to my surprise I had tears in my eyes. “Do you love me? Do you surfer girl?”

“What? Is that what I am Lord, a surfer girl? How so?”

I immediately thought of the modern activity of “surfing the net,” where one browses the Internet endlessly for needed information or help with a problem. We browse broadly through a dumping ground of information contributed by experts and con artists, searching for any answer to meet our particular need.

“Dearest Lord, though I have very little experience with the Internet and none with a surfboard, I have been a surfer girl haven’t I. I have years of experience “surfing” or searching for the perfect answer, the perfect activity, the perfect plan, the perfect day. And just like an Internet search, there is no end to it, always searching and never satisfied.” One of the great blessings of living the principles of recovery is that I am coming to know that the answer doesn’t lie in a day where everything on my list is finally checked off.

In closing this little thought I have to do a 5th Step right here and admit to all of you that my curiosity got the best of me. After all, I was a little girl when this song was popular and I wanted to see if any of the words to the song went along with the message in the title, so…I went to the Internet and had a look!

There were three lines that continued to speak to me. First, “Little surfer, little one, make my heart come all undone.” Peace and real joy are arrived at when I remember to remember every new day that my wandering about, my incessant search outside of Him does “make His heart come all undone.” Second, “I have seen you on the shore, standing by the ocean’s roar.” He is aware of me and my every situation. He sees me on the shore of any daunting task and is aware like no other of the “oceans roar.” And third, “So I say from me to you, I can make your dreams come true.” That is His promise to me. My real dreams, the ones I’ve dreamed for an eternity, only He can make “come true.”

I want to show Him by the direction I turn for the answers to life’s daily quandaries and the place I run when the |oceans roar becomes frightening, that my answer to the question, “Do you love Me, do you surfer Girl?” is a resounding yes!

By Nannette W.
Posted Thursday, August 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.