Recovery is discovery

My husband and I met with our pastor and his wife for dinner last night. 

I mentioned we were planning to come to an upcoming movie outreach and  that I was planning to bring my parent, and then mentioned that parent is an alcoholic. 

I explained that the parent had been involved with a church but since had stepped away; the alcoholism is again taking over their life.

We prayed about it but I didn't feel good. 

I tossed and turned that night wondering if I'd said too much. I asked myself why I even shared this small fact. I felt vulnerable. Guilty that I had confessed, that No, I am not the smiling friendly, gregarious person the church family has come to know; I too have unhealed wounds. 

Admitting you are far from perfect should feel freeing. Instead I felt like I placed my hands in handcuffs. Why?  I know how to be solution-oriented, but my default setting is to drop back into victim mode. 

I felt guilty because I was expecting the pastor and his wife to feel sorry for me. Manipulation is something we adult children get very good at doing.

They only sympathized. Then they asked us to join them in prayer.

"Let Go and Let God" reminds us of the spiritual cornerstone--and power-- we have when we surrender to our Higher Power. 

It takes humility to surrender and it takes strength. 

We're so used to being adult children we don't want to become adult. All along in re-parenting ourselves we have been preparing ourselves for the moment we drop the "children" label, but isn't it easier to keep it? For how long have we tried to be an adult and sunk with a  weight being hung around our necks? Adult feeling too much of a burden? 

I don't want to be an adult.
I've found a lot of help, even if I've had to manipulate people to get my way. I've sought and found plenty of people who willingly enable me to stay an adult child. A child!

At nearly 40 years old, I remain a child. 

At nearly 70 years old, that alcoholic parent remains a child. 

Life moves on, and as children we can choose to stay behind. To stunt our growth so we don't have to feel the pain of growth. 

How interesting, though. Christ asks us to be like children, so that we can grow in faith and trust in Him. But, even though we revert to being children in His sight we also are expected to grow up again, Spirtually-abled and conditioned to lean on Him for everything. 

Since ACoA is spiritually-based, is this where the name "adult child" came from?