Prayerful Consideration for Those We’ve Harmed

In another wonderful post by markw Purposeful Forgetting on his blog at www.adozensteps.com:

“I’m here to tell you that if you’re about to consider your amends, your list of people you’ve harmed” …”casual apologies will NOT cut it! Nor should they… because we have done harm, real harm.”

I used to drink with my next door neighbor.  Often times I’d walk into the front yard and he’d invite me over for a beer on the porch.  One beer led to the next and we’d be off to buy more.  Sometimes we had to stop at one of our favorite beer joints along the way.  This was a pretty normal routine about every other day.  One thing that had slipped my mind for years was how I’d almost constantly leave the front door standing wide open when I went next door.  Often times leaving the house empty but more often than not, with my family inside sleeping.  I never once considered the horror they must have been going through when they awoke in the night, me gone and the front door standing wide open.

Faith without works is dead

Let’s look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven’t the will to do this, we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.