Slowing Down

For most of my adult life, I have heard people talk about having a quiet time with God. I was attracted to that idea, especially when people spoke of how it gave them peace and serenity and a connection with God that accompanied them throughout the rest of their day. That connection to a higher power helped them live through their day regardless of the ups and downs life brought their way. I desired that same quiet time, peace, and serenity, but I was never willing to take the action to experience it. I could not get myself to bed early enough to wake up for a quiet moment, let alone a full half hour. The first way I let myself down every day was to hit my snooze alarm at least twice, before I finally got up. Bingeing and staying up until the wee hours of the morning did not help my good intentions.

That was life before FA. Today, I know what it means to make a commitment and keep it. I have amazing quiet times. I connect with God and feel peace and serenity in the morning. This connection stays with me throughout my day. It helps me stay abstinent, weighing and measuring my food, as well as my life, as I work the tools of this program.

Recently, I had the opportunity to have an especially impactful quiet time while visiting my in-laws in Ohio. I took my quiet time each morning out on their backyard deck which leads into a small forest. One morning after reading our Twenty-Four Hours a Day portion, which suggested that asking for help should not be held back by the material things of the world, I asked God to lead me out of my materialism and into a simpler, more uncluttered life. Sitting outside in silence for my quiet time brings me a different, deeper sense of peace. I don’t do it often, but I really enjoy it.

Later that morning, walking through my family’s property, still carrying that peace from my quiet time, I encountered a mother deer and her two young fawns with their beautiful, dappled coats. I stood still so as not to disturb them. The mother deer was across the way from her fawns, and she very calmly walked back towards them and led them away from me and deeper into the forest. It was beautiful.

In that short period of time between my morning reading, quiet time, and my walk, I had experienced so much beauty. I didn’t miss it because I had been sleeping in, experiencing that food coma from having binged the night before, or driving off in that quick morning fury that used to characterize my life before Program. Today, I have a program and it guides me to start my mornings with a quiet time that can be taken whenever and wherever I am, on vacation or into work, and into every part of my day and life. When I slow down, I can appreciate the gift that this life truly is.