Step Three:  

“Made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

When I first read this step, I felt confused. I was supposed to admit (and accept) that I was powerless over food, that I could be restored to sanity (Was I ever sane?  It’d been a long time ago, if ever); by some power greater than myself, and now I was being asked to turn my will and my life over to God?  If I wanted to do that, how would I accomplish that?

Well, with a sponsor, I got to Step Three.  My thought was that “my will and my life” sounded really vague and I had no idea what it meant, much less how to turn it over to God. What has worked for me is to exchange the words “my will and my life” for “my thoughts and my actions”.  That seemed clearer to me.  Now, did I really want to do that?   I was reminded that my thoughts and actions, no matter how sane I thought they were, got me to OA.  So, what did I have to lose?  I could do it for a while and if it wasn’t working out for me, I could try something else (even though in the back of my mind I knew that if OA didn’t work, my next action would be something drastic that might not be reversible).

Okay, so I was ready to work Step Three. At first, all my thoughts and actions were about food and my relationship with food and how it had affected my relationships with people.  So, honestly, I began by giving God little tests.  I love my pencils and my pens.  When I lost a pencil that I held dear, after I looked in all the normal places thoroughly, I gave God a chance.  I simply told him that I wanted to find that specific pencil.  I was no longer going to search for it.  I was turning the search over to him.  If I was supposed to have that pencil, then it would appear somewhere in the natural course of my life.  It turns out that pencil “came back to me”.  I did that with several other ideas and the result was the same often enough that I believed that God was helping me.  So I turned more important parts of my life over to him, including my relationship with food and all that that entailed.   I began to feel better inside.  If a great song came on the radio while I was driving I’d say, out loud most of the time, “Thank you, God”.  After years in this program, I still work step 3 by inserting “my thoughts and my actions”.

When I face much more important decisions about my life today, in addition to the small daily ones, I ask God to help me and I feel, in my heart, he will.  When I follow what God’s will is for me, I decide to follow it and act accordingly, knowing I will not be in charge of the results of that action.  I take no credit or blame for outcomes.  The result may seem to do me harm, but deep inside I know that somehow I will benefit.  As I look back on my decisions, I see that, though the road may have been long and winding, my life is so much richer.  God wants what is best for me.  I obviously don’t know what that is. Duh! So I keep my relationship with God fresh and current.  I use talents and tools I have been given.  I know that I would not be here today if I had not had the support of OA, whose members have become my friends.