The Import of a Word: Some years ago I called the research library of AA International and asked one of the librarians if he knew why Bill W. wrote “turn our will and lives over to the care of God” rather than simply “turn our will and lives over to God” in the third step. He said he would research the question and get back to me soon.
Within a week I had received a voicemail saying simply, “I have no idea.” He might have had no idea, our history might reveal no idea, but I have an idea. The word CARE means in its linguistic roots “I ache with you in what you are going through; I am totally with you and I am giving you everything you need to make it through.” I submit that there is the Higher Power who has sustained us to this time and the only Higher Power we want to turn our will and our lives over to.
Our ultimate act of letting go is to let go of any hope of controlling God. We love worshipping a “conditional” God whose favor we can control if we meet the conditions.
But the God of the 12 steps is beyond any conditions, always and everywhere caring for us. I was absolutely dumbstruck when I realized that I was still loved by God when I did the worst thing I have ever done in my life, basically betray another human being. That is one “tremendous and fascinating” God as one scholar has accurately written, a God of forgiveness and of “giving-for-ness,” the only God that can accompany a recovery worthy of being called an awakening.
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