For Today: December 16th

You may strive to be like [your children], but seek not to make them like you.

Kahlil Gibran

One of the highest goals I can set for myself is to be as a child.  Everything good that happens is a result of allowing myself to be open to every possibility, every secret nuance of the natural world.

To seek to burden a child with the artifices and trappings of the adult mind, on the other hand, is both foolish and oppressive.  To live the long, wonder-filled days of childhood is a God-given birthright, and child's play is a most serious and necessary occupation.  It is a sad injustice to infringe upon an already too-short childhood with heavy schedules and inflexible routines that conform to adult standards of appropriate activity.

For Today:  The freedom to be themselves is as necessary for my children as it is for me.

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It's so easy to allow adulthood to strip away the joy from life, and to harden me into a non-believer, with rigid thoughts & a closed minded attitude.  The OA program has allowed me to recapture my joyful youth, & to celebrate the small miracles that take place on a daily basis.

To 'be as a child' is to feel wonder & amazement again.......to appreciate the beauty around me, and to feel awed by it.  Nowhere is it written that I have to be hard-nosed and serious all the time. 

I am allowed to feel good.  Abstinence has opened up a whole new world to me, one where I can be myself, and I can laugh & play & be silly..........it's OK.

I am grateful for not having burdened my own children down with my issues; that I've allowed them to be joyful & free, with no heavy schedules to adhere to when they were young.  As many mistakes as I've made on my own behalf, I didn't push my issues & twisted thinking onto them.

For today, I will thank God for the progress I've made in this wonderful program, and for my two wonderful children who I can learn even more from.  For today, I will borrow some joy from my daughter who's on college break for a month...........I will allow her joy to rub off on me!