Recover with Urgency #JuneAttackWeekend

A scary thing happened to me today.

I was cooking my lunch on the gas stove this afternoon when the pot boiled over. Ugh – annoying. The flame blew out. Oh well, it was finished cooking anyways. So I took the pot off the burner. And since there was no visible flame, I forgot to turn it off the gas.

After I scarfed down lunch, I had to rush out the door to make it to the post office to mail something, and when I came home an hour later, my studio apartment reeked of gas.

Uh-Oh. THE BURNER!! 

Visions of explosions, a la Die Hard or the Terminator, were filling my mind as I sprinted to the stove to turn off the burner that was just poring in gas.

I threw open all the windows, turned on the fan. Called my dad. Called my super. I was scared. In that moment, I truly felt like I was in a life-or-death situation.

Maybe you’re reading this and chuckling that I was a naive cotton-headed-ninny-muggins who’s just overreacting because I’m new at living alone. OK, maybe. But I’ll tell you what: my heart was racing. My pulse was up. I was scared. There was a real sense of urgency.

So I spent a good amount of time yesterday out of the apartment as it was airing out. And as I was sitting in the park across the street, I began to relate that experience to recovery.

How often in our recovery have we found ourselves just sitting back, complacent? Yeah, I’m recovering. I’m reclaiming my life, sure. But whatever. We’ll see what happens. 

What if I were to treat my recovery with the same sense of urgency that I had when I knew that there was gas pouring into my apartment and the building could blow up?

What if I were to attack my recovery with that same amount of immediacy — that “do-or-die,” super-hero type of action?

Because #RealTalk: there should be.

I’m going to just be straight up: Life is happening whether we’re participating or not.

The world is going on and it will leave us behind if we don’t just get out there, leave ED in the dust, and start living again.

Know that I am saying this from a place of love. But #RealTalk here: Attack recovery with urgency because life is happening without you. Yes, you are fighting the fight of your life. Yes, you are a courageous warrior and are showing such bravery and fortitude in your fight against ED. But this is YOUR life, so get back out there!

When I came home and smelled the intense fumes of natural gas, it was like the Hulk came over me. I literally dropped my grocery bags in the doorway, and booked it to the kitchen to find the problem and fix it. I flew to the windows and threw them open like a banshee. I was a girl on a mission. I had tunnel vision. Nothing else mattered, other than shutting off that gas and airing the place out, because if I didn’t — the entire building would have might have blown up.

That’s how we need to — literally — attack recovery: As if it is a life-or-death situation. Because #RealTalk: it is a life-or-death situation.

Maybe the pace that you’re going at right now seems like the absolute threshold that you can manage at this time. You’re giving it you’re absolute everything and you’re fighting with everything you’ve got. That’s okay. You’re fighting and making progress and that’s what counts. You’re doing great.

But I just invite you to do an experiment: For 3 days —that’s it, three days. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You can go back to what you’re doing now, on Monday. — But for three days, just try to attack recovery with that super-hero sense of urgency. See what happens if you were to make choices and move forward as though your life depended on it. As though you walked in and smelled gas in your apartment and it’s up to you to save the day and prevent an explosion. Just try. For three days.

Life is happening. Right now. It is going on. And I’ll be damned if I let ED steal another minute of it from me. I have something to offer this world. And so do you.

If someone would have invited me to that challenge when I first began my recovery journey, I would not have been able to do it. There’s no way. Not alone. But with Jesus, I can do anything. And so can you.

We don’t have to be super-heroes ourselves. Why? Because we have the greatest super-hero of all living inside of our hearts: Jesus. If you don’t think that you could possibly get to the point of attacking recovery with that sense of urgency, just ask Jesus to be your strength for you. He can. He will. And He wants to.

He’s just waiting for you to ask. 

Three days. That’s it. We’ll call it the #JuneAttackWeekend or #JAW

You can do it. I believe in you.

Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”