My Addiction and the Amusement Park

I have been sober from acting out for six months. But I still have problems with thoughts and images that keep appearing in my mind. And sometimes it is really difficult to dismiss them.

I asked a therapist what I could do to get rid of those thoughts. Some of them really scare me because they might actually cause me to relapse.

He told me this story:

There once was a young boy who loved the amusement park. He spent most of his summers in that park going on all the different rides. When Christmas came all he wanted was a season pass to that park.

One day a man appeared to the boy in the amusement park and told him that God did not approve of the amusement park and didn't want him to go there anymore. So the boy left the park and never entered it again.

However, the boy brought a lawn chair to the parking lot of the park and set it up near the entrance. As people walked by he said to them, “Make sure you go on the Giant Ferris Wheel and the Roller Coaster.” As people came out he said, “Wow, didn't you just love the Tilt-A-Whirl!  It’s the best!”

Then one day he brought a sketch pad to the parking lot and began to sketch the rides that had been his favorites. He drew them exactly where he remembered them being in the park.

In other words, the boy had given up going into the park but his heart was still there. He had not had a “change of heart.”  Wow, that was hard for me to hear. I had thought that my heart, in all these months, had changed—but possibly not.

I'm not actually acting out.  But am I still wishing that I could act out?

I'm going to have to reevaluate my sobriety and work harder on turning my life and will over to the Lord and allowing Him to change my heart.

Please pray for me that I may be successful.

A Tender Mercy
While entering this post, I was asking myself what more I needed to do have the Lord completely change my heart. Where could I find the answer?  Then I looked over at a stack or papers next to my keyboard. On top of that stack was a printed talk that I had been given six months earlier.  Where that talk had been stored for six months I don't know.  But there it was at my fingertips. It contained the exact answer I was looking for. The talk is: "When Thou Art Converted" by D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I am now reviewing that talk each day as part of my dailies.