My Daily Meditation

I offer my daily prayer of thanksgiving Thank You for the blessings of life. For life itself. For love, for home, for family, for friendships. Thank You for the bounty and beauty of this glorious land. Thank You for bringing me here to this place, at this time in my life, in this era and epoch; sound of mind, sound of body, and sound of spirit; free from fear, free from want, and free from the obsession of compulsive eating. Dearest God – Master of the Universe

…for loving children, who love me in spite of my defects and imperfections. Thank You too for all those in my life, past and present, who have touched my life for the better. My friends in OA, my loving parents, grandparents, my siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, extended family and other good friends, who, as imperfect as some of them perhaps may have been, they all still helped to mold me into the person I am today. For all of these gifts and more, I am abundantly grateful. Thank You as well --

May I prove myself worthy this day for Your gifts -- God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will, always.

For Today, I ask that You - Grant me peace as I go out from here. Grant me the serenity today to accept the things I cannot change and turn them over to You and Your care. Thy will be done. Then, grant me the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom today to know the difference. Thy will, be done, not mine. Grant me another day of abstinance And grant me serenity --

I pray only for knowledge of Your will for me and the strength and power to carry that out. Show me Your will and I shall become an instrument of Your will. Show me Your will and I shall follow it with all the strength that is within me; with every fiber of my being. And if I lack sufficient strength, I ask that You grant me even more as I pledge my life and will to follow Yours for me. I ask also that You increase in me today the desire to make the decisions You want me make and remove from me today the desire to make those You would not. Dearest God, reveal also to me any further defects and shortcomings, so that I may freely admit them to myself, to You, to another person, and to make amends quickly to any I may have harmed.

Please show me how to love and accept others -- …regardless of their station in life … regardless of any past deeds or misdeeds, imperfections or character defects. Just as I ask You to love and accept me with all of mine. Help me also today to shower my children, all my loved ones with the greatest love, compassion, patience, kindness, understanding, courtesy, honor, respect, and dignity. Not for what I might have wanted them to become. Not for what I might want them to become in the future. But, unconditionally, for what and who they are this day. Help me also today to treat each person I meet, talk to, and communicate with in any way, with that same patience, kindness, compassion, understanding, courtesy, honor, respect, and dignity to which each is entitled as a human being and as a child, with me, in Your creation.

This day, I also ask You to -- Grant peace to all who mourn and comfort all the bereaved among us. For those in danger this day, or suffering or troubled in mind or body or spirit, I ask that You grant them strength. Grant them courage. Grant them wisdom, peace and serenity. And for those that might do them harm, I ask that You soften their hearts – that they turn from their ways and make amends to those they may already have harmed.

My Creator -- I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Then... grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do Your bidding. Amen

I put my hands in yours and together we can do what we could never do alone. No longer is there a sense of hopelessness. No longer must we each depend upon our own unsteady willpower. We are all together now, reaching out our hands for power and strength greater than ours. And as we join hands, We find love and understanding beyond our wildest dreams.