Labor Day Speaker

Hi Everyone,

Back in July, I agreed to speak for our local OAMAI Labor Day Marathon. And a few weeks ago I was asked to write about what I had said, to be featured in this blog, for those who couldn’t make the marathon. Thank goodness I kept my notes. 

 Anyway, I started with the Set Aside Prayer before addressing just how much labor goes into the functioning of OA and how all that labor is truly done out of love.

For those of you who haven’t heard the Set Aside Prayer, it goes like this.

 Dear God, 

 Please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, the Twelve Steps, The Big     Book, the meetings, my disease and you God, so I may have an open mind and a new experience with all things.

 Please let me see the truth.

I had heard a few speakers open with this prayer on the “Sunday Edition” of “A Vision for You”, an OA phone meeting, and I liked it. Some people at the marathon had liked the prayer too, but they had not heard it before, so I was glad to share it with them. Saying the prayer before I spoke, reminded me that being up there in front of everyone was a gift not something to fear. My testimony, was not only meant to tell people how the program had changed my life, but was my way of saying thank you to the Higher Power that was at the ready to help me, so I could help others. 

I spoke of the service positions necessary to allow me to even walk through the doors, ten years ago. I had no idea how many people actually cared that I recover from compulsive overeating, and they didn’t even know me–or did they?

I spoke of my ups and downs as I started the program, unwilling to do what it suggested, unwilling to go to meetings on a regular basis, and even my resentment about doing a service position like carrying home the literature with me, because there was no place to store it where we met. I explained how being overweight and carrying the heavy bag of literature for many weeks, became so annoying that I made up an excuse and said I was going to be gone the next week, but didn’t return to that meeting for a long time, and how that hurt my program in the long run–something my disease was happy about.

During my talk, I brought up the book, Beyond our Wildest Dreams, which the co-founder of OA, Rozanne S., wrote many years ago. In the beginning pages she wrote, “My dormant drive as a world server was about to be awakened.” This quote made me smile, but then it sobered me too, because I also had a dormant drive for service. Suddenly, I realized how others had helped me so it was my turn to do as much service as my higher power would lead me to.

Toward the end of my talk, I listed several service opportunities available in OA like, opening the doors every week for a meeting, leading a meeting or reading literature, being a treasurer, or an Intergroup Rep. All in all, whatever you do for OA, you really are doing it for yourself and your fellows. I never had fellows before this program. Today, I am grateful that OA exists and that beginning with Rozanne, there have been people who do what they do out of love and service for themselves, others in the program, and me. 

With much gratitude, Lisa N.