The God Box

One way that I know my Higher Power is working on me is that I go to several Al Anon meetings each week and the same idea or theme carries through all of them. This week's theme is using the God box for detachment and other issues.

(photo by Teodora Vlaicu)

If you don't know what a God box is, it is a fairly simple device that some people in 12 step programs like to use. To make one, take a box and put a slot in the top. Decorate it if you like. The next time there is a problem that you obsess over and can't control, write it down on a piece of paper and put it in the slot. There! God (or whatever you call your Higher Power) will take care of it.

Some people say never open the God box and it should be permanently sealed forever. Others like to open it and measure their own growth by thinking about how they have or haven't improved in terms of these issues.

I actually have a God can instead because last year at our Al Anon group's district workshop the organizers collected coffee cans, decorated them, and gave them to everyone as a door prize. The chirpy message pasted on the front says:

"I can't
God can
I'll let Him!"

I have never cracked mine open yet, but I don't feel it is time yet. I don't want to never open it because I tended to be superstitious in the past and I want to let go of the idea of external forces controlling me. The past me would have thought the God box was really some kind of Pandora's box and if I opened it and looked at it I would unleash all of the problems again. Nope. Tool for growth.

Some people put events or situations in their God box but mostly I put the names of people, usually when they are such an overwhelming ball of wax that I can't figure out what to do anymore except to say let it  go. After yesterday's meeting I have several issues that I was more specific about and I just put those in the box. 

Some days I really need it, some days I forget about it, but it has always been useful.