A Partner with God

In my 20’s I returned to college as an older student. I had no money, and I lived on school loans. I sold my car, clothes, stereo and records to be able to go back to school. I was awarded an internship in Washington, DC. and I said yes even though I had no money. I borrowed some money for housing and ate as cheaply as possible. Every week I would measure out my peanut butter and crackers and instant oatmeal packets. Other women in my dorm who had family support and paid internships would bring me doggie bags from the Georgetown restaurants they went to at night. I was scared and hungry but I was happy. I was happy to be in school, happy to have an exciting internship, happy to be in DC and to be able to visit all the free museums and go to free lectures and concerts every weekend.

What sustained me in those months was a series of pamphlets from Norman Vincent Peale. They were the positive thinking, faith in God, personal story pamphlets. I hung onto them for dear life.

In some ways my recovery and my faith in a higher power were beginning then even as my addictions were still sending up their first shoots.

There was one message that I copied from one of the pamphlets. I carried this in my wallet and sometimes cried reading it when I got really scared because I was almost out of rent money or when I didn’t know how I’d get back to Pennsylvania. I had to change the word “man” to “woman” and “him” to “her” but here it is. I keep this in my daily meditation book and I need to read it today:

“A woman who works in partnership with her God becomes self-reliant, positive and optimistic and undertakes her work with the constant assurance of success. She therefore magnetizes her conditions. She draws to herself the creative powers of the universe.”