I can relate to much of this. Although I don't come from a family with addictive tendencies, and I haven't suffered the same type of abuse Beth did, I can totally connect with her natural (but taught) absence of self-protective boundaries. When you've learned to neglect or even sabotage your own healthy boundaries over a number of years, it's very easy to slide into dangerous self-destructive territory, even if you don't have addictive tendencies.
Recently the Lord has led me to ask Him to show me (hope that makes sense) what it is that triggers my lifelong patterns of self-neglectful, self-sabotaging behavior. He has me reading a secular book about habits that contains some principles I believe He wants me to see.*
I mention these two things in tandem because, in addition to having bad habits that have dragged me down for a long time, I have some relatively new good habits that are healing and life-giving in much the same way as Beth Moore's intense and joyful dependency on scripture.
Now that you mention it, Beth, three weeks would about do it for me, too. Three weeks without daily, cleansing time spent with the Lord, praying and reading His word, that is. I could very easily slide into my own "next big pit."
I'm aware of how this could begin. It might be fueled by something that got under my skin, and I would begin to focus so much on this distraction that I would gradually lose sight of Jesus' perspective. For example, this past month, I got off track more than once as a result of relationship issues. Certainly, relationships are vitally important, yet trying to sort them out can take over one's mind -- especially for someone whose lifelong tendency is to override or let others override her own boundaries. For a person with this tendency, there's a fine line between being selfless (in the healthy sense) and self-destructive. Example: a couple of weeks ago I lost pretty much three full days to worry and depression when someone I love seemed to want to cut off communication with me. I wasn't reading the situation entirely correctly, as it turned out. But being disconnected from this person made me blame myself ("I let this person down... I've let everyone down, including myself and the Lord"), to the point where I began to feel my whole life had been worthless. This happened despite the fact that I was still continuing to meet with Him, so I can only imagine what might happen if I began drifting off on my own again.
For those trying to break away from self-destructive patterns or mindsets, life can be a treacherous tightrope walk. To change anything, we have to start by changing something. Step off the tightrope! What a terrifying thought, but what a freeing one. I can't improve anything significantly without Christ's rescuing intervention. By myself, I can never break away from the old me, or from my past. My fearful, unredeemed mind is at war with me.
That "three weeks" Beth talks about is a relatively long stretch of time, when you think of it as a series of daily missed appointments. Yet it flies by. Churches (even committed evangelical churches) are chock full of people who have let months and years and even decades slip by without realizing what they've been missing in Christ.
Let's start at now, though. All I can do is submit myself to the Lord, and continue to keep my daily appointments with Him. There will be bumpy stretches. But I can't see what He sees -- some of the worst-looking days may, from His perspective, be days of greatest victory.
If it consists of a series of daily kept appointments, perhaps three weeks is long enough to begin some real progress.
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* Disclaimer: This is a secular book. Certainly, not everything in it is relevant to what God wants to show me. There are even things (particularly the section about the success of Rick Warren's Saddleback Church) that I would take real issue with. However, the underlying theme -- challenging stagnant patterns by changing a key element -- is important in my own life. I'm reading it with my eyes open but allowing God to challenge me as He chooses.