The Windex Step

I stayed up late last night to work on recovery materials. 
I answered 12 hard questions... questions like "Do you feel like you are better than others?"

Instantly I was taken back to the day I was driving down Main Street and saw Skylar (we'll call him Skylar).  He's in his thirties and he still lives at home.  He has a disorder -one that shouldn't be too much of a stunting disorder unless you don't have the drive to fight harder, which he doesn't.  He's content to walk around town a lot.  And he isn't kind.  Or nice.  And he is harboring a list of people he'd like dead.  And whenever I am near him, my inner-creep-alarm goes off.  I never, ever ignore my inner-creep-alarm, especially when I have kids in tow.  And that day as I drove by, I was struck with a thought that has haunted me for over a year now.
"How can Heavenly Father love ME as much as he loves HIM?"
Even as the thought escaped my brain, I was horrified at myself. 
I've always tried to do what's right by following commandments (to the best of my ability) and going to church and on and on... but Heavenly Father's love is NOT earned.  It's freely and equally given.  I'm trying to understand it, trying to wrap my feeble, mortal brain around that concept... and I'm still learning and I still stumbling and so I wrote under that question:
Yes.

Pride?  Check.  Definitely have that...
I continued to answer questions like that, continued to dig up old wounds, past experiences and emotions.
It was draining. 
It was like wearing a bathing suit under florescent lighting in front of a full-length mirror.
Part of me wanted to smash the mirror.
Part of me wanted to smash myself.
But the biggest part of me wants to change...

Just before heading to bed, I jumped over to facebook and found someone had linked to an article written by a Bishop.  I clicked on it and read quickly through it... and then a few words jumped off the screen and seared themselves into the deepest cavity of my brain: the part I'd just overworked:

Mirrors are great motivators, if we've the courage to look them square.

And THAT is my motivation to keep going -keep working through Step 4, no matter how hard it is to see my less-than-desirable characteristics.

Step 4 is my Windex Step.

Here's the link I read in it's entirety.