Step 9

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

This is definitely one of the most rewarding steps.  It’s scary, but the more fear and shame I face, it seems the larger the treasure I find behind that fear.  This was also the first step that I saw God’s hand physically and objectively reaching down from Heaven and touching my world in ways that I can’t deny.

First, an analogy.  If I beat up a kid in my neighborhood and later that day, his father calls me and invites me to dinner, I’m not going.  I’m ashamed of what I’ve done and would feel terrible in the presence of that family and that father.  This is step 9.  I’ve figureatively beaten up God’s children in a variety of ways throughout my life.  This makes me uncomfortable in God’s presence.  I don’t want to be near Him with Him knowing everything I’ve done to His children.  So not only am I making things right with my fellow man, I’m making things right with God and allowing Him into my life more deeply by getting rid of all the reasons I don’t want Him around.

Around the time I decided to start working step 9, I was going to go with my wife and parents to a lake for the day.  I hadn’t decided who to find and talk to first, I was going to figure that out soon though.  We went to their house and I saw, across the street, one of the first people on my list.  God figured it out for me.  I hadn’t seen this guy in 30 years and I thought he was in prison.  I had no idea how I was going to get a hold of him.  Yet there he was, just standing in his parents’ yard across the street from me.  I was shocked and surprised that God would put one of the hardest people to find from my list in front of me.  I rushed over and talked to him.  I started out just catching up a bit and when the small talk started to run out, I said, “Hey, when we were kids, we made fun of how you spoke and we were really mean to you and I’m so sorry I did that to you.”  I didn’t expect his reply.  He said, “That’s OK, we all do dumb stuff as kids.”  He taught me to stop beating myself up for everything.  What a gift the guy on my list gave me that day.

Another similar situation happened as I went to a church activity at my parents’ church.  Another kid I and my friend group had bullied just happened to be there 30 years after I saw him last.  I went up to him and said, “My group of friends and I were horrible to you.  I could have stood up for you but didn’t.  I’m so sorry I didn’t help you when you needed it.”  His jaw was clenched and he was visibly angry.  He nodded and walked away.  I hope my weak apology helped him to heal in some way.

I called some people who weren’t physically near and apologized to them.

I wrote an anonymous letter with money in it to the manager of 7-11 apologizing for stealing candy from them all growing up.

At the suggestion of my counselor, I wrote a letter to someone I might have harmed seriously.  It turned out the person didn’t know what I was talking about, but they were glad I was able to get it out and let it go now.

I donated anonymously to the company I was working for to make up for abusing their subsidized candy program instead of taking that $20 to the CEO so I could look good in front of him.

See step 8 for more detail about how to prepare to make amends properly without causing further harm.

Sometimes people could cause harm to those they’ve abused or used in the past because they’ve moved forward and have a family.  Bringing all that up could cause more harm and so writing a letter and destroying it might be the best way through that.  Don’t use that excuse to avoid making amends that need to be made though.  God knows exactly how you should make amends with each one of His children, so ask Him to guide you through it with the help of your sponsor.

With each amends, I felt myself get closer to God and the channel of communication between He and me got cleaner.  If I’ve done it to the least of my brethren, I’ve done it to Him.  That includes both the harm and the amends.