What do you suppose the outline of faith is? Is it something you could put on paper with Roman numerals, capital letters, indents? Or is it something like the barest semblance of a figure you can make out when God stands directly in front of the sun?

The promise of the New Land, the land of faith, is a bright and lustrous promise as bright and lustrous as the sun and the god standing directly in front of it, but what to do when all those eyes really want is to close, to shade themselves, to rest?

I have albinism and am extremely light sensitive. The lustre in the eyes things sounded a little painful and dangerous to me and I was reserved about it. I stood on that Bridge of Reason a long time squinting and shading my brow with my hand. Because my eyes accept too much light, unshaded, the barest outline of God visible to anyone felt less visible to me. Was She holding Her hand out or was Her back turned? I couldn’t tell and was afraid to find out. What if I stepped ashore and all that Promise I had seen fuzzily was nothing but my foolish wishes? What if it weren’t God in front of the sun, one radiant thing haloed by another radiant thing, but merely some fluorescent light in a hospital room and I, beaten again, stepped ashore to pain?

I tried to stand on that Bridge of Reason and make up my own Land. The book talks about all these friendly hands that were extended to me from their Land and, frankly, mine was kind of lonely by comparison, but at least I could clearly define it by my own rules and be sure of what I would find there. Something I could call a god, a shady god, that let my eyes stay tired and didn’t challenge me to open them too far, to receive too much.

I loved my shady god, but, loving him and keeping my tired eyes closed, I found I had stepped wrong and right off the Bridge of Reason into the sea of… something. Not Reason, not faith, something else, murky and cold. So I stayed sick. I kept bingeing. My mind went round and round in codependency. Until…

last gasp, going down, I opened up, honestly and all the way, and let the lustre flow in and found it was God’s radiant form in front of that sun and I was more than capable of seeing Her hand outstretched to me, the “flimsy reed” that would lift me out of the swiftest, meanest currents.

“Dear Lord, we lurch from metaphor to metaphor.”
-“Praying Drunk,” Andrew Hudgins

Even my eyes are capable of lustre-receiving. The poorest eyes are. Yours are. Open them. Open them even to the sun. Open them even to your bright and lustrous God.

-Michelle A.
Recovered and Available Sponsor
Chronic Compulsive Eaters Anonymous
Recovered Codependents

If I can help in any way, please reach out: MichelleA12Steps@gmail.com

Alcoholics Anonymous