[bluidkiti]

March 25

Quote of the Week

"I have not found a God I understand; I have found one who understands me."

I had a love/hate relationship with God before recovery. Being raised in a religious home, my image of God was as an old, wise man with a white beard sitting on a throne judging and keeping score on all my thoughts and activities. I was constantly trying to keep track of whether I was heading toward heaven or hell. In college I denounced the concepts of religion and of God and briefly became an atheist, but then moderated to an agnostic. All the while I felt guilt and resentment at a God I didn’t understand and who I was sure didn’t understand or like me.

When I read the Twelve Steps on the walls of my first meetings, and saw “God” in them, I almost left. And then when people held hands at the end of the meeting and said the Lord’s Prayer, I felt lost and discouraged. By this time, I was sure the road I had been on due to my drinking led straight to hell, and the idea of getting sober only to be condemned by my old God didn’t appeal to me very much. When I turned to my sponsor, he stressed that we all had the freedom to discover a God “as we understood Him.”

While this offered a glimmer of hope, I found it exceptionally difficult to do. It took years to escape the guilt my upbringing had instilled in me. With an open mind, however, I began turning my will and my life over to the program of A.A. first, and then to a Higher Power. Oddly, as my faith grew and as I came to believe in a Power greater than myself, which I choose to call “God” today, I still can’t clearly tell you what He or It is. I just know that my life works better when I have faith and turn it over. In the end, I may understand God, but I know He understands and cares about me.