Chapter 2 - page 28
flimsy, reed
"What seemed at first a flimsy reed, has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God." 1 Big Book - There Is A Solution - page 28
In this sentence the word flimsy functions as an adjective. The word reed functions as a noun. 2
Bill talks about how desperate drowning men can be. He uses the image of a flimsy reed, which a drowning man grabs near the shore. Even though the reeds look weak, they end up saving him. This image shows a spiritual change. Asking for help from a higher power might seem like a weak move, but it turns out to be a strong, loving, and dependable answer from a divine source.
Definitions from Webster's 1930 edition. 3
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Footnotes for page 28
1Quotes from the Big Book on listed on this page are from the public domain version, in the United States, of the 2nd edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Accessible at 12step.org
2Sentence diagramming, to determine the word usage within the sentence, was performed by CoreNLP at corenlp.run.
3Definitions used are from the Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language 1930 Edition.