Lately, my son has been watching Peter Pan on repeat. He loves the flamboyance and eccentricity of Captain Hook. Apparently he has chosen the pirate with dramatic feathers and questionable judgment as his role model. I wish I could say I was different as a child and teenager.
The other day, I happened to glance up during the part where Wendy has to walk the plank off the pirate ship. She steps off—and there is no splash. Peter Pan has caught her, unbeknownst to the pirates.
I feel like I relate to Wendy.
Walking by faith can feel eerily similar to walking a plank.
For some reason, I always assumed I would be protected from really bad things happening to me. Somewhere along the way, I think I started to believe that surely God would look at everything I’d already been through and give me a little extra grace from, at least, any other physical trauma.
I don’t know why I thought this. And if we’re honest, I suspect most of us do. We don’t necessarily expect life to be easy, but we quietly assume there will be some sort of limit to how hard it can get.
So when I slipped and fell and tore the tendons in my shoulders, I was shocked. And when I say shocked, I mean genuinely, completely, how-is-this-even-happening-to-me? shocked.
It took me almost a month to put words around what had happened and why it bothered me so deeply.
I realized that somewhere along the way, I had confused grace with protection.
I thought grace meant I would be spared from certain things. But grace is a gift. I don’t earn it, and I don’t get to decide what form it takes. I’m not entitled to the grace of staying on crutches instead of ending up in a wheelchair. I’m not entitled simply because I’ve already had my share of difficult things.
That was a hard realization.
I had been living my “vertical life” on crutches without really questioning how quickly it could all change—how one fall beyond my control could completely alter the way I moved through the world, forever.
My attitude has been adjusted.
Did it need to be adjusted quite this dramatically? I would like to formally submit a complaint to the captain.
But if I have to walk this particular plank anyway, I might as well let it teach me something.
Grace is a gift. It doesn’t come with guarantees about how my life will look.
Our house is now on the market. And locally, there aren’t a whole lot of houses for my situation and the funding for custom construction is out of reach. So now, I wait.
Will the timing of all these things come together perfectly?
I can no longer assume that they will.
Ideally, I will step out and there will be no splash. But I could get to the end of the plank, take that final step—and find nothing there to catch me.
Peter Pan is a little busy off in Neverland, after all.
And maybe that’s the point.
Faith isn’t knowing exactly what will be underneath you when you step off the plank. It’s taking the next step anyway.
Off I go.
And whatever happens at the end of this plank, I’m thankful that I can swim.
Or at least tread water.
I’m just secretly hoping I can at least have a nice feather hat and some ruffles to complete the look.
