What if we could trust that grace would always meet us, and that love was the road beneath us? How differently would we move through our days if that understanding permeated our hearts? Is it possible to live anchored to that truth?

I can’t remember a time before I “knew” God, and all my life has been a one-step-forward-two-steps-backwards kind of growth in that knowing. Nevertheless, fear and anxiety have been my enemies since my youngest days. I used to think that God was frustrated by my anxiety, that it was disappointing to him. That familiar verse in Philippians 4 that says to “be anxious for nothing” was a constant reminder that I was failing in the anxiety department. But I don’t think I’m failing any longer, and not because I am not anxious, though I am less anxious. I don’t think I’m failing because I don’t think God is judging my anxiety level. I think he says, “Be anxious for nothing,” because he knows there’s just no need for it—that anxiety is just a waste of emotion and energy.

Early Saturday morning, my second born flipped our truck as he drove to work. Such accidents kill people, or at least injure them. He got himself out of the truck and called me, hysterical. The miraculous end to the story is that he was fine, just a few minor cuts on his arm.

As humans we love to think we’re in control, and, of course, there are things we are in control of. To an extent we control whether we take good care of our bodies and our health, and whether we get up for work each morning to earn the money needed for survival. But if you want to pull back the layers on that, you would see that maybe depression makes it impossible to get up each morning for work or to exercise, and that maybe we don’t have the money to eat in the healthy way we’d like, because our lives got off to a rocky start and we’re still trying to get ahead of that curve.

We don’t control much at all as it turns out. As Brennan Manning said, “All is grace.” But as Christians, I think we hit the control button even harder, and we do it (or TRY to) with prayer. We think if we could just pray enough, or the right way, then things would work out the way we think they should. And at this point, I am not entirely sure about that. I am certain prayer is worthwhile, but maybe not for the reason we so often turn to it. For now I think that prayer is about talking with a friend, while simultaneously acknowledging that that friend is the source of all.

I am not one of those parents who can say that I pray each day for my children’s safety and protection. I do not. If I’m being honest, I rarely do. So we’re going to have to chalk this miracle up to God, the miracle worker, not to Nina, the one who prays faithfully, because I don’t actually pray that faithfully as it turns out.

When I look at this photo, I see that the sun is shining and my eyes are drawn to the utility poles, which remind me a bit of crosses. And that symbol of death and rebirth, of GRACE, extends ever onward. It reassures me that all the grace my son will ever receive wasn’t used up last Saturday morning. Grace will meet him always in the future, and it will meet you and it will meet me. With my whole heart I believe it will meet us regardless of how specifically or how often we pray. Because God isn’t one to be hamstrung by humans, and his arm is never too short to save.