When the Bottom Falls Out

You have an opportunity that only comes around a few times in a lifetime.

A dear friend had a horrible experience this week. One of those where the worldly supports you have always relied on are suddenly yanked out from under you and you are slammed into emotional free fall.

They happen to all of us eventually. What you believed to be true was a lie, the doctor’s call to deliver the diagnosis, the police at the door, the divorce papers show up, the judge slams the gavel, your child takes their last breath, a lifetime of work goes up in flames… no matter the form it takes, reality becomes dark, hope in what was to come is gone in a flash, and the inability to even get your bearings is replaced either numbness or a flood of barely manageable emotions.

Free Fall.

In these miserable, and fortunately rare, panic inducing occurrences in life, what we rarely recognize in the moment is that we are also entering into an opportunity that we only get a few times in a lifetime.

The chance to trust God completely.

There is a kindness in those terrible moments when we are suddenly falling and have nothing to grab onto, because our only option is to call out to Christ for salvation and rescue. To yield everything to him, body and soul. To enter into a moment when the world falls away and grows dim, and all that there is, is you and God himself.

These are moments that hold the potential for great transformation, sanctification, and even miracles themselves. Our natural inclination for self-preservation instinctually and instantly cries, “NO!” and the move from there, into “OK God, not my will, but your will,” is the antithesis of our fleshly programming and human nature. Even a baby, suddenly feeling a dropping sensation, will shoot out their arms to reflexively preserve himself. God calls us to do the opposite. To relax into the fall, and allow him to catch us and put us where HE wants us.

TWO WOMEN DROPPED OUT OF THE SKY

Two of the most powerful scenes in film for me are both of women falling from the sky. The first was one that I experienced re-watching The Incredibles when we bought the home video around 2007.

In this scene Elastigirl, a dedicated, loving and wise mother who is in the process of trying to help her husband, care for her children, and fight an emerging evil of which she has become aware, is flying to a suspect island, finding that her children have stowed away on the plane.

Missiles are launched at the plane and she begins evasive maneuvers, eventually pleading over the radio, “Disengage! There are children on board!”

The evil, of course, does not care that children will be sacrificed for the sake of it’s plan, and may even relish it, blowing the plane out of the sky. Mother is rendered unconscious and awakens falling through the sky with her screaming children. All she can do is pull her children under her wing and try to soften their landing.

I had forgotten this scene in the movie, and by the time it was over, I had to remove myself quietly to my bedroom so that my young children would not see mom ugly crying into her pillow and trying to get a hold of herself.

If there was ever a metaphor for what mothers of injured children go through fighting the pharmaceutical industry, and the personification of evil itself, for me it is this scene. We go in a bit naive, and we do not suspect that we are fighting ancient evils that enjoy devouring the most innocent among us.

This scene of a strong woman with superpowers still unable to use her special abilities to prevent the crash of her family, is contrasted with another character’s ability to turn violence into peace through faith.

The 1997 film Contact is centered on two characters played by Jodi Foster who represents the pursuit of science, and Matthew McConaughey who represents the pursuit of faith, both being a flawed example of each. The film explores the juxtaposition between science and faith, but most importantly, the overlap between the two.

When Foster downloads messages from sentient beings in deep space they find plans for a machine. The grand designs are implemented, Foster is tasked with piloting the craft, and she climbs into an orb that is to be dropped thousands of feet. During the free fall she is strapped into a chair mounted to the ceiling, a modification not included in the initial plan.

During the violent ride a compass given to her by McConaughey floats out of her pocket, drifting gently, so Foster unbuckles her harness, and like the compass, begins to float peacefully in the vessel while the mounted chair becomes more agitated, eventually breaking off its mount and collapsing into the ceiling. The entire pod is then filled with peace and stillness.

She was never meant to sit in that chair.

This scene has always been for me a metaphor of man’s compulsive drive to improve upon God’s plan. “Just try it the way I told you. I am the designer, and I love you. Trust me.”

The truth of all these circumstances is that we are powerless, but rest in the hands of an all powerful God. When we are weak, he is strong. Despite the fact that we are small and broken and rebellious, he is patient and loving and pursues us always.

If you are in free fall, fall into Christ’s arms. It may be one of your only opportunities to trust him with everything.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”