When Free Fall Feels Like Surrender

I went skydiving because I was chasing something—something wilder than the chaos of my everyday life, something that might outdo the adrenaline rush of working in crisis and carrying my own personal story of survival. I thought surely, this would be the thing that finally scared me.

We took off in the little plane, climbing higher and higher until the houses looked like dots on a quilt. The door slid open, and a wall of wind punched into the cabin. My heart raced as I swung my legs over the edge into the nothingness. I waited to feel the terror I was sure would come.

It didn’t.

We jumped.

The wind screamed past my face, roaring so loudly I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. My body fell at an impossible speed, the earth rushing up to meet us. But inside, there was only peace.

I realized then why I wasn’t afraid: I had complete trust in my tandem partner. He was strapped to me, and I knew he had us. He knew exactly when to pull the chute, how to steer, and how to land safely. My job wasn’t to control the fall. My job was to surrender to it.

That’s what trauma recovery has felt like in my life—sometimes like I’m free-falling from 14,000 feet, gasping for air, wondering when the ground will come. Trauma makes you believe you have to cling to every illusion of control to survive. That if you let go, you’ll splinter into pieces.

But God keeps inviting me to trust Him the way I trusted my instructor that day. To believe that even when I’m falling, I’m held. That He knows exactly when to pull the chute. That He knows how to guide me safely home.

I think a lot of us live waiting for the next moment of fear, expecting it to swallow us. We brace ourselves, hold our breath, clench our fists. And sometimes we do fall. Sometimes we do lose everything we thought we could count on.

But the truth is, we aren’t free-falling alone.

There is a kind of faith that looks exactly like surrender—a decision to loosen our grip on the fear and lean into trust instead.

Skydiving didn’t give me the terror I expected. Instead, it gave me a glimpse of what it feels like to let go of control and find out you were always secure.

Maybe you’re in a season where you feel like you’re falling. Maybe life has ripped open the door and invited you to step into uncertainty. Maybe you’re bracing for impact.

I don’t know what your free fall looks like, but I do know this: you are strapped to the One who holds the parachute.

You are not alone.

And sometimes—if you trust Him—you’ll discover that falling feels a lot like flying.