I Have the Wheel Now
Dear Fellow Pilgrim,
I have been thinking again about the words my aunt once gave me—words simple enough to pass quickly through the air, but sharp enough to lodge somewhere deep inside me: “Honey, you are trying to put together a puzzle without having the picture.” And I knew, the moment she said it, that she was right. Because there is supposed to be a picture. There is supposed to be some image of wholeness, some vision of a life ordered by love, of a family held together by tenderness, of a world where the pieces do not always cut your hands when you try to make them fit. But mine came scattered. Fractured. A handful of pieces looked like normalcy. A few resembled love. Some were so warped by fear that I could not tell what they belonged to at all. And still, I tried to build. Of course I did. What else does a child do with the pieces she is given? I pressed jagged edges together and called it peace. I mistook tension for wisdom. I mistook vigilance for maturity. I mistook survival for life. And all the while, without really knowing it, she was at the wheel.
She is small, this younger me. Her legs are too short to reach the pedals, her hands too little to hold the steering wheel steady, her eyes barely high enough to see over the dashboard. And yet, there she has been—driving, steering, swerving, bracing, trying with all her might to keep us alive. No license. No map. No picture. No one beside her saying, “Rest now, little one. I will take it from here.” Just a child with a child’s mind, a child’s fear, a child’s holy determination to survive what she could not understand. And oh, how hard she tried. I can see her now, stretching her neck to see the road ahead, gripping the wheel until her knuckles pale, whispering prayers through dangers too large for her body, too heavy for her years. She did not belong in the driver’s seat. But who else was there? When the road felt unsafe, she drove. When no one could tell her where to go, she guessed. When life came too fast, she pressed harder. And because she kept me alive, I let her keep driving long after the danger had passed.
But today, I saw her differently. Not as a failure. Not as the reason I struggle. Not as the voice I need to silence, shame, punish, or outgrow with contempt. I saw her as a child. A brave one. A tired one. A child who did not ruin me, but protected me with the only tools she had. And so I spoke to her—not harshly, not hurriedly, not as one who is embarrassed by her, but as one who has finally learned to bless what once had to bear too much. “It’s okay,” I told her. “Thank you. Thank you for trying so hard. Thank you for keeping watch. Thank you for doing what you could when you did not know what else to do.” And then, perhaps for the first time, I said the words she has needed all along: “I’ve got this now.” Not perfectly. Not without trembling. Not with some shining confidence that never falters. But truly. I am here now. I am grown now. I can see more than you could see. I can reach the pedals. I can read the road. I can ask for help. I can pray with an adult heart and not only a frightened one. You do not have to drive anymore.
And yet, I know she will try. Of course she will. Old fear does not unclench simply because we name it. The body remembers. The soul remembers. The child hears one sharp tone, one silence, one disappointment, one hint of danger, and suddenly she is climbing back into the driver’s seat, sure that everything depends on her. So I am learning to pause. When panic rises, I ask gently, “Who is driving right now?” When shame comes flooding in, I breathe and ask, “Is this truth, or is this the old road?” When I begin to spiral, I try to notice whether I am responding from the woman I am becoming or from the child who had to survive. I do not drag her out of the car. I do not scold her for being afraid. I simply tell her the truth again: “You may stay with me, but you do not have to steer.” There is a place for her still. She can come out when it is time to laugh with my husband. When it is time to play with my children. When wonder is needed. When delight is holy. When the world is safe enough for joy. But fear does not get the wheel. Shame does not get the map. The child does not have to carry the woman anymore.
And perhaps this is what it means to grow up—not to despise the child, not to bury her, not to pretend she was foolish for being afraid, but to love her into rest. To put away childish things is not to put away the child with cruelty. It is to lay down the survival that once looked like strength but now keeps the soul from breathing. It is to stop asking a wounded little girl to make adult decisions from the middle of an old fire. It is to gather the scattered pieces and admit, with humility, that I could not see the picture before. I was not bad. I was not hopeless. I was not broken beyond repair. I was building without the picture. I was driving before I was tall enough to see the road.
But God knew the picture. He always did. He knew the pieces I could not name. He knew the ones I hid. He knew the ones I forced into the wrong places just to feel like something was whole. And with such mercy—such patient, unhurried mercy—He has been teaching me to see. Not all at once. Not in a blaze of sudden completion. Piece by piece. Breath by breath. Truth by truth. He is showing me that the life I tried to construct out of fear is not the only life available to me. There is another way to live. There is a road that does not require panic as fuel. There is a wholeness that does not come from control, but from surrender. There is a peace that does not ask the child to disappear, but invites her to be held.
Today, I see grace in my own hands—the hands that hold the wheel now. I see grace in the fact that I can look at the little girl within me and not hate her for how hard life became. I see grace in the quiet realization that I was never lost because I was wicked. I was not failing because I lacked worth. I was simply not meant to be led forever by the part of me that learned to survive before she learned to live. I do love her. I love the child who stood in the fire. I love the child who tried to read a map she had never been given. I love the child who kept driving because stopping felt like death. But she can rest now. I have the wheel. God has the road. And somewhere ahead of us, clearer than it has ever been before, the picture is beginning to appear. Piece by piece, I will put it together. And by grace, it will be beautiful.
Scripture for Reflection:
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." – 1 Corinthians 13:11
