Caught While Falling

I feel like I’m falling from the sky.

Not slowly.

Not gently.

But suddenly, like the ground disappeared beneath me without warning.

The wind is loud in my ears. My stomach drops. My heart races as I realize I’m going down, and instinct takes over. I start reaching—grabbing wildly for anything that might stop the fall. My arms stretch out, fingers scraping at the air, desperate for something solid.

I try to grab my health. It crumbles the moment I touch it. I reach for my desire to have a child, hoping it will hold me—but it slips straight through my hands.

I grasp for friends, family, plans, hope—and everything I touch gives way.

I’m falling faster now.

My arms ache from reaching. My hands burn from trying to grip what won’t hold.

Panic sets in as I realize nothing is stopping the descent.

I’m exhausted, terrified, and still plummeting—down, down, down—toward an abyss I can’t see the bottom of.

And then—a hand.

Not weak.

Not unsure.

Not slipping.

A hand reaches into my fall and grabs mine mid-air.

This time, my fingers don’t slide off.

His grip is firm.

Steady.

Strong.

I notice the hole in His hand, and instead of frightening me, it tells me exactly who He is.

For the first time, the fall stops.

He doesn’t just keep me from crashing—He pulls me up. The wind quiets. My feet touch solid ground. And the moment I realize I’m no longer falling, my strength gives out.

I crumble.

I cry the kind of cries that come from the deepest place of grief and exhaustion.

I sob, weakly collapsing into His arms—not because I’m afraid anymore, but because I’m finally safe.

I couldn’t save myself.

I couldn’t catch myself.

I was never going to stop the fall on my own.

But He caught me.

Since my dad passed, it has felt exactly like that—like I was falling out of the sky with no warning. One moment, my feet were planted, and the next, everything beneath me gave way. I reached for memories. For routines. For anything familiar that might keep me upright.

Nothing held.

The silence he left behind was deafening. My chest ached in ways I didn’t have words for. I cried out—sometimes with prayers, sometimes with nothing but tears.

“This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles” (Psalm 34:6).

At the time, I didn’t feel saved. I didn’t feel rescued. But I was crying—and somehow, He was still listening.

I wanted something good to come from all the pain. Something redemptive. Something that made the fall make sense.

So I dove headfirst into the hope of having another child. For a moment, it felt like that hope grew—like maybe this was the thing that would finally catch me.

But as the months passed, my body began responding to grief in ways I had never experienced before.

My health declined.

My strength faded.

And my heart broke all over again as the dream of another baby slipped further and further from my hands.

I wasn’t just grieving my dad anymore.

I was grieving a future I thought would come after the loss.

I felt devastated. Forgotten. Abandoned. Like the Lord had turned away from me.

So I stopped.

I stopped crying because I had cried for so long.

I stopped praying because my words were gone.

I stopped trying because my arms were tired from reaching.

My spirit was broken.

What I didn’t realize was that this broken place—the free fall, the silence, the emptiness—was exactly where I needed to be.

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

I thought my brokenness disqualified me.

Instead, it was the very place He drew near.

“Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12).

I didn’t have joy to offer. I barely had faith. But He was the One doing the restoring—not me.

Because while I was silent, He wasn’t.

While I stopped, He stayed.

While I was falling, He was already reaching.

He had been there the entire time—ready to catch me when I finally cried out for help.

And now I know this: I wasn’t falling alone. I never was.

The same hands that reached into my fall—scarred, strong, and steady—are the same hands holding me now.

Signed,

A broken woman

Krystal W.