I’ve been editing instead of writing, tightening instead of wandering, and somewhere along the way I found myself praying for a second chance—again. This essay is about surrender, humility, and learning to trust grace when the outcome still feels uncertain.

Once upon a time, there was a man who named his sailboat Second Chances, after his own second chance at love.

The boat has long since been gone but he still remembers: it was a 24 footer and, by his own definition, Second Chances was a disaster. 

But not his second chance at love. 

Yeah, the man is Todd and the second chance is us. He’s happy not to have that boat, but nowhere close to as happy as we both are to have found each other on that one snowy night in 1995.

It was most unexpected. We weren’t looking for it. In fact, I’d all but given up on my own ability at love, and had said as much. To God. I said, “I give up. If there is anyone who can love me, You choose.” 

Now, honestly, some prayers I’ve been praying for twenty years and I’m still watching and waiting. And sometimes my prayers are answered quickly. That one was. In three months!

Love came to us as if on the wings of grace itself, some might say. 

The month of January has come and almost gone. It’s been quiet around here except for the roar of the snowblower, and Fannie’s bark around 4:00 p.m. when Evan comes with our mail and a treat. I’ve never heard such commotion over one small dog treat. But Fannie lives for treats.

My Friday morning Bible studies have come and gone too, and it’s a good thing we approached it differently this past year. Every table has a leader or co-leader, but we improvised.

Almost everyone took a turn leading and it unfolded beautifully.

Being a good leader requires several things, like being prepared: understanding the material and message, praying for wisdom, allowing the Spirit to fill you up, then surrendering it back, and offering yourself to be used. That’s a wonderful thing—to be used in that way. God knows what others need, we can pretend to know, but that only gets in the way.

And, most importantly, it begins with humility. 

Our attitude should be like the “Foot Washer” himself… who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant… Some see that as weakness. I don’t. I’m part of a group that does understand this kind of leadership—humble, faithful, steady. So when I was sick, they carried on.

Other groups have table leaders. We have a table of leaders! 

There were 12 Lessons in our study since September, digging into the gospel of John. We made the assignments together and as we moved along, it wasn’t intentional, but I saw no need to take one. That is, until the last lesson on Peter’s Second Chance. That one kept jumping off the page at me.

Nancy wouldn’t let me off the hook even when my flu dragged on. She said she’d back me up. I really did try to squirm out of it, and then Mother Nature helped me out with a north wind from the North Pole that shut schools and businesses and churches down. Last Friday was canceled. I was off the hook. I thought. Nancy said, “Write something.”

Now you may have noticed—or maybe not—I haven’t been writing like I used to. That’s because I’m editing. As my novel is now in the querying phase, I’m tightening it, chapter by chapter, so it’s the best it can be if/when someone requests the full manuscript—all 86 chapters. I’ve been in right brain mode. It amazes me how the edits keep multiplying. No chapter escapes unscathed. And where I find myself? I’m in sore need of something. 

Did you guess? Keep reading.

Here I am in Chapter 62. This is a situation where art mirrors life. My protagonist reminds me of something pretty profound. For me. Where I am in life.

Wren comes to terms with the very thing I find myself struggling with. Yet again. Believe me, yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, I prayed for a second chance. 

I see what Emily Dickinson is telling us by saying she’s a nobody and invites the reader to be a nobody too.  It’s not because of low self-worth. It’s that she viewed being a “somebody” as dreary, comparing famous people to frogs croaking in a public “bog.” She valued the freedom of being an “overlooked” individual. 

Rather than feeling unappreciated, she embraced her seclusion, using it to foster a “noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable” outlook that permitted her to write freely. 

Her poem and poetry argues against public displays of self-promotion, choosing instead the quiet, observant life. Where she could focus on her creative, intellectual, and personal life.

Ultimately, for her, being a “nobody” was a “crown of achievement” that allowed her to live on her own terms. 

So maybe you’ve guessed.

How long, oh Lord, must I be in this battle with myself?

You have told me, die to self. Dare to be a nobody.

But this is such a confusing time, Lord, wars are raging, persecutions, divisiveness, devisions, horrors, and tragedies abound.

What’s a writer to do? Go live in the woods like Thoreau? I’m ready!

(Even my website stats explode with bots. What’s even real anymore? I can’t send an email without AI interference.)

And here I am, caught, once again, seeking the world’s approval. And who points it out to me but my protagonist, Wren. She thought her equity card would give her the credibility she needed as an actor. Did it? No. She almost paid the devil 6.66. Literally. Well, maybe not literally, but you get the point. And I don’t want to either.

Today, it would be so easy to let the success or failure of my novel rule the roost. Can’t you just hear it?

“Before the rooster crows three times you will deny me…”

Not me, Lord. I would lay down my life for you… What’s that? Well, yes, I would sign that contract. But then I’d lay it down. I promise. Ok?

“Debbie, Debbie, Debbie. Do you love me?”

I do, Lord, you know I do. 

“Then feed my sheep. Debbie, do you really love me?”

Now my throat thickens and my eyes burn, my mouth stretches wide like it does when you get all squishy faced right before you start to cry. Have you ever caught a glimpse of yourself like that in the rearview mirror? It’s not pretty. 

Lord, you know I do. 

“Then feed my lambs.”

That’s why I wrote the novel, Lord, you know that’s true. 

“Then trust me.”

Is it a coincidence that our message at church this morning was about how we approach our work? Asking: can we let go of control and instead trust?

Just when I think I’m sailing clear (no pun intended) it’s another disaster. I get tested again. And all I can do is lay it down at the foot of the cross. Surrender. 

We lose our lives to gain Christ, Paul says. We become nobodies, Emily Dickinson says. And that’s a good thing.

Thank God for second chances. 

Yes, we are to be prepared. It’s good to know our stories, the testimonies to God’s work and faithfulness in our lives. People are in exile and want to get home. God has been Evacuated. 

He places us in places to do his work. 

“Pay attention,” Wren’s friend says in my Chapter 62. “Things may not go according to plan, but they may be unfolding according to the way of grace.”

Keep going. Trust. Live, write in a way you can show what God is up to. And whatever you do, do it as if you were doing it for the “Foot Washer” himself. 

Let go of trying to (fill in the blank) to win approval, to prove your worth, to please people. 

Yield to God’s creative work. (And don’t try to speed it up.) 

The way will open step by step

Set sail!