“You haven’t ridden your bike in weeks.”

“I’m no good at riding my bike. I keep falling off.”

My son’s big brown eyes asked me to let it go, to not make him try again.

“But everybody falls. You’re not the only one. Everyone in the world has fallen off their bike before. It doesn’t mean you’re not good at it. It just means you’re like everybody else.”

This wisdom from my boy with the big blue eyes.

Everyone falls.

I heard the whisper in my heart as they walked outside to play.

It just means you’re like everybody else.

And I thought to myself, how many of us are still reeling from our most recent fall? How many of us are stunned, laying on the ground, with dirt, rocks, and debris stuck in our knees? With scratched up palms stinging and burning?

A friend said to me one day, “I just don’t think I’m forgivable. The things I’ve said and done–I try really hard to stop doing them, but I can’t control my thoughts. I still think about saying and doing things I shouldn’t do, and sometimes, I just can’t help it and I do the same bad things as before. I keep failing.”

Everyone falls, friends. Me. You. Your parents. Your preachers. We all fall at some point.

I fall daily. My words are too sharp, too judgemental. My actions selfish and–at times–cowardly. I am a sinner, fallen on the ground, aching from many falls.

But there is a Father.

When I was a little girl, I asked my Father to enter my life and clean up my sin. I acknowledged Who He was and is and invited Him to stay. He never left.

When you have the Father, He comes running to you as you fall.

He picks you up, dusts you off, and tenderly ministers to your wounds. He wraps them up in His grace, and when you ask forgiveness, He never brings your wounds back up again.

In Christ, there is freedom from sin. We have all fallen, and being a Christian doesn’t make us immune to falling short of God’s glory.

But we will never fall short of His grace.

And as I thanked my Father for His forgiveness, His grace, and His love, I heard the soft whir of  bicycle wheels as a brown-eyed boy rode by in his newfound freedom.

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23

Take a listen to the song In Spite of Me by Paige Givens: