Waiting for Peter Pan

I’ve been thinking about Peter Pan a lot lately. That’s not abnormal for me. It is my favorite Disney movie and at the top of my favorite books list. But lately, it’s been a different kind of thinking. So, I decided to write it out. Because why not? Maybe it’ll help me connect the strings together.

Little Faith wanted Peter Pan to come get her. Not elementary school Faith. I’d say it started around 5th grade. Prior to that, I could cope. I had friends. Cousins who were my best friends and lived close to me. A lot of toys. Enough stuff to distract me when I needed it. But around 5th grade it became harder to do that, and I started wishing Peter Pan would come get me. Of course, I knew it wasn’t real, but it didn’t stop me from entering my imagination and wanting it.

I would be the first Lost Girl. Because I was just that great of a person in my own head and he’d decide I could hang with the boys. And even if he didn’t decide that Hook and the pirates was the other option and one thing about me – I have always been and will always be completely obsessed with pirates. So, whoever took me, that was fine. I just wanted away. It’s not that I didn’t have people who loved me. I know I did. Yet I still spent years wishing Peter Pan would show up at my window.

It didn’t stop in my childhood. My imagination, to this day, has never stopped. In fact, it’s pretty loud and full of characters who would love for me to get them down on paper. Quite a few pirates actually. I’ll get them out one day. I have learned to healthily cope with it. But that wasn’t always the case as an adult. In fact, it’s quite new.

This isn’t a testimony post, so I’ll spare you the details. What matters is that adulthood brought its own storms, and I responded the same way I always had: by looking for Neverland. Sometimes it was through stories. Sometimes it was through Disney. Sometimes it was through the belief that if I could just get somewhere else and become someone new, everything would finally be okay. I spent years chasing escape, only to discover that wherever I went, I took myself with me. And that made me feel so much worse. And I was slowly giving up. On life. On myself.

And finally, instead of waiting for Peter Pan in those moments, I turned to God. I was 40. And I would love to say it all magically got better because God isn’t Peter Pan and He can fix everything right away. He can. But that would have taught me nothing.

I had turned into a lost girl. Just not with any assistance from Peter Pan. A prodigal daughter.

Moving to Georgia and facing my family was very hard but I had to do it. I had to face what I had done and leave who I had become across the country. God’s grace met me the moment I decided to come back. But because I am me, and I have to make everything hard, my shame was louder than grace. Who am I to be forgiven? Who am I to not hang my head in shame for the rest of my life? I’m God’s daughter is who I am. I am Jesus’ best friend. I was created in HIS image. But it took me a long time to understand that.

Grace arrived to meet me in the arms of Jesus more than 5 years before I was able to accept it. I fought it. Satan continued to attack but this time it was through loneliness, isolation, my marriage seeming like it was falling to pieces when we’d managed to get through everything else intact. I was starting to feel overlooked and hopeless. But I am not. I never was. I had been in a never-ending circle of being lost, found, then lost again. I was the Shepard’s most difficult lamb. But I am finally home for good. Not that my eye doesn’t sometimes still wander to see if maybe there’s an easier way elsewhere, but now, I don’t go. I look to where I am and I see Jesus smiling at me. So, I stay.

I was never really looking for Neverland. I was looking for the kind of love that lets you come home. I’ll always love Neverland. But now I know Peter is pretty selfish and I have my own Neverland waiting for me in eternity. I’ll get there one day. Today, I am just going to hang out with Jesus here in my little house with my cats and build a life I can be proud of. To make myself, my kids, my husband, my family and God proud of me.

I wanted to be the first Lost Girl. Instead, I became a prodigal daughter who found her way home.

Listen to the song that goes with this post.