I don’t believe in karma, but that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of it.

So I’m not a stranger to contradictions. Or 180-degree life turns. For just as I had surrendered myself, at the ripe old age of thirty, to a single and childless life, in walked The Husband. Then, a few years later, out popped The Kid. And now, on the eve of our first family flight, I am remembering all those trips I took while single and childless, the guttural sighs I must have emitted upon seeing young families struggle with their infants and gear; I’m recalling the frustration I felt while trying to hear The Office over my in-flight headphones while a baby screamed. And I’m wondering what’s in store for a person who has made plenty of unfair judgment calls and uninformed assessments. Karma…or grace?

See, I like justice. And I subscribe to a belief system that upholds justice…just not at my, or your, expense. A turn of events that could be considered pretty unjust, if you’re a perfect person carrying a cross on your back. And then there’s that annoying component of my faith, the part that actually makes it faith, the whole “invisible God” thing. There are times when that really gets to me–when it would be so helpful if he’d just give me a glimpse every now and then, just to affirm what I already believe. What I usually believe. What I sometimes even act like I believe.

I’m the person who, before sitting back down in her chair, checks to make sure it’s still there. People move that shit sometimes, okay? Back off. So I’m, overall, a little skeptical. A little doubtful. So I keep receipts and write down confirmation numbers. I’m more comfortable in black and white than gray. What’s inconvenient is that grace has been moving me toward the gray for awhile now. Away from just justice, and into mercy. Into forgiveness. Into redemption. It gives me all these, then comes the moment when it asks for all of them from me in return. In my earlier life, I excelled at spelling bees: right and wrong answers. Now, I write: an uncomfortable amount of wiggle room. There is more waiting where I am now. Things take longer when you’re allowing change to be a process. More becomes revealed when you’re looking for what lies deeper.

I had a thought the other day, an unnerving and wonderful and most definitely not black and white one, and it was this: Faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. Doubt is actually a huge part of faith.

“God, is that you?” I asked, wondering if I was speaking on his behalf again without permission, but upon further examination I beheld the elegant truth: doubt is what can drive us deeper into faith. And God is big enough to handle our doubt without getting his feelings hurt. Graciously, he even answers out doubt. Because doubt? Like guilt, it’s really just another outfit fear puts on to disguise itself. I know this because I’m not just a chair-checker–I’m also one who constantly waits for the bottom to fall out from underneath me. Given the chance, I’d live entirely on fear, and I and everyone around me would be the worse for it. What if it’s not true? I ask of everything–everyone–I put my faith in. And yet, grace keeps stepping out on the ledge with me. Every time.

It’s grace that exposes that fear, that tells me that my anxiety surrounding this flight is not just about the inconvenience or difficulty of it, or even just about TK’s discomfort. It’s also (fear part here) about my need for approval, my urge to please others, that perpetually haunting part of my personality that requires outside affirmation.

Well, screw that. If there’s ever a time to stop worrying about what other people think, it’s on a cross-country flight with a seven-month-old, am I right? I’ll skip karma, with its accompanying false sense of control, and place all my chips on grace because it kicks karma’s ass–and tells much better stories. Justice already happened; it’s redemption’s turn now. So I will adjust my seat forward, secure my seatbelt, and wait for grace and the in-flight bar to show up.