After the Curtain Falls

There’s something sacred about watching a story unfold on a stage, especially when someone you love is living inside it.

This past weekend, our grandson Christopher stepped into the world of Into the Woods, playing both the Wolf and the Prince. Two very different roles, yet somehow both revealing something true about the human heart.

And then, in a precious moment, our three-month-old granddaughter Avila Mae made her theatrical debut, quietly held at the end as the baker’s child.

She didn’t speak a word.

She didn’t need to.

Because sometimes the deepest truths aren’t spoken . . . they’re simply held.

As I sat there watching it all unfold, the story, the music, the movement, I couldn’t help but think:

This is more than a play.

This is a mirror.

Into the Woods reminds us that life doesn’t end when the wish is granted.

In many ways, that’s when the real story begins.

Scripture in Proverbs 14:12 echoes this truth:

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”

How often do we chase what we think will satisfy us, only to find that what we needed wasn’t the outcome; it was transformation.

Christopher played the Wolf; cunning, deceptive, persuasive.

He also played the Prince: charming, confident, searching.

And isn’t that the tension we all live in?

The pull between who we present ourselves to be and who we are becoming beneath the surface.

Because the struggle with sin rarely announces itself.

It doesn’t come crashing through the front door; it whispers from within.

Like the wolf, it’s subtle.

Convincing.

Even reasonable.

It tells us we’re justified.

It tells us we’re entitled.

It tells us we can manage it.

But underneath the surface, something deeper is happening.

What begins as a quiet compromise slowly reshapes our desires.

What feels small begins to form us.

James 1:15 doesn’t soften this reality:

“Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Sin doesn’t just mislead, it leads us away from the life God longs for us to experience.

And the prince we try to project, the polished version of ourselves, the one others applaud, can’t save us from it.

Because this isn’t a behavior problem. It’s a heart condition.

And the invitation of God isn’t to manage the tension but to surrender it.

To bring what’s hidden into the light.

To stop pretending.

To be transformed from the inside out.

Because the life we’re longing for isn’t found in playing the part better, it’s found in letting Him rewrite the story.

And yet, the story doesn’t end in tension.

At the end, what remains isn’t performance, it’s people.

It’s relationship.

It’s choosing to stand together when everything else has fallen apart.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 reminds us:

“Two are better than one… If either of them falls, one can help the other up.”

And maybe that’s why that final moment with Avala, as the Baker's daughter, lingered in my heart…

A newborn child.

A new beginning.

A story not yet written.

Held in the middle of a broken, complicated world.

Isn’t that the Gospel?

That in the middle of our wandering … our wishing … our getting and losing … God doesn’t abandon the story.

He enters it.

“The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” John 1:14

As I watched my grandchildren, one acting out the complexity of life, the other simply resting in it, I was reminded of something I’ve written before in Ink from Heaven’s Pen: Faithful & True Reflections:

That our story is not about our merit but His mercy.

That Heaven’s pen is still writing even when we don’t understand the scene we’re in.

And maybe the question isn’t:

What role am I playing?

But rather:

Who am I becoming and who am I walking with when the curtain falls?

When the tension between who you present and who you truly are surfaces, will you hide it, manage it, or surrender it to God?