Thursday, May 31, 2007

Dearest God,

Every situation in life is an occasion to be thrust into your arms. We had worked hard on the old house, painting, sanding, cleaning, planting, weeding. It was time to fly home. Working until the last moment we scattered to take showers (no way will the primer paint come off).

We hopped in the car to drive to the airport. We had not confirmed our flights 24 hours earlier. We had a computer but no wireless connection. The library had closed early. So I dialed the airline. I waited in the rotary. Finally a pleasant woman asked to help me. Using my travel summary and receipt I tried to confirm our flights. She had only information on my canceled flight which had not been canceled. We labored to give birth to this confirmation but to no avail. She suggested I call the airline directly because she had us on Delta and we were flying NWA.

Another call got me into NWA but only to confirm that the flight was on time. One of us was terribly distressed. "Should we turn around?" "What if we don't have a flight?" "What are we going to do?" It was during this time that I took a big leap into your arms, jumped right in. There wasn't anything to do but keep heading toward the airport, trusting that our summary was correct and that a seat was being saved for all of us. Stressful, since I had spent two hours on two occasions trying to get these tickets taken care of. No easy task!

When we arrived we checked in at the NWA counter. Sure enough our names were on the roster. We gave them our luggage, got our boarding passes and headed for security. An hour and a half later we were flying to Detroit. We arrived on time but our next 45 minute flight to Indy was delayed. Some people were late and we were going to wait on them. So we sat on the airplane for another 30 minutes. We started to taxi away from the gate, but then we stopped. The next thing we saw was one of our pilots on the runway checking a part on the plane. Very reassuring! Another 30 minutes went by. The captain told us we had hydraulic problems. A maintenance engineer entered the plane. Sitting next to the aisle I watched the drama unfold. Another 30 minutes went by. Finally we were told the problem was too big to be immediately repaired. The co-captain had spotted trouble, a lucky catch, the pilot told us. Good grief! But I was grateful since I was relieved that he found the problem while we were on the ground instead of in the air.

We were told our crew would run out of flying time in 20 minutes so we had to hurry to gate 63 and get on a different plane. We scampered off the plane, into the other gate, and on to the retrieved plane. I did pause for a moment and thanked my pilots for their diligence. (I like my pilots to be happy pilots) Another 30 minutes later we were in the air.

We arrived at our destination three hours late, tired and ready for bed. But I did have extra time in all our waiting to pick the paint off my limbs.

All this is to say, dear God, that life is filled with changes, transitions, unexpected happenings. Some things can be worked through, some cannot. Sometimes we have to trust others with our welfare. Sometimes this is easy and other times, well, let's just say those trying moments keep us at your feet.

Most High God,
we kneel at your feet.
Our destinations
are not our destiny.
We are believers
in a world
that wonders what it believes.
Our covenantal promise
is to trust you
in every situation.
Nothing is beyond your reach.
Today was just another day,
in your care.
Another God-given day,
filled with opportunity
to rise to higher levels of trust.
Thank you.

Love always, Andrea