I’m not going to bed tonight. Nope. Tonight Karl and I will be sitting in relatively uncomfortable seats, accompanied by strangers, all trying to sleep sitting up while we hurl through the atmosphere a little above the ocean and a little below space. And we are excited about it! We are on our way to Ireland to spend a week with our daughter, son-in-law, two grandsons, their other set of grandparents, and an uncle. We’ll be in Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day, and maintaining my total history geekdom, I have been furiously researching Irish history. Wow. Lots to learn and enjoy. I’m a control freak, as we all know, and in preparation for the trip, I’ve made lists and tables of places to see, scheduled tours to take, printed maps of how to get there. I’ve researched euros and uber, the potato famine and Dublin’s bus system. I’m ready.
What I’m thinking about right now, though, is the trip. When we board our flight from Miami to Heath Row (and really, any other flight we ever take or have taken), I am highly aware that I have purchased a ticket that requires me to relinquish every bit of control. We have chosen our seats, but I have no say about who sits beside me. I can’t choose if or what food will be offered or the temperature in the cabin. I have no input about the crew flying the plane, I don’t know about their skills or experience. I can’t watch over shoulders and give my two cents about routes or altitudes. When I board, I am agreeing to total acceptance.
Hmm. Just to be clear, all night tonight, I will willingly demonstrate my complete faith in total, unseen strangers. Yet, there are lots of times that I withhold my trust or doubt the reliability of my God even though I know Him intimately and have experienced example after example of His power and might and good purpose for my life. Just the thought of this irony makes me wince. The Creator of the sea below and space above, the Hand that engineered the sciences man taps into in order to be able to fly – often receives much less of my faith that the flight crew tonight will.
I’m quite certain, based on past experience, that I won’t sleep much tonight. I’m resolving right now to spent at least some of tonight’s long night rerouting my faith – since it really isn’t the crew or the fuselage that will safely convey us to Ireland – and pondering the Hand that is holding me up.
