Relax and Enjoy the Flight

I had not flown for nearly a decade.

In fact, after the last trip, I looked straight into my husband’s eyes and said: Never again.

And I meant it.

The flight had been a wild child. Turbulence is a lenient term for what we experienced during the first leg of travel, and then, at the tail end of a layover, the pilot declared that there was an unexpected engine issue.

We were not permitted to exit the aircraft, as men in jumpsuits and toolboxes scurried feverishly beneath us for an entire hour.

Please, Jon, I whispered. Get me off this plane. Right now.

Instead of responding As you wish, he squeezed my hand and assured me we would be just fine.

You don’t know that, I countered.

The flight proved bumpy with more than one unusual clunking noise. We survived and once home I dropped my suitcase and hugged our children tightly, my heart trilling: Peace out, Delta. I am done.

That melody was the sweetest bliss for over nine years, until last week when I found myself at the airport.

Flying to attend a conference, given that my schedule did not permit road-tripping.

All was fine. All was dandy.

Until I boarded the plane.

It was tiny. It was minuscule. I was trapped.

To give further context, I spent decades warning our children about the dangers of small aircraft. Don’t ever, ever, ever, ever, ride in a small plane, I cautioned. They are most dangerous.

My loves listened politely, eyes round. And then, as they grew older one of my sons asked what he should do if he was stranded on a remote island and a small plane arrived to rescue him.

Swim. Or wait for me to arrive by rowboat, I might have said.

So you may now understand my dilemma when I stepped onto this aircraft and saw only one pair of seats on either side of the wispy-thin aisle. Even the skinny stewardess had to walk the length of the plane sideways.

Have I mentioned I do not prefer small, inescapable spaces?

The plain truth: I was stuck on a narrow metal tunnel that would soon be torpedoing through the sky at an impossible speed. I was traveling alone, while stuffed inside a plane full of complete strangers.

By nature I am calm. On land, I do not fidget or worry or keep company with anxious thoughts. In fact, I had largely forgotten what anxiety felt like, until I maneuvered that aisle and dropped into my seat, which was at the rear of the airplane.

Breathe, Kristin. Pray and count your blessings, I told myself.

And so I began.

When my mind arrived at the blessing of fine weather, I wrongly assumed that favorable weather would yield smooth travel.

And then, as I tightened my seatbelt the pilot announced over the intercom:

We are expecting a bumpy ride today, folks. Some currents will cause significant turbulence, and I will be asking that you keep your seatbelts fastened. Thank you for traveling with us today. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

My heart thumped.

Relax and enjoy the flight? You’ve got to be kidding me.

The towering marine in front of me moaned and curled into a fetal position as his wife rubbed his wide neck. She turned and whispered: He is terrified of flying.

I nodded, thinking: ditto.

The older gentleman–right next to me– asked if I enjoyed flying.

Not really, I said.

Oh, we’ll be just fine, M’am. My method in life is to think positively. Yes, siree. His hands shook as he pulled back the tab on his Nicorette gum and popped the shiny rectangle into his mouth.

My method is to trust God, I smiled weakly, attempting to escort my jittery heart toward truth, while feeling like a charlatan.

Thus began our brief conversation about faith. He frequented church a few times a year. It became obvious that he did not want to pursue a conversation about God or the Bible. I invited him to our new church plant and he murmured Thank you, M’am, maybe I will, and coughed nervously, a polite decline.

He kept right on talking, without end, showing me photos of his Doberman Pinscher, Alice, whom he had trained to snarl on command, curling her upper lip and terrifying strangers, and Frank, his Macaw, a parrot who placed his beak gently over people’s noses–a delightful display of affection, don’t you think? And let’s not forget his striped cat, Otto, who was enamored by YouTube videos designed specifically for felines.

At this point, I began to assume this flight was a bad dream.

Takeoff was smooth, but twenty minutes in, we were being tossed to and fro. I prayed and breathed deeply and thought of my family as my neighbor grew increasingly jumpy, amping up the volume of his pet sagas. His hands trembled, and my heart quaked as I tried my best to ignore both the turbulence and the marine who was now hovering over a sick bag while his wife dug furiously in the depths of her oversized purse before finding a prescription bottle and placing one miniature pill beneath her husband’s tongue.

Did I mention the conference’s theme?

“The Steadfast Soul: Enjoying Peace in an Anxious Age.”

And how I was thrilled to attend because so many people I love battle anxiety?

My comeuppance came swiftly as God humbled me on that plane.

By 8:30 am my neighbor had ordered and downed not one but two Bloody Marys while I sipped water and crunched every last bit of cubed ice.

The rest of the flight smelled like gin and regrets, and I prayed for deliverance to graciously survive the ceaseless monologue unfolding in my left ear.

We finally landed, and the marine stood and stretched, pecking his wife’s cheek, revived by land, by control.

Me too, I thought. Me too.

//

The conference ministered to the crevices of my heart in specific ways I could not have anticipated.

I first had to be trapped miles above the earth, shaken by turbulence to bump up against the truth that God longs for me to press more deeply into him whether on land, sea, or sky.

As Abraham Kuyper said:

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

The question is: Will I relinquish my strong affection for personal sovereignty?

I now see plainly: My safety has grown far too precious.

There it is.

Another hard truth.

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I daydreamed (just a little) about asking my husband if I could rent a car and drive home, hoping he might say As you wish.

But I did not even ask. It was time to change my tune.

On the return flight I armed myself with a conference notebook full of wisdom, prayer, and two Bible verses. This cocktail was far more potent than my neighbor’s drink, and yielded a calm, peaceful heart and trip, in those deep-down places, even though the flight was, yet again, turbulent.

God is kind to shake us out of ourselves, isn’t he?

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My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

You keep him in perfect peace
    whose mind is stayed on you,
    because he trusts in you.

Isaiah 26:3

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