Last week, I woke up at the crack of dawn to the sound of a serious Texas storm going on outside of my window. Normally during the heat of the summer, I would have welcomed this sound and rolled over and hit the snooze button but not on this day. This day I need to be in Dallas to catch an early flight to the Florida Keys for five days of R&R! I hustled out of bed, wishing I had gotten up earlier, and quickly got ready and was out the door by 6:30am headed to Love Field. Well, as anyone local knows, Dallas traffic + storm + sideways rain + upcoming holiday weekend = MASSIVE traffic stand still! After breaking a few laws and avoiding a few near wrecks and just praying that God would part that traffic like the Red Sea or delay my flight, I arrive at the airport at 8:15am (normally takes me 45 minutes to get to this airport)...flight is at 8:30am and is ON TIME...GREAT! I take one look at the bag check in line as well as the security line, thinking, why don't I just have a carry on??? I realize at that moment there is no way I'm gonna get through both lines in ten minutes. So I trudge up to the counter to see about a later flight. Again, normally, no big deal but I'm meeting my girl friend in Houston and then we are flying together to Fort Lauderdale together so now I've REALLY done it...
Anyone who knows me will also vouch that I can have a short fuse and get frustrated quickly in situations like this. However, this day, I resigned myself to thinking positively and just said to myself, "Okay Joy, there is a reason, let's give this one to God and see what He does with it...just accept it, move on, and then let's look and see if we don't see the reason why this has happened". I refused to let my feathers get ruffled this one time!
I approach the counter, finally, and tell the way-too-friendly clerk my dilemma and he starts a typin'...for so long, I start getting nervous, especially after the disappearance of that big smile. But, I just keep saying, it will alllllll work out! Finally, he says AAHHH HAAA! And he locates a flight that is direct right to Ft. Lauderdale that leaves in an hour. Whew!
After I get through security, I go to the ladies room and I just pray while I'm in there for God to show me the reason behind my delay (I still don't tell my friend what is up yet---I'm afraid she will think it is due to a plane crash that I didn't get on that plane and I don't want to worry her). Just teach me something, anything, on this bad weather day Lord.
I walk out of the bathroom and take, literally about 10 steps down the busy hall way towards my gate when I hear my name hollered above the noise..."JOY!" I stop, turn in a circle, see nothing and realize I must be hallucinating as I still have not had my morning coffee and I keep walking. Again, I hear it and I say to myself, has to be for me, right? I repeat the same process again and see no one I know...and so I keep walking, feeling a little foolish. Then, the third time it happens I start to think I am slap crazy and someone needs to put me in a straight jacket..but this time I turn around and standing right out front of Chili's is someone I have not seen in nearly 10 years!!! One of my vet school classmates/friend from A&M! I was...shocked! He happened to see me somehow walking by as he was inside the restaurant. We caught up for about ten minutes (because now I had a lot of free time) as we had lost track of one another and I found out about his family, his career, etc...and then he asks the dreaded question, "So how many kids do you have now?" As if on cue, out of nowhere, you guessed it...I start to cry (at least it wasn't the ugly cry). Which makes me feel even more foolish as I'm in this big ole' public place with a bunch of strangers and someone I haven't seen in a long time...and I lose it. I give him the 10 second run down on my life in the past year and his face just falls. He gives me a big ole' hug and just says how sorry he is (we actually both got married after vet school on the same day so we've always had that connection with our anniversaries) and I know him and I know it is genuine. I dry up the tears as quick as they have appeared and we wrap up the conversation and say our good byes.
I walk away from Chili's towards my gate (and COFFEE!) and I just don't know whether I should be laughing or crying...but as always, I cry a little! I'm just so, so, so amazed what God taught me in that moment and I just feel totally surrounded by His presence. I really had a tough few weeks and for one, I think He just knew I needed a hug from an old friend! But more than that, He used that moment to show me that He is most certainly always in control every second of every day. And He's not afraid to use a rainstorm or a traffic jam to flex His muscles and show me that. I may not know where I'm going, but He does at every second of every day! So, instead of looking at my missed flight as a negative...I looked at it as a positive and that change in attitude and focus made all the difference in my day.
And you wanna hear the cool part? I get to my gate and I ask, by the way, what time will my flight land in Ft. Lauderdale, as I need to tell my friend I will be late. The actual pilot happens to be standing there nearby and pulls out his schedule and tells me the actual time, that we were a little behind schedule but he would make it up in the air to get me to my friend right on time. Thank you sir! I ended up landing and meeting up with her in Florida and we arrive at nearly the same time! My missed flight didn't end up delaying me in the long run at all...I still arrived, right on time, despite some snafus in my morning.
Doesn't that make you think? Life on Earth often takes us another path, one that we might not have planned, but the end result is we end up right where God wants us and His ways are right on time, every time. Maybe we should focus more of what we have and what He's trying to show us in the moment instead of what we don't have and what we think we are missing out on. It's what I call a Holy Attitude Adjustment!
Slidin' In...Right on Time!
JOY
Praise God! He alone is worthy of all praise!
ReplyDeleteAimee
It's always cool when God demonstrates His awesomeness and we get to witness it!!
ReplyDeleteIn so many ways and in so many things, I tend to let things get under my skin. As a daughter of the King, I should realize that He is always in control regardless of what it might look like. So many times I have gotten hung up behind slow drivers and grumbled only to find that an accident has just occurred ahead of me. Is it possible that I might have been involved had I have been "on schedule"? Maybe not but maybe yes...
I think, the older I get, it's all about less of me and more of Him! Less of MY agenda, MY pride, MY self-absorption and more of God and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit! Sometimes though it is SO hard to follow through! I feel so rooted here on Planet Earth b/c that's what my senses know. It's about transcending that and living in another dimension if you will!
Connie
Joy
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, every English class we had to learn a poem. So you know your Dad, I learned the same one every year. It was Rober Frost,"The road not taken", it went like this." Two roads diverged into a yellow wood and I-I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." That is the short side of it. That has always stuck in my mind, how true that is. So if it is missing a flight or stuck in traffic and your life takes a different turn. It may be seeing an old friend or meeting a new one. It just makes a turn in your life that would not have been there is you choose a different road.
How God is in control of our lifes.
Love you
DAD