a wing and a prayer

Being petrified of flying has its advantages.

Okay, advantages is an overstatement, but there is one reason I'm thankful for my intense fear.

When I'm up in the clouds and my heart is hammering in my chest, I can pray to God for hours on end—which is exactly what I did this past July on an eight-hour flight to Paris.

I wish I could be the kind of person who gets upset when there's a delay and maintenance is taking too long, irritated because things are running behind schedule and something has to be repaired on the plane.

But, no, that's not me.

When I see those folks in their orange vests walk off the jet bridge, my mind goes to dark places and I scour their expressions to determine if they're trying to keep straight faces and really have their fingers crossed behind their backs, because maybe for the sake of time they had to use screws that were too short or a spare roll of duct tape to reattach the wing.

So when the masses are cheering and celebrating the announcement that it's time to board, I'm stopping myself from going to the counter and asking, “Are you certain the problem has been fixed? Shouldn't you cancel for the evening so you have time to double-check everything?"

My trepidation goes back to when my children were little, and I was terror-stricken over the thought of them losing me. My dad passed away from cancer when I was seventeen, and I never wanted them to experience that heartbreak. I'm guilty of trying to shield my kids from anything painful ... even knowing that I'm the person I am today because of each and every tough situation I've endured.

My obsession of not wanting those three to ever become motherless though, for a time, spilled over into every area of my life. Every prospective trip or planned future activity became a mental game of how much risk was involved. It didn't take one bit of creativity to envision what could potentially happen. Reading the newspaper or watching the nightly report illustrated how I could be taken in a flash: by a plane going down, a drunk or distracted driver speeding down the road, by a person with a gun in their pocket and desire to hurt others, and a million other ways.

What I have to tell myself every time I fly, get in a car, or just get out of bed in the morning is that God.Is.In.Control.  Not only of the lives of myself, husband, and children but of every life that has ever lived or ever will. God already knows when all of our final pages will be read. We must completely trust Him—with all of it, every bit. So much easier said than done.

Fears come in a host of varieties: What's irresistible to one human can be repulsive or wretched to another. Why is it that one person can become paralyzed even hearing the word snake, while another thinks there's no better pet in the world? Why one gets completely charged up, feeling alive, when public speaking, and the next would rather fall over and die than talk to a crowd?

What we're frightened by and what we run from is as individual as each of us. We all have something, that one little thing or maybe many huge things, that holds us back from living a full life—those things we allow to "win" and control our daily choices.

It's human nature that we avoid with all our being and then fight with everything we have the hardships that come our way. If something makes our hearts pound and bodies shake, we turn the other way because we don't want to feel or face it.

But maybe God wants us to keep going in that scary direction, even when it feels out and out dreadful. Maybe walking through those snake-filled valleys or trekking forty-thousand feet up is just what we need, relying on Him and Him alone, to develop our character and allow us to grow and become the people He intends us to be.

Sure, there are occasions to pay attention to the fear in our bellies, but I'm acutely aware that often mine deserves to be ignored, because there seems to be a faulty dial in my brain that gets stuck on high at times when it should be on low.

The bible tells us that God will protect us and give us refuge as we're persevering and traveling through our times of distress.

Psalm 91: 4 says, "He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart."

And Psalm 91: 9-12 says, "If you make the Most High your dwelling, even the Lord, who is my refuge, then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."

I believe God's word and want it to inform my actions, so I rarely let my worrying mind have the victory anymore. Instead, I march right on those planes—ok, another overstatement—even when my dread and anxiety is telling me to bolt ... Because in my heart of hearts, I know God is in control. And I choose to trust Him. Even when I'm hitting major turbulence, in the air or in the minutes that make up my day, I choose to shout out praises and thanks—and maybe an SOS prayer or two.

We can't always see when the bumpiness will end or why it's happening, but God does and to me that's extremely comforting.

He’s always there to call on and to calm our fears.

So when you’re about to take flight or when you’re getting strapped into your seat of life each morning, burrow in under His feathers and picture God's huge, strong, capable hands holding you up and His protective guardian angels sitting by on the wings, carrying you wherever you go.

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