40,000-foot faith

A couple weeks ago, I went on a retreat with some co-workers. It was a few days before our admission to the hospital with Amanda, and I need to confess that I was, at that moment, feeling a little fragile.

I am one of those people who hates to cry in front of other people. I don't just dislike it, I absolutely hate it. I can cry at church or in my home (and frequently do). But when it comes to people I don't know well, I freak if I leak.

I'm not bothered by other people crying. I have a friend who cries frequently in our personal conversations, and I love her even more because she shows her heart so openly. She's one of those rare women who is beautiful when she cries. I have another friend who cries maybe a couple times a decade. I saw one of her big cries 10 years or so ago at a women's retreat. It was great. She yelled at me for not telling her in advance that she'd cry (in front of about 100 other people, which made it even better).

You may remember Hillary Clinton's big 'choke-up' on TV, where she gained 6 points in popularity the day after she teared-up over something. I had a pretty visceral reaction to that, and the next morning, when the local paper ran an article asking, "When is it ok for a woman to cry in public?" I responded by yelling at the paper over my coffee, "NEVER!"

Well the next week, off I went with our coworkers (some whom I knew well, and some hardly at all), and within the first hour of our time together, I cried. I still roll my eyes a little in disgust at myself when I think about it.

But the reason why I cried has hung with me and become a constant, nagging heart theme for this place of our journey.

Let me back up a bit. Chris, one of the guys at our meeting, shared an 'icebreaker' called Solarium, a deck of cards with random pictures on them. The pictures were of all kinds of various items, or vignettes of time and certain moments. One picture was a close-in picture of an eye, red with either worry or tears. Another was a time-lapsed picture of a man in a subway with the blurred figures of moving people moving around him. Still another was a guy's bald head with post-its stuck all over it. Each of the 40 cards were very random, and all were very interesting.

Chris asked each person to choose a picture that represented where God is meeting us. No other big directions-just 'pick one that speaks to you about where God is meeting you recently.' One of these cards jumped out at me above all the others. The picture was of a jet taking off. Nothing too profound, but it grabbed me pretty firmly.

I do a fair amount of traveling with my job, which is both good and bad. I like to travel, but I hate being away from family. I am pretty sure they miss me, and I miss them terribly. I ache when I'm away from Bob because being separated from him is like being separated from part of myself. I also worry about them and call home way too often.

I also kid myself into believing that I not only maintain some kind of control over my house by phone or internet when I travel (even though Bob does an incredible job of juggling all that's required). I think I'm able to do something about the things that are happening several states away in my absence.

But there's a special moment that happens when I travel, specifically when I fly, which is not well duplicated anywhere else. The moment the flight attendant announces that the doors have been closed and it's time to turn off all electronic equipment including cell phones, all the people and things that matter to me most are completely at God's mercy.

In that moment, I don't have the ability to call home, to check email, to send texts or instant messages instructing, fixing, sharing, reminding, coordinating.

For that hour and a half, I am completely without control over my family and from my worries on the ground. All the things at my home or in my office are completely without the fragile tether I believe I have effectively wound around us, which holds me to them and keeps all of us together. At that moment, I must let everything go whether I like it or not. I am completely, necessarily, surrendered to God's ability to take care of all those things.

Logically, I know God is so much better at handling those things than me. But I give him roughly two trips a month, 3 hours each time, to be competent, and to remind me that He can do just fine without my help.

Of course, every time I land, I grab the phone and call home to check. And of course, everyone is as fine as when I spoke to them last. So why does it still take me a trip to 40,000 feet to be able to let them go completely?

At those moments, where the cabin air smells like just-opened little packs of stale peanuts or other stale things I don't want to think about too much, God is actually, finally in charge. And I'm in complete, required and necessary surrender.

What amazes me most, is that with that surrender comes the benefit of complete and total peace. I can't fix it, I can't see it, I can't change it. God's got it.

I've had a number of folks call or email me about how Amanda is doing. She's the same as she was 6 months, or a year ago. She's the same, but I'm a little different. I'm a teenie bit wiser. I've figured out that God is not leading us out of the desert of ignorance of understanding what should happen next....which is our personal wilderness. I'm not being led into the land of milk, honey and perfect clarity of His immediate plans for me and what I should do next. I am, instead, being given enough manna for today, the knowlege that God is bigger than all of this, and that grace is always, amazingly, sufficient. The perfect rest that comes with surrender, and the peace that comes with letting go.

God wants me to have 40,000 foot faith-not just when the cabin doors are locked, but all the time.

Frankly, I hate this lesson. Most of the lessons that are hardest for us are the ones we dislike the most. At this point, I probably owe it to Him to learn this one well, and I owe it to myself to learn it pretty soon.

So if you ask me how she's doing, don't be too surprised if I don't cry when I tell you she's about the same. I'm actually ok with it-or getting to be ok with it. But ask me where God's meeting me, and you might get a somewhat damper response. Wherever I am, God is there, both with me and with them. Especially when I'm 40,000 feet. Maybe, when I've learned this well, I'll be able to find that 40,000 foot faith when the cabin doors are unlocked, too.

Blessings,

Megan