Airplanes in the night sky.

Wow.

Home, settled and ready to try to get all these thoughts out. The Philadelphia Christian Writer’s conference was…awesome! I have many posts brewing in my head about the conference and will just have to slowly get it out one post at a time. Processing seems to be the greatest hurdle whenever we attend something like this doesn’t it? [smile]

I’m nervous, excited and still very cautious about where God is taking me for the next step. I made a ton of contacts that I will need to follow through with and see where to road goes next. But what I committed to God was that I would always do the next thing that He puts in front of me. I think that’s really all God requires for audacious faith. Just the next thing.

And…He really put me to test on that commitment about 30,000 feet up in the air on Saturday night.

I was tired y’all. Like, hadn’t slept good in days, exhausted from roller coaster emotions and just needed to see my people kinda tired. The kind of tired that possibly if one person even looked at you with a frown -you might just crawl under the seat and weep. TIRED. Ok?

So as I took my seat in row 16D, I was quite content to see that there was no one sitting in the middle of my seat [the aisle] and the window seat. A sweet little girl kept popping her head over the seat in front of me but -I didn’t mind. She was preparing me to enter back into motherhood with her bobbing little pigtails and her sweet little voice. Her dad was obviously exhausted and I’m sure that all he wanted her to do was settle into her seat with her Wiggles movie.

As we began to take off, the gentleman across the aisle from me noticed my gripping of the arm rests. [I would prefer no take off’s or landings in flying.] In his old northern drawl he said, “It will be ok.” I nodded my head in agreement -until it was time to land.

The flight was smooth. It was quite. The woman in the window seat of aisle 16 stayed busy with her IPOD touch and relaxed with her glass of chardonnay. I began to replay events, conversations and experiences over the past four days. It was a lot to process and I was thankful for these few quite moments.

As we approached Charlotte, I began to wind up mp3 player and place my magazine back into my bag. But something inside my spirit told me that God had something else in mind for that plane ride other than just an hour and a half of debriefing mentally time.

So I asked God, “What? What is it?”

At that very moment, the pilot of the plane came on and said, “Sorry to say this folks, but it looks like we are going to have to circle the air for another 15-minutes or so. The weather around Charlotte isn’t the best for landing.”

Immediately all throughout the cabin you could hear the groans of the passengers. It was late. We were all tired. And the woman who had not spoken a word to me the entire flight was suddenly very distressed over this 15-minute delay.

My heart began to flutter because I had a feeling I knew why we had this very sudden delay. And so I eased into a very tense conversation with the lady in seat 16F about her recent travels and frustrations with flying. But I could look into her eyes and know that there was much more to her than just being upset about a flight delay.

I squeezed my hands tighter around the arm rests as we continued to circle the air. Lord, this is not the most opportune circumstances to be doing something like this. But then, she asked me a question that opened a door for the conversation to pass to the next level, “So what were you doing in Philadelphia?”

And so for the next ten minutes her and I began to talk about God. The calling and purpose I had been given from Him and I slowly began to peer into her soul. Did she know this God that I have so much faith in? The same God that would hold an airplane in the air for an extra 15-minutes so that this conversation would take place?

She didn’t. And she was very hesitant to share her thoughts on who God is to her. Because she didn’t know.

I encouraged her. I gave her verses, web sites and whatever else I could to help her along her journey. But, I told her the name…the name of Jesus. The name that had changed my life from the inside out. Who had saved me from my pit of shame and despair. And that for no matter what she faced in her life…He wanted to do the same for her.

Most likely, I will never see that new friend of mine again. It didn’t feel right to hand her a business card or ask to be her friend on facebook. I felt like all that was supposed to happen had happened. The rest…that was up to God.

I kid you not….as instantly as our conversation was over, the pilot came back on and told us the good news that we could prepare to land. I had done the…next thing. It was hard, I felt stretched beyond anything I could imagine. But I can promise you this…whenever I think about my trip to Philadelphia, I will always think about the airplane in the night sky and how God held it there until He was finished. My heart is heavy for my new friend and I pray that one day her soul accepts the truth of who God is to her.

But for today, I rest in knowing that if God held that plane for her, I bet He will move more mountains to get to her still. He doesn’t let us go. He’s always waiting. He’s always hoping that we…will come to Him. What a great God we serve…a God who holds airplanes in the night sky.