A great deal of what being a Christian means is hard for me to accept. Perhaps moreso than anything, it's hard for me to accept the certain lack of control that comes with it. When I separated from my parents, I went from socially awkward to almost completely closed off, and I became both increasingly self-reliant and closed off. So it has become difficult for me to accept that I'm not the one in total control, that there's a plan for me that may not be necessarily one hundred percent generated by me and in my own interest.
Yesterday was one of those days where I was made very aware of who is in charge and why.
It was the opposite of the travel experience I described in my previous entry. I got into Edmonton and was held back from entering US customs by a woman who had an oddly forceful stance about my entering the area too early and kept repeating the same standard line about checking out all the shops on the Canadian side. I'd already seen the bookstores and just wanted to set my bag down for a few hours, but instead I ended up parking at a nearby lounge watching the clock while my glass of water seemingly sweat more liquid than it contained. By the time I got through customs my plane had been delayed by an hour. This ordinarily would be no problem, except my layover at the next airport was almost exactly an hour. At this point, my plane was coming into Denver four minutes after my plane out of Denver began boarding. That's pretty stressful by anybody's standards, for someone with my anxiety issues it's a nightmare. I contacted one of my best friends, who is thankfully also my travel agent, and was basically informed I was S.O.L. I could only hope that I made that plane and if not, I was going to be waiting until the next morning to get home. This seemed the perfect storm of travel difficulties.
Then, improbably, I accepted my situation.
The fact of the matter was, there was nothing I could have done about it anyways. I couldn't have altered the winds in Denver to allow my aircraft to make the stop on time. I couldn't disperse the rain clouds to allow for a smoother ride, perhaps a ride that would allow the crew to make up time en route. I couldn't alter the flow of time. I was totally unable to do a thing, and you know what? That was the way it was. If I ended up stuck in Denver I luckily would have both my aunt and uncle on my mom's side and on my dad's side nearby. If it was going to happen, Denver would be the city for it to happen in.
God had a plan.
The plane arrived earlier than expected, and although boarding took a bit we were off the ground ahead of our delayed schedule. I read a book, slept a bit, and commiserated with the cute girl across the aisle about what we were going to have to do when we got to Denver. I anticipated a run not alike the airport run taken by many a romantic movie protagonist, except there was no beautiful girl at the end of this, just a gate agent.
We touched down in Denver, and upon disembarking I discovered that my two planes were almost right next to each other. The gates were mere feet away. The run against the clock that I'd imagined would be unnecessary. I didn't even have to power walk. I landed in my seat on the plane home and flipped through my MP3 player looking for a comic whose jokes would help with the release of the tension I'd built up. I selected Kyle Kinane's Whisky Icarus album and picked up where I thought I'd left off earlier the previous day with the track God of Thunder (Whisky Icarus's track listing matches the track listing for my favorite Kiss album Destroyer, and God of Thunder is my favorite Kiss song).
The bit, I kid you not, was about a bad airline experience. Talk about a sign from God. I sank back into my seat and made the most of what little time was left in the day, comfortable knowing that I was fine, I had been fine all along, and all was well.
Thanks be to God.
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