You can be sure I prayed on my first flight. There were many things I found odd and being a “noticer” of people, longing to exchange stories, clearly I was out of my element.

The woman next to me seemed flustered. I let her have the armrest the entire three plus hours. She, dressed in a tie dye hoodie with Colorado across her chest, made a low mumbling sound upon takeoff.

I closed my eyes, opened my palm and I said a prayer for us both.

She “played possum” or was sleeping.

The expectation of turbulence was announced and again an audible groan followed by a few more from the woman beside me.

I can’t tell you how close I came to offering my hand.

It was very difficult not to. Me, an empath deciding she was in need of kindness.

Instead, I read. “The Dutch House” is a captivating read about siblings, dysfunctional families and children who continued moving towards reconciliation and making sense of that dysfunction.

I read until I couldn’t stop my fear.

The plane seemed to be slowing. I raised the shade on the window to see we were on top of the clouds.

This didn’t calm me. Nor was I captivated by the beautiful reality.

I was surprised.

Me, the lover of noticing God in the splendor of His creation, not at all taken by the view.

I expected to be in awe. Instead, I clearly thought, “This is not natural. You don’t belong up here.”

That thought fed my fear and so I opened my tattered devotional, “Joy and Strength”.

I did a thing I sometimes do, see how dates or numbers might line up to send a good message from God to me.

I turned to page 327. The passages and commentary were about life and about death, about the reality of both.

“It may mean sickness as well as health; death as well as life; loss as well as gain; peril as well as safety; shipwreck by sea and accident on land…” Anthony W. Thorold

Okay.

I paused.

I thought, okay, okay and then thought maybe there are things I should have said to my family that I didn’t.

I sat calmly.

My eyes returned to the sweat crumpled boarding pass, Flight 372, Gate A53, Seat 12A (close to the emergency exit, close to the engine, next to someone who kept silent).

Not Flight 327, no it was 372 and this number had no relevance other than being the index page in the back of my book!

I settled, it was settled.

God is in the clouds.

With me.

All is well.

“Through you I’m saved—rescued from every trouble…Psalm 54:7

I’ll most likely fly again.

I’ll understand better that it’s a means to a destination,

settle in,

be still,

say your prayers,

clinch your fist upon landing,

be quietly cordial as you exit.

You got this, God is with you, the God of earth and sky.

Continue and believe