I just returned from my trip to the West coast and it feels so good to be home. I basically decided, 'who says I can't have a spring break now that I'm out of college? Psh! And peaced out for a week anyways. I didn't take my computer on my trip, but I had too many adventures and thoughts to not record them at all- so I kept track along the way and I would now love to share some of them with you.
March 8th 11:25pm (thoughts from the air):
I love flying. I love airports and people watching and the hustle and bustle and I love taking off and landing. It's exhilarating. It is one big adventure. I realized earlier that that it's probably all so exciting to me because the rest of my life so often feels run-of-the-mill. Today's adventure was definitely one for the books (or the blogs, I guess).
I made it to the Atlanta airport with plenty of time to spare because the place is seriously enormous! Somehow I made it through check-in and security in like 10 minutes and about a half hour before I was supposed to board, I hear an announcement and look up at the screen to see 'delayed' in red next to my flight. Great. Thankfully I was just coming from a fantastic conference for work and was in a very patient and peaceful place. I chalked it up to part of the experience and quietly took my place in line behind all of the other people who were going to miss their connections because of this delay to wait. When I finally made it to the counter I was rewarded with great news: they were changing my original flight (with a layover in Denver) to a nonstop flight to Portland that would actually arrive before I was scheduled to in the first place. Fantastic!
For some irrational reason, I really enjoy flying alone. It must be something about the adventure, the independence. And one of my favorite things about these adventures is definitely making new friends. I love striking up a conversation when I'm standing in line or meeting my new flight companions once we get settled on the plane. On this most recent trip, though, I have had terrible luck with this. I tried and tried but no one was biting! The lady on the 5 hour flight across the country to Portland sat down and proceeded to put in her headphones immediately. I attempted to share a laugh over the ridiculous size of the tiny pretzels Delta gave us and was rejected. I tried to be friendly and helped when she couldn't figure out how to use her credit card to pay for a movie... Nothing. I tried to engage her by asking about Portland once I found out that's where she was from... Fail.
Why is that? Why are some of us wired to make friends and be engaging while others aren't? Why do some of us readily respond when pursued while others hide from the same efforts? I started to realize in my aggravation that it is not all bad. As I looked around the plane, I was reminded again that God did not only create me and he does not only love me! Shocking, I know. My God loves that bald-headed man in front of me as much as he does the flight attendants who seem put out by their jobs and can't decide between the party in New York or Charleston, SC. He loves the woman beside me who won't give me the time of day the exact same amount that he loves me- no more and no less. But the neat thing is that he created us to be different and he loves us uniquely- exactly where we're at and exactly how we need to be loved.
''Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me.''
Psalm 139:1
''She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her:
'You are the God who sees me,' for she said,
'I have now seen the One who sees me.'''
Genesis 16:13
To be continued...
B
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