Travel days are long and hard. They’re filled with sitting, waiting in line, time change and unusual airplane food. Often they include some agitated team members and tears of frustration. But I honestly love them.
Sure traveling with 50lb packs in a group of 46 can be a little overwhelming but I love spending time with these beautiful people in bouts of giddy exhaustion. Things can get a little wild when you let this many young adults lose in an airport for 6 hours. Especially when there’s Starbucks.
Most of all I love spending time up above the clouds. I’ve now experienced 2 flights at the length of 14 hours each with many others at varying lengths. No matter how used to them I get I will always love the rush of lifting up high into the heavens. Something about being so high up and seeing so far puts a huge smile on my face.
One flight in particular will forever remain in my memory. On our way from San Francisco to El Salvador I got the window seat. This flight was remarkable.
We lifted off just in time to watch the sun set over the city. The colors were fabulously breathtaking and the already large smile on my face got bigger. After the sun had set, the sky was so clear you could see the city lights meet the ocean for miles as we followed the coast south. Never having much of a liking for the city, I gained a new appreciation for God’s handy work as the lights twinkled bellow me.
I fell asleep to this for a while and woke up to an even better sight. The clouds had settled in and we were coasting above them. All I saw now was an open sky full of stars. I spent the next few hours star gazing. Trying to find my favorite constellation (The only one I know) the Big Dipper. I adore stargazing but I’m not the most knowledgeable in the images found up there. The stars have always reminded me greatly of how vast and wonderful God is. Each one He calls by name and no matter how long you look there are always more to be seen. Every night as I went to bed my Mom used to say “Goodnight, I love you stars”. Watching the sky around me I could almost hear God whispering these words to me as he showed me just how inconceivable His love is for me.
While taking in the splendor of the sky, I watched a shooting star make it’s way across my view. Shooting stars are another thing that I’ve always loved. God knows this and He has often sent these to me as a reminder of His love and care for me. As you can probably guess, the smile just kept growing.
After watching the stars for several hours, the sun began to come into view. The colors began to dance as my twinkling friends retreated for the day. I’ve never seen colors so vibrant. As the sun made it’s way to it’s place in the sky the colors only increased in brilliance and I was completely blown away by my God’s artistry.
Throughout all of this God gave me one word. Delight. He created all of this for me to delight in. Just to bring a smile to my face and remind me that He loves me. I was created to delight in Him and He created me to be delighted in by Him. He reminded me that day that I bring Him just as much joy if not more as His sky show had given me.
You could say I left that airplane feeling hecka loved. The entire experience was out of this world. God deeply cares for each of His children and does things daily just to make us smile. He delights in our simple joys. During those 6 hours, I felt so immediately close to God. Almost like I was kissing heaven.
