The panic started to set in as I saw the length of the line for security. I started to think I may actually miss my flight home for Christmas. It had been a rough morning. I had a great night that led to exciting morning plans of stopping at Starbucks before heading to the SEATAC airport at a leisurely speed. Early morning flights are never fun when you are moving three suitcases and a guitar. I was moving my whole life from Seattle to Chicago and it had been a tough week of goodbyes and long hugs already. I had not been sleeping well with the stress of leaving and the insecurity that comes with saying yes to what you know you are called to. My best friend and I went to bed with alarms set for 2:55am to make it to the airport at 3:30am for my flight at 5:25am. “This is it,” I thought as I laid in bed,”all I have to do is make it through this flight and I will finally be able to relax.” Well, that was until I woke up at 3:38am. That thought process changed from make it through this flight to make it TO this flight.
I shot up in a frenzy and woke up Kailie saying it was 4am because that was what time it mind as well have been! I was trying to stay calm and grab all of my stuff only to realize that when I got in the car I left my iPad on the bed I was sleeping on. So I had to run back into the apartment grab my iPad and say goodbye to Montebello apartments for the last time before running back out the door again.“Okay, small hiccup, it’s fine, we still have some time.” I just had to keep telling myself that we had time and I did even if it wasn’t very much. I hadn’t missed a flight ever in my life and I wasn’t about to start now. We made it to the airport with a long line of cars moving slowly towards the departures. “Dear Lord don’t let this show what the lines are like inside” I prayed out loud. We pulled up to the Southwest drop off and as much as I wanted to zoom off, I knew this would be the last time I hug Kailie for at least a year. It had been a week of long hugs with tears and I kept it together for some hugs…but not most. Struggling with moving three suitcases by myself, I made it through the sliding doors and just had to check my bags. I had checked in on my phone so seeing all my suitcases on the conveyer belt gave me a sigh of relief. I am a seasoned traveler so checking in is no problem and it usually takes me no time to get to my gate but then I saw the line to security.
I started to hyperventilate a little. The line, no joke, almost took up the entire airport with two sets of zigzags and a line that wrapped around a flight of stairs. I found the end of the line sign and joined the walk of zombies to security. I had exactly one hour to get past security and get to my gate but this line looked like it could take that whole entire hour to get through. The guy in front of me started complaining to the TSA agent holding the end of line sign saying that he was worried he wasn’t going to make his 6:05am flight (insert eye roll here). The TSA agent sarcastically replied,”Well, if you gave yourself two hours like all airports suggest you will be fine.” This conversation was not helping my stress level. As I stared at the barely moving line the panic started to set in. I had kept my cool through the car ride and checking in. I was actually shocked at how calm I had kept myself. But when my shoulders and neck start to get really stiff, that’s when I know that I need to stop and pray. Anxiety has a real physical effect on me that I didn’t really notice until this transition out of Washington. So I started to pray, and not just like quietly in my head trying to look normal because my anxiety was way past that. I started to pray out loud mostly to calm myself down and to focus on something else. “Come on Jesus. We are going to make it home. Come on Jesus.” I started to pray out loud rocking slightly out of habit when I pray or worship. I immediately started to calm down because my mind was taken out of the present situation and taken to someone that I knew could help me. I am not kidding you when I tell you that the line had a huge shift forward. I later learned it was because they decided to change the procedure so you don’t have to take off your shoes but all I could see was the line moving faster after I prayed. I got out of one chunk of zigzags and halfway around the stairs. Almost halfway to the metal detectors so I kept praying out loud and tried not to pay attention to the line moving or people who were clearly cutting in line up ahead where there was a break in the line. There were three major shifts forward in the line and I was finally putting my bags in a bin to go through the machine. I wanted to cry, I had 15 minutes before my flight took off. I grabbed my stuff, slipped on my shoes, and became that person running haphazardly around the airport.
I made it to my gate as they were loading the last people on even though I was wanting to be early seating with my guitar. Luckily, I was able to find an empty compartment for my guitar and a window seat. I sat down and seriously could not believe that I made it. I started laughing at myself out of relief. People really might have thought I was crazy if they followed me from the security line to the flight. After 45 minutes of praying out loud and rocking like a crazy person, my prayers were answered. I thought,”Dear Lord, please tell me that this is not what my 2018 is going to look like.” But then I started to realize that this may exactly be how my 2018 will look.
There will be times I oversleep, there will be lots of meaningful goodbyes, there will be times that all I can do is pray, there will be times I have to run through the airport, there will be lots of times that I have to stay calm in high stress situations. I think that was what God was telling me as I sat there waiting for the plane to pull out of the gate. I know that I hide panic pretty well, it isn’t until you look me in the eye and ask me if I’m really okay that I start to break down if something is eating me up on the inside. God has blessed me with the ability of not being a very emotional person. At first I saw it as a problem because I couldn’t get as excited for people or I couldn’t show my emotion very well around others and that really bothered me. But, it has worked in my benefit in some situations where I have to stay calm and not show someone how much I am freaking out. I have started to see the blessing of not letting emotions really run what I do or how I feel about someone else. My friends have told me that I really don’t need to say anything to show my emotions and I would say that is something that I will never truly understand. I’m glad that some people can read me without asking questions like,”Why don’t you smile more?” Or “Aren’t you excited?” Luckily, I am surrounded by friends that are very expressive so I can just laugh or cry with them. I am blessed to not be too focused on my emotions or I would never have been able to leave Seoul, or Seattle, but here I am sitting in my bed in my childhood home about to not have a home for a year. I think that the insecurity of the unknown would be enough to stop me. But that was never anything that stopped me, it was what drove me. I think thats what scares me is that I am super sad on the outside but, I am completely calm on the inside because I know who is really in control of my life. Have I doubted that I was doing the right thing? ABSOLUTELY! That’s when I get in my catatonic state for a day or two where all emotion is literally drained out of me and I feel nothing. That happened last week after crying and yelling at God,”What am I doing?!” for a solid hour and a half.
Yep, just last week I was wondering what the heck I am doing and why am I doing it! That happens for everyone I think. It’s a daily process to keep reminding yourself that you are doing what you know you are called to do. I feel like sometimes God puts something in front of you and He wants you to make a decision. It’s not always something that you want to do or it might be something that you are not even sure you really deserve. So you stand there looking at what is placed in front of you apprehensively. I imagine your eyes go squinty and you look back and forth between the opportunity and God over and over again. Will you take that opportunity that is placed in front of you so that God can give you even more or are you going to say no and take a longer round about route? All it takes is saying that first yes and God will show you what more He has to give. Chaos will come but so will an overwhelming peace in knowing who is in control and who is working through you. You were made for so much more than you could ever think or even imagine. And He won’t let anything stand in your way. Not sleeping through your alarm. Not a super long security line. Not even your indecision will stop the plan He has laid out for you. We will always be right where we need to be, right on time. That’s what I look forward to in 2018, being exactly where God called me to be.
