Random Thoughts from Gate 23

So, we’re sitting at our gate at the airport in Austin. It was flashing Denver when we walked up instead of Chicago as it should have been. Apparently United is having some mechanical difficulties so our flight will be touching down in Chicago at exactly the moment we are supposed to be flying out to London, which of course will have a domino effect on the rest of our connections – London to Dubai to Entebbe – with maybe a little Ethiopia thrown in.

It looks like I may be getting one more hot shower.

I’m actually thrilled about this delay. I wanted to blog and email and make phone calls and you know…sleep… before we left. It looks like I will get to do all of that. Plus I can’t help but love the adventure and uncertainty – will we make any of our connections? Will Sophie’s Motel in Uganda sit empty for a night? Is this just preparation for all the delayed flights that are quite likely to come later in various languages and less familiar airports?

I guess if we’d called to check the status of our flight I could have finished my laundry and made my bed and finished the last few chapters of New Moon (the second in the Twilight series). It was just too large to pack, but maybe I should have brought it… our bags actually came in at 22 pounds each! We thought we’d really be pushing it with the 33 pound limit into Sudan, but it looks like we could have packed that extra soccer ball and candy after all.

I think a bat just flew by. You might think it was the effect of my imagination and all the vampire books I have been reading, but I’m pretty sure it was real. Of course, I am pretty tired and then there’s that headachy side effect I seem to be experiencing from my yellow fever vaccine.

Funny how much our perspective is affected by our humanness. It makes me think of a conversation I had with a friend once. He talked about how he desired to live in God’s reality (not just with the assurance that there is a God but in line with the reality He sees).

This morning a couple friends came over to pray with us (one all the way from Denton – thanks Lindsey!) As she was leaving, Ellen looked me in the eyes and said, “Rest, you have to rest so you can actually experience and enjoy each country.”

Those two exhortations come together for me now as I sit here at Gate 23. To live in the awareness of what is truly real and thereby see and enjoy more clearly and fully. I want to squeeze as much out of each experience as I possibly can, to be aware and present in each moment but I need Him whispering His perspective, the only real reality.

A lie is but for a moment…. I think that’s somewhere in Proverbs

It just flew by again. I think it’s actually a bird.