This weekend I flew home from Steubenville to see some very special people who were visiting from Haiti. More about that in another post. Right now I want to talk about the craziest night of flying I've ever had in my life.
The cheapest flight home I could find (a week in advance, mind you) was a flight from Pittsburgh to Hartford with a stop in Washington, DC. From Pittsburgh to DC I was on a little commuter jet, and from DC to Hartford was on a huge airbus. I was getting really nervous because of the huge storm that hit the northeast Friday night, right when I was scheduled to fly. Not just any little rainstorm, but like a mini hurricane.
Unbelievably, my flights weren't cancelled and I took off out of Pittsburgh on-time with only a slight drizzle. About 10 minutes into the 45 minute long flight we started to shake. And bounce. A lot. We bounced from side to side and up and down the entire time. I think there was a slight nose dive at one point. It felt like the clouds were tossing our little plane around like a toy. I had never ever experienced turbulence this bad, and I was convinced at moments that we were going to die. I had my rosary clutched in one hand, and my other hand was either gripping the armrest or my stomach, depending on the moment. Everytime the light on the end of the wing blinked, I could see the rain flying past the plane in horizontal sheets due to the high winds.
But God was with me in so many ways. The guy diagonally across from me pulled out his rosary as we were taxi-ing out, which was such a nice surprise because he was a nicely dressed business man and I honestly didn't think he would be religious. The people across from me were Christian and were writing down notes while reading a Bible. The girls behind me were talking about Catholic school and patron saints, which still comforted me even if it sounded like they didn't have the best opinion of it. I was surrounded by a bubble.. it was like God was telling me He was right there with me.
I prayed my rosary as we were taking off, but as the shaking got worse I really started to pray to my guardian angel. All of a sudden I got this image of him under the tail of the plane outside my window, wearing goggles and a pilot's hat. He was holding the plane up as he flew, smiling a goofy grin at me with a thumbs up. It was like he was saying "What an adventure! Enjoy the ride, I've got your back." He just wanted me to trust and relax. In fact, all of our guardian angels on that flight were holding up the plane.
After picturing this, I did give myself over to God and my angel in trust for a good part of the flight and felt myself calm down a little. When the small nose dive happened though, I freaked out and didn't trust. But it's ok because I was still learning, and after the plane righted itself I went back to trusting. We finally landed, praise God! Walking through the airport in DC, I couldn't help but smile. I felt so happy, so free. I had just felt what it was like to surrender all to God and not have fear (for fleeting moments, anyways). And I was on my way to see some of my favorite people in the world. So why not smile with joy?
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