Cool morning air makes my skin tingle as I step from the backseat of my parent’s car
onto the long cement platform on concourse B at Denver International.
The burnt orange glow on the eastern horizon fades to a cheerful yellow beam.
Its 6 am but I’m wide awake with excitement.
Dad helps unload five suitcases from the trunk as a tingling of excitement in my chest
turns to sentimentality and wells up in my eyes.
I have to wipe my eyes as Karalyn gives dad a hug goodbye. I hate saying bye. It’s not really goodbye though; it’s more like, see ya later, a lot later.
She’s just going to college for a few months. That’s three and a half more months than we’ve ever been apart though.
How do I even begin to describe our relationship?
Windows down, singing our heads off in the truck, discussing boys, “borrowing” each other’s makeup, arguing about whose turn it is to buy gas, buying each other Starbucks. It’s so weird, we don’t ever really fight anymore. Gone are the days of shoving each other down the stairs and slamming doors in each other’s faces (okay, we didn’t really do that.) Something happened along the road, I’m not even sure when, and we both realized that fighting was futile.
Now it’s more like, “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe you just…
Oh well, let’s watch a movie together.
I don’t care. You pick”
Agh, and now the whirr of the engine is drowning out my ipod and white wispy clouds block my view of God’s green, actually brown, earth as I jet across the country to take sissy to school.
But she’s got to do it.
She’s making a new story.
Her story at home was getting a little stale, and no one reads a boring story, much less live one.
She's added some white sandy beaches, a few hundred miles, new friends, and she’s got the potential to either sink or soar her story.
My mind wanders to the thousands of people I’ve seen today.
I think I just realized why I love airports so much, and I’m not kidding I do love airports.
An airport is like a publishing house of thousands of people’s stories
that are all being edited and revised.
It’s fascinating to think about. The family of five back at the baggage check on their way to vacation, the old man two rows from me on his way to see his new grandbaby, the young man smugly seated in first class on yet another business trip, the baby on her first airplane ride behind me…yeah, the rude flight attendant handing out package #12342309 of peanuts, and the excited, nervous, unsure girl on her way to college.
Each person’s story is so vitally important to himself,
yet so completely irrelevant to the person sitting next to them.
I’m somewhere above Kansas or Oklahoma, or another state right now (they all look the same from where I’m sitting) wondering about the lives of the millions of people I’m flying over.
Some of these people have never left their small hometown, some are world travelers, some are successful in the work field, some are successful in homemaking, but they all want to be successful.
Things have happened along the road though. Some decisions have been gladly made, and some bad decisions would have been reversed if at all possible.
But those decisions have paved the path,
this path that will lead towards more decisions.
And upon being made,
they will all irrevocably change the course of the future.
Each decision is so important, because it not only affects one story,
but the story of the billions of other people here on planet earth.
Decisions affecting the environment,
the economy,
and the emotions of the people around them
are so often made with so little care.
With so much riding on so many decisions how can one make the best decision? Some decisions are obviously immoral or unwise which we can hoose to avoid but many decisions are far more gray.
“If any of you lacks wisdom,
he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault,
and it will be given to him.” ~James 1:5
Simple enough, but God isn’t going to write directions on the wall, or send me a text on my cell phone.
“Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.” ~ Psalm 37:4
You are always going to give something up,
no matter what decision you make.
Live your life beneath that opaque blanket of clouds with the guidance and love of God, because although it doesn’t look like much from here, it will affect so many. Write God into your story if you want to live with no regrets. Anything else won’t make it past the thin veneer of clouds.
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left,
your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,
“This is the way; walk in it.”
~Isaiah 30:21
Love it. :)
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