A Journal of Joy: Things that make my heart smile…..
Forty years ago, we spent ten or so years ministering in Appalachian areas. The roads there were mostly two-lane, curvy, and mountainous. However, we adapted and learned to navigate them quite well. We knew you could not rely on a map to calculate the actual distance or time it would take to get from one place to another. It always took longer than you anticipated.
One time our California headquarters sent a couple of visiting speakers to our area. The plan was for them to speak in London, Kentucky in the morning and Pikeville, Kentucky in the afternoon. That was fine. However, they disregarded our input about the time it would take to get from one area to another. They thought they could drive it in about one and a half hours or two hours at the most. However, they had not anticipated that the new highway on their map was under construction, not finished.
My husband had made this trip often and knew where he could drive on the highway, where he would have to detour, when he would have to drive over mounds of dirt on the roads—you get the picture. It was well over a three-hour trip to get there and that’s if you knew all the detours and shortcuts.
They have a saying in Kentucky: “You can’t get there from here!” Which loosely translated means that you literally can’t get there from here or you haven’t given yourself enough time to get there from here. After a day or two in Kentucky, the visiting dignitaries agreed that it would take more time than anticipated to get from one place to the other by car so they decided to charter a small plane. My husband and I were kind of excited because we were invited to come along.
Now flying a prop plane around the mountains of Kentucky is a tricky proposition at best. It’s almost like navigating the roads. If you don’t know what you are doing, you could easily miscalculate and hit a mountain.
Most of the trip was uneventful. The visitors enjoyed chatting with the pilot, learning more about the area, looking at the roads they would have had to travel on if they had driven, and enjoying the magnificent view. Then it came time to make our landing.
The pilot told us not to worry. He explained that landing in Pikeville was always a little awkward. Many pilots had missed the mark because it required a bit of maneuvering. He spouted terms like wind velocity, altitude, airspeed, and visibility. “The basic problem,” he said, “is that it looks like we are flying straight into a mountain and then we make a turn so we can reach the landing strip safely.” He called it a dogleg landing pattern, but I’m sure this was the Kentucky translation and there was perhaps a more technical term floating around somewhere. I sort of tuned out once I found out we were heading into a mountain.
Sure enough, it looked like we were flying into the mountain. Flying towards a mountain fills one with a myriad of sensations. It’s sort of apprehension, excitement, wonderment, and fear all jumbled together. When the skillful pilot made the turn and landed smoothly on the airstrip, the feeling was definitely relief mixed with thankfulness. The men spoke at the gathering and we flew calmly back to London, Kentucky later that evening. The twilight views were spectacular.
I’ve never forgotten being thankful we were in skilled hands making that scary landing. There’s a life lesson there. Much of life can be disconcerting but I know God can pilot me safely towards my destination.
*****
Lord, I don’t want You as my copilot; I want You to fly the plane. I want You to navigate my route, calculate how long it will take, lift me over obstacles, lead me through the detours, and get me to my destination safe and sound. Letting You be in control is not easy for me, but in my heart I know it is the best course to take.
