{"id":5355,"date":"2020-04-26T18:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T23:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=5355"},"modified":"2020-04-26T18:35:34","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T23:35:34","slug":"flying-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=5355","title":{"rendered":"Flying High"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Journal of Joy: Things that make my heart smile\u2026<\/em>..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Forty\nyears ago, we spent ten or so years ministering in Appalachian areas. The roads\nthere were mostly two-lane, curvy, and mountainous. However, we adapted and\nlearned to navigate them quite well. We knew you could not rely on a map to\ncalculate the actual distance or time it would take to get from one place to\nanother. It always took longer than you anticipated.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One\ntime our California headquarters sent a couple of visiting speakers to our\narea. The plan was for them to speak in London, Kentucky in the morning and\nPikeville, Kentucky in the afternoon. That was fine. However, they disregarded\nour input about the time it would take to get from one area to another. They\nthought they could drive it in about one and a half hours or two hours at the\nmost. However, they had not anticipated that the new highway on their map was under\nconstruction, not finished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nhusband had made this trip often and knew where he could drive on the highway,\nwhere he would have to detour, when he would have to drive over mounds of dirt\non the roads\u2014you get the picture. It was well over a three-hour trip to get\nthere and that\u2019s if you knew all the detours and shortcuts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\nhave a saying in Kentucky: \u201cYou can\u2019t get there from here!\u201d Which loosely translated\nmeans that you literally can\u2019t get there from here or you haven\u2019t given\nyourself enough time to get there from here. After a day or two in Kentucky,\nthe visiting dignitaries agreed that it would take more time than anticipated\nto get from one place to the other by car so they decided to charter a small\nplane. My husband and I were kind of excited because we were invited to come\nalong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now\nflying a prop plane around the mountains of Kentucky is a tricky proposition at\nbest. It\u2019s almost like navigating the roads. If you don\u2019t know what you are\ndoing, you could easily miscalculate and hit a mountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most\nof the trip was uneventful. The visitors enjoyed chatting with the pilot,\nlearning more about the area, looking at the roads they would have had to\ntravel on if they had driven, and enjoying the magnificent view. Then it came\ntime to make our landing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npilot told us not to worry. He explained that landing in Pikeville was always a\nlittle awkward. Many pilots had missed the mark because it required a bit of maneuvering.\nHe spouted terms like wind velocity, altitude, airspeed, and visibility. \u201cThe\nbasic problem,\u201d he said, \u201cis that it looks like we are flying straight into a\nmountain and then we make a turn so we can reach the landing strip safely.\u201d He\ncalled it a dogleg landing pattern, but I\u2019m sure this was the Kentucky\ntranslation and there was perhaps a more technical term floating around\nsomewhere. I sort of tuned out once I found out we were heading into a\nmountain.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure\nenough, it looked like we were flying into the mountain. Flying towards a\nmountain fills one with a myriad of sensations. It\u2019s sort of apprehension,\nexcitement, wonderment, and fear all jumbled together. When the skillful pilot\nmade the turn and landed smoothly on the airstrip, the feeling was definitely\nrelief mixed with thankfulness. The men spoke at the gathering and we flew calmly\nback to London, Kentucky later that evening. The twilight views were\nspectacular. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve\nnever forgotten being thankful we were in skilled hands making that scary\nlanding. There\u2019s a life lesson there. Much of life can be disconcerting but I\nknow God can pilot me safely towards my destination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lord, I don\u2019t want You as my copilot; I\nwant You to fly the plane. I want You to navigate my route, calculate how long\nit will take, lift me over obstacles, lead me through the detours, and get me\nto my destination safe and sound. Letting You be in control is not easy for me,\nbut in my heart I know it is the best course to take. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Journal of Joy: Things that make my heart smile\u2026.. 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}