Touching the Face of God

The airplane took off on time in Charlotte on August 29. The skies were clear, sun was shining and at 37,000 feet up in the air, I could still see the structure of earth. The plots between the roads...the grids of the city...and the smoothness of 'uncitified' land. I love the fact that it's all my colors when I get into the sky so high. The earth looks brown and green. Beautiful shades of all those colors. I love that the sky is so blue...different hues make one big sky.

My plane landed in Detroit and I thought about how close my grandchildren were and I couldn't see them. I had one hour before my next flight. Just enough time to run to the gate, eat lunch, take the next dramamine and board the plane.

It was rainy, cloudy and miserable on the ground. But once we got to 'cruising' altitude, we went above the clouds and the sun shone throughout the cabin. I looked down and the browns and greens were not there...hues of white and gray. I imagined when I painted a sky with my water colors how difficult it was to get the right tonal colors to make the shadows...but up here, above the clouds...above the storms... the Master had painted His Masterpiece once more. I envisioned the paintbrush sweeping a little silver here...some purple mixture over here...bright white and yellow were at the end of the sky.

I landed in Manchester New Hampshire in the rain. It had rained 29 of the last 30 days. (I might add, there was absolutely NO RAIN the 9 days I visited New England.)

Those 9 days were full of oohing and aahing about God's handiwork. The White mountains standing so rocky and erect. The sky meeting the mountains. Waterfalls, caves, whales, bear,... the trees right at the stage of changing into the beautiful colors that make autumn. Daily the color changed...maybe it was even hourly the colors of the trees changed. It was an amazing sight.

I rode my first zipline from the top of a mountain to a very abrupt stop at the bottom of the mountain. As I was zipping down so quickly, I held my arms out and allowed God's breath to fill my lungs with the cool crisp taste of perfection. I wanted to feel like that forever. But it was only a minute or two. But I will remember the complete freedom I felt as I let go of solid ground and 'flew' through the air.

The days passed quickly and it was time to go home. The day I left New Hampshire, it began to cloud up to rain. I boarded the plane with just a ginger chew and a prayer. Our plane had to rise above the clouds again. I was amazed at the puffiness of the clouds and the power they had over the riding stability of the plane. I'd see pieces of earth...but mostly just clouds. We landed at the Detroit Airport at 6:35 p.m....which was the same time my departing plane was loading on the other side of the airport. I ran to the moving sidewalks, walked fast down them and was the last person loaded onto the plane before they closed the doors.

There were thunderstorms in the area. And again, we cruised above the storms. But this time, the clouds were gray and ominous. Suddenly out of nowhere was a huge white cloud in the middle of all the grays. There was such peace, even as the plane rocked back and forth because of the wind, rain and storm. Tears overwhlemed me. In the middle of a storm He always shows Himself. I knew I had seen the face of God...

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
[Sir Francis Drake]