THE FLIGHT THAT ALMOST GOT AWAY FROM MRS. RIP VAN WINKLE

Psalm 121:3-7 - He will not let your foot slip - he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you...The Lord will keep ou from all harm - he will watch over your life.

I’ve seen the wings of a plane cut through the clouds like a knife to warm butter. I’ve witnessed the majesty of the heavens unfolding at an altitude of 30,000 feet. While up in the air, I’ve wanted to bounce up and down on the greatest, puffiest, fluffiest air mattress the world has ever seen. But Thursday at the airport, I became Mrs. Rip Van Winkle and almost slept through my departure to Charlotte!


It certainly wasn’t my intention. I’ve been so excited about the trip to the She Speaks conference in Concord this weekend that I tried to pace myself. Didn’t want to become a banshee the night before and try and cram everything that needed to be done for myself and my family between dinner and bedtime. So with less pressure, I ran errands throughout the week. So I went to the store to pick up incidentals. I packed my son’s gear for his week-long excursion to summer camp. I got in a physical therapy visit and a hair appointment (hey, I’m not going anywhere with my hair matted and nappy – smile). My husband and I even worked on the checkbook and paid bills. But as the night before the big flight wore on, I got attacked with all kinds of oddities. My shoulder mysteriously went into muscle spasms and the floodlight from the back porch decided not to illuminate the wet back steps. I’m use to counting stairs when I can’t see, but because I was so busy trying not to trip over the dog’s leash wrapped half way down the steps, I miscounted and landed hard on my uninjured foot (oh yeah, the left foot is still puffy and swollen from the last fall I had). This was no longer cute so my dear husband helped his poor wife out of her hysteria and then trotted off to the kitchen to get the Advil and my elixir of magnesium (a natural muscle relaxer recommended by my chiropractor). At that point, we were more than ready for bed.


Since I had only a couple of things to do before Dan drove me to the airport, I got up really early to pedicure and pray – definitely a fun way to pray without ceasing, don’t you think). More than ready to embark on this glorious adventure, we arrived early. I checked by bag, grabbed lunch and got to my gate way ahead of schedule. After eating, I did what any normal person would do – I took a nap. Oh, no, no, no, no, no! I stirred a bit and found no one boarding at my gate. With one passenger at the desk and a marquee sign announcing its flight to Boston, in full panic mode, I shouted out “Where’s Charlotte!” “Oh it got moved across the hall. It’s a good thing it’s running late,” she replied. “Late!” I glanced at my watch to find that it was 10 minutes after the original take off. Again, “oh dear!”


Don’t worry. I was able to board the flight and at full capacity. I chuckled all the way to my seat – mostly because I was too panicked to do anything else. As I sat down to write this on the flight to Charlotte, I was more determined that not only would “no weapon formed again me should prosper,” but that this would not be the flight that almost got away from Mrs. Rip Van Winkle!