The countdown begins!

Tomorrow is April 1st.  Normally that means several things:  April fool's day, my sister's birthday, my dad's birthday, and this year that's a Sunday, so there's church and spending time with friends.

But this year, April first is also a milestone.  It marks our one month until we travel to China.  After tomorrow we count down the days until that month fades out and we are off! 

Never mind the fact that we are travelling overseas, to a country with a different language, and to pick up our new daughter to forever change our family.  Never mind all of that, and I usually am tied up in knots at this point before I travel.  Because I'm excited?  No. 

12 years ago I experience a new level of fear and it just grew and grew.  It was while we were on a short, simple flight from Edmonton to Winnipeg.  We got caught in a hailstorm when our oldest two kids were babies - and the plane ahead of us had to emergency land in Winnipeg (although en route to Toronto) because its windshield had been cracked by hail.  We were made to delay our landing and we circled the air in that storm.  We were shaken around like marbles in a tin can.  Kids were screaming and most everyone's knuckles were white as they grabbed the armrests (as if that would hold us steady!).  Maybe we were never in any danger - planes are made to withstand a lot.  But the feeling of vulnerability was terrible.  My happy-go-lucky attitude that took me to South Africa and even to Israel now became agony to fly a couple of hours to Calgary.

The next year the tragedy of 9/11 happened and my fears hit a new height. 

I've refused to stop flying.  Since that time I've flown at least a dozen times.  At first I tried to hide my feelings from my family.  But that became impossible after a while.  On one flight coming home from Florida, I grabbed onto a guy sitting next to me, and onto Dean on the other side of me.  On my fight to PEI last year I even pulled on a man's arm during tubulance, because he had earlier told me that he'd flown all over the world many times.  He yanked his earphones out and calmed me down.

But calming me down doesn't take much any more.
I've gone from sheer panic - turning so cold I can't feel my hands, racing heart, crying, shaking... to looking like most other passengers.  It's been a 2 year journey, and I know it's not over yet, but I've come a long way.  I can see today that God's been preparing me to go get our little one.  Even if I'm not looking forward to flying and just LOVING being on that long international flight, I'm no longer dreading it. 

I seriously thought I was the only one with these feelings.  I used to look around me on a flight and see all the people sleeping or calmly reading a magazine, and I'd think "Panic, people!  Don't you see things could go really wrong here?"  The pilot would announce "Seatbelts, please."  And I'd be gripping the armrests and practicing lamaze breathing.  I imagined the cockpit with flashing lights and warning buzzers while he and the co-pilot wrestled to keep that plane in control.  My mind was my own worst enemy!

But as I've begun to share this crazy fear with a few people - friends of friends or friends of family have asked how I deal with this.  What can they do to not be afraid to fly...

First of all - I'm very aware of the safety standards for airlines, and that the stats regarding air tragedies are way lower than roadway tragedies (don't get me started on the possibility of being in a car crash!  Having been hit 9 times I think I should be safe for the rest of my life!).  Some of this logic does help me settle my mind - after all it's what I focus on that leads me into peace or into fear.  I do rehearse the design of a plane's body and how it's meant to flex, and that turbulance does not take a plane down.

But fear is an irrational creature - during the most risky part of a flight (take off and landing) I'm perfectly fine.  So I have had to push beyond facts and figures to find freedom from this fear.

My usual mode before leaving on a holiday or for a conference, was to beg God every night for weeks ahead of time, to give me peace.  Why doesn't he just shower me with His peace? I often wondered. 

I listened to a pastor speak on freedom from fear one day over 2 years ago.  I began to understand that in my desperation for peace and freedom from fear, I wanted to skip the relationship with God that he was calling me to, and just have him hand me his gifts.  It's not that he didn't want to, but God couldn't.  He wasn't holding out on me.  I began to see that God IS peace.  God IS love.  And if God is those things, He can't just give them away.  They become mine as I become His. 

I've begun to spend time talking to God in a new way since then.  It's not been because I should, or because I want to "do devotions". It's not so that I can stop feeling guilty for not reading my Bible or praying enough.  None of those things drew me.
But God allowed my need for peace to push me to spend time with Him.  Suddenly I knew I had to KNOW Him more.  And inch by inch, day by day, and now year by year, I am coming to know my heavenly Father in new ways.  His goodness and peace and love are deeper and more intense than I ever imagined. 

Sometimes I still feel very small and far away from God.  But it's not true.  I've made conscious decisions every day, to believe God's Word (and that's a whole other journey!!).

So all the butterflies and skipped heartbeats that I'm having are due to anticipation and excitement - not fear.  I'm surprised by my own excitement, and blessed by a Father who cares about me and longs to share Himself with me - not just a brief measure of peace.

We fly out May 1st!