Leaving on a Jet Plane

One of my favorite stories from my friend Kathy (my Yale roomie) was from when she was a little girl. As a child of divorced parents, she had family in both California and Texas. She spent her summers in California and the rest of the year in Texas.

Airplanes took her back and forth. She said that as a kid in the airplane, she often felt in between parents. Almost like she didn’t really belong to any one person, as if she was in suspension on her way from one parent to another. In those hours in the sky, she was her own person, with no one to report to and no one responsible for her.

As she left one set of arms to later be greeted by another pair when she gof off from the plane, she recognized that some children might be afraid without a parent, without someone there to look over them. She realized that while she did not have a parent, she had God to watching over her. She had one Father as she flew through the sky, with love sending her on her way, and love waiting to receive her on the other side.

I love this image of love. Of knowing that when we leave the warm embrace of family, that we can lean into God’s love when we go forth on our own. Destinations may be uncertain, our paths unclear to us as we go through this life. But God, and God’s love is constant for us as we fly like tiny birds through the many skies of our life.