On a Christmas Eve airplane flight, I was very concerned as we left Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on a wintry day with an oncoming storm. During the record breaking winter, storms were blanketing much of the United States. A cool, grey and rainy day, with declining temperatures, I was more than anxious as we prepared for takeoff.
We experienced some turbulence as the flight began its ascent and I looked out of my window onto the grey ugliness. As we began to climb, it didn’t take long for the flight to become smooth and for us to break through the clouds. As we broke through the clouds, I saw a beautiful site of a sea of celestial clouds accented by big beaming rays of sun. In just a few minutes, we had moved away from the winter storm into a slice of heaven.
I was reminded of the Christmas Eve trip this past weekend when I was on another flight and witnessed another beautiful sea of clouds. It made me think of the lessons I learned just a month earlier:
- If you keep climbing, you can put a lot of distance between you and the storm
- It’s okay to be nervous and anxious, but keep climbing
- Breakthroughs can happen quickly – it can be a short distance and a short time period between doom and gloom and majesty
- Turbulence and discomfort are often harbingers of positive change
- Sometimes we need to rely on our angels to pull us up and out of “hell” and into heaven. This day it was the pilots and flight attendants. For me, it’s my close family and dearest friends.
I believe that the beauty that transcends all of the gloom is God’s reward for having the courage to climb. KEEP CLIMBING!
Always striving to color outside of the lines when defining my new normal