Flying through the fog

I am so thrilled by Cookie's post. I should have read it before I ventured out of my house this morning. It would have put me in much better spirits than I started out with.

Today I did not want to fly. That is putting it mildly. I did not want to get out of bed. I did not want to pull my head out from under the covers. I just did not want to. I wanted to wallow in my misery some more. I wanted to cry some more. I did not want to move. I did not want to fly. I did not want to write in this blog.

My agenda was simple, wait for my guests to call when they were enroute for dinner. That would give me about 25 minutes to shower and get dressed. I slow cooked ribs overnight, my famous baked beans are in my favorite red pot, and all I had to do was whip up the coleslaw. if I could have gotten out of that, I would have. I deserved not to get up. I slept poorly last night for the same reasons that I refused to get out of bed which may or may not be revealed in this blog later on.

God had other plans. At 6:30 am I woke up for the 12th time. I successfully pushed off the call to fly for about an hour and then I could not stop it. I got up, brushed my teeth, got dressed and headed out the door. My thought was to water the flowers that I planted at the cemetery, come home run a couple of miles, and then do absolutely nothing until 25 minutes before my guests arrived.

God had other plans. I went and watered the flowers which look horrible! Okay, it has not been long enough for them to take hold of the soil. They did not look anyting like the glorious bed I had envisioned in my mind. I could barely see the bright orange blossoms. I know, I know, give them time. They will be just fine. Next I went to the sole headstone and said a prayer for Ida P. Boucknight, born in Georgetown, SC on July 3, 1873,died on February 24, 1944 in Norwalk, Conneticut.

After praying and crying over pitiful looking flowers I started to go back home. The Ben Saywer bridge was open to allow boats to pass so I turned around and headed to the beach for a run. It was amazing! I allowed the waves and the gentle breeze to pull me out of my personal fog. At the halfway point I stopped and sat on a rock to admire the ocean. I marveled at the pelicans in flight, the sea gulls soaring high, and the dolphins frolicking in the distance. For those few moments, I was at peace. And I did not want to get out of bed!

When I got home I went into my bathroom and my eyes immediately fell to a prayer that a sister girlfriend in training sent me a while back. (I tape prayers, inspirational sayings, quotes, and other stuff to my bathroom mirror. That way they are the first things I see in the morning and the last things I see before going to bed).

The prayer is by Jean Kyler McManus

Give me your help Lord,
to live this one day
One knot to unravel
One problem to weigh
One path to discover
and choose the right turn
One worry to conquer
One lesson to learn
One moment of gladness to overcome pain
One glimpse of the sunlight
One touch of the rain
No one can see what's coming tomorrow
Nor tell if its hours will bring laughter or sorrow
So. I'll turn to your love and with perfect trust say
"Give me your help Lord, to live this one day".

I truly needed that prayer and many others today. Another thought rang true to me as well. It comes from a very old bottle of liquid protein hair conditioner by Philosophy. The product is called 'the big blow off'. The inscription on the bottle reads: "when you don't get the job, the call back, the date, or the invitation, the messages isn't that you didn't deserve it. the message is simply, you deserve better. think of the big blow off as the big opportunity". It is a shame that Philosophy no longer makes that conditioner. I do not remember if it was good or not. I just held on to the bottle. They do have other wonderful sayings on other products. You can view them at http://www.philosophy.com/.

Today, I almost squandered my opportunity to fly. Sometimes our flights take us to magnificient places, terrific heights, and awesome views. Other times, our flights are just low enough to take us just through the fog. Either way, they are opportunities. Either way, we are flying.