During my adolescent years, my mother worked for Trans World Airlines (TWA) in reservations. It was the era of wearing your best dress on board the airplane, not your pajamas. The era when children visited the cockpit, had awkward conversations with the pilots and received wing pins as a souvenir. I even remember getting a ColorForms set to pass the time from the stewardess who looked like a Miss America contestant.
I know revealing all this probably dates me. But I hope you’ll continue reading anyway.
Even though flights were discounted for us, my mother was a working single parent with little time or extra money for travel. Vacation for me meant car trips with my grandparents to places in the Midwest, like Silver Dollar City and Lake of the Ozarks. Before those places became the poster for tacky tourist clichés.
One year, my mother asked, “If you could pick anywhere, where would you like to take a summer vacation with me?”
I said Arizona.
She brought home pamphlets and brochures on Tucson and Phoenix.
We ended up going to Disneyland in California instead.
I don’t know why I said Arizona, except that saguaro’s and the barrenness of the desert seemed intriguing. So completely different than lying on a beach towel in the grass, slathered in baby oil, suffocated by humidity.
What I didn’t know when I said Arizona is that I would meet my husband there years later. That my kid’s birth certificates would say they were born in Phoenix.
God places destiny in our heart and often we can’t comprehend it. But God is faithful to lead us there, one day at a time.
As you enter the holiday weekend, may you embrace the unknowns beyond your carefully crafted plans. Revel in the knowledge that He designed the journey with you in mind; trust that He is leading you to destiny, one day at a time. Even when you don’t have all the answers.
Happy Sabbath Friends!
funny thing, how God does that in such simple ways, Shelly. i have a similar story. when i was in my early to mid-teens, i thought it was boring to be from the middle of Illinois. so when people asked me where i was from, i picked somewhere i had never been, but thought sounded more exotic: upstate NY. (yes, i lied.) only God knew that i would meet and marry a man from that very place and live there for almost 10 years; 5 out of 7 of our kids being born there.
He’s got a sense of humor, for sure. 🙂
Can’t believe you just picked a state and went with it Kelli, that is so funny. I love that we have similar stories when it comes to embracing unknowns.
yes, day by day…thank you friend…embracing the unknowns. I know he most likely give light for this day and no more. I don’t know why I wait for some epiphany where all becomes clear and a yellow brick road rolls out before me? Life hasn’t happened that way thus far. My heart beats with Eternity. Deep calls to deep and day by day I am living out my destiny.
Hey and I’ll take balsamic vinaigrette on my salad. 🙂
Your salad comment made me laugh. Only the Sabbath Sisters would get that. And that metaphor seemed to resonate in a way that had my hand over my mouth as the emails rolled in. God never ceases to amaze me.
“Embracing the unknowns”. It’s the journey itself that matters in the end. And how we travel the long road. I want to travel it well, with honesty. Being who He made me to be.
Good words today, Shelly.
I have experienced this a number of times–God pulling me into my destiny before I knew it existed…..like how I thought I would write a book called Treasures of a Woman’s Heart and the publisher came and got me. The book they wanted was Seasons of a Woman’s heart, but they gave me *my* title for the second! I had no idea when that title came to mind that it was remotely a possibility or that God was leading me to become an author. I had not been published. There are other examples. I must say that I have been pretty much stuck in Missouri and so maybe I should be thinking of something more exotic as an ultimate destination. I did end up working at the St. Louis Airport, where your mother’s TWA was headquartered. Who knows that we brushed past each other sometime in a busy crowd?! I think it’s God’s amazing providence that I have met you–and who would have thought–on a computer screen?! It was a very random way in which I discovered your blog. Or was it?! We serve a providential God and He truly does lead us on this journey called like. Because He is who He is, like Abraham, we can “go without knowing,” and find our way. He charts our course and guides our steps, and gives us fellow pilgrims along the way. Thank you for making my journey a pleasant one, dear Shelly.
Love
Lynn
God is so amazing the way He brings things full circle. Amazing. (And TWA? I remember that,too. And Color Forms.) 🙂
I remember those days too. When there was a stewardess rather than a flight attendant. When you were served a meal on the flight. When there were smoking sections (Ugg). I remember walking up the flight of stairs that was wheeled out to the plane for boarding too. 🙂
Oh yes Bill, all of that. And I scoff at that horrible smoking section now. Like we actually believed you could section off smoke in such a small space. Thanks for commenting, you brought me back even more.
This is really beautiful, Shelly. I love the idea of something being planted in our hearts before we need it, and we don’t know why.
P.S. I remember wearing my Easter dress on the plane to Disneyland in California. I was 6.
I remember the dress I wore when I went to England with my mother. We bought it at Saks Fifth and I stood on a platform in the dressing room. Even had a purse with fringe. The things that stick in our memories. Who knew?
Just reading this today after a week of struggling to relinquish my own plans, trading them for His, and realizing that I have to do that “one day at a time.”
Thanks for sharing.
Still thinking of you this week Ahyana and praying when I do. One day at a time friend, one thing at a time.