“Without
faith, we’re frantically trying to control what it is not our business to
control, and fix what it is not in our power to fix.” Marianne Williamson
I
have to admit, I am not a great “have faith” kinda gal. With every issue or problem, I need to DO
something; I need to fix it or at the very least find a solution. I go crazy if there is nothing that can be
done. I worry; I stress; I obsess. How can things work out for the best if I can’t
MAKE them work out for the best? But, a
few days ago I learned my lesson.
The
night before flying home from a family vacation, my husband found out that there
had been a glitch with our boarding passes and that we would be boarding the
plane last. Panicked that we would not
be able to sit together and that our 8 year old would be sitting in a middle
seat surrounded by strangers, we called the booking agent. She informed us that the only thing we could
do was ask for a boarding upgrade when we checked in the following day.
At
3 am I woke up with a horrendous pit in my stomach and my mind in overdrive. What could I do to make sure my family all
sat together? I obsessively looked at
the situation from every angle searching for solutions that simply weren’t
there.
As
my head swirled, Marianne Williamson’s definition of “faith” popped into my
head. “Faith is believing that the
universe is on our side, and that the universe knows what it’s doing.” Although I had little confidence in the universe
at this point, having no other options I chose to have faith. I remained awake with the pit in my stomach
but each time my mind analyzed the problem or searched for a nonexistent solution,
I returned to the simple phrase, “have faith.” As I struggled to interrupt my
well-established pattern of worry and obsessing, I told the universe, “I’ll
give you one shot to prove to me that this whole having faith thing actually
works.”
The
next day seemed to be one unexpected event after another. We easily upgraded our boarding status for
the first leg of our trip even though it outwardly appeared that would not be
possible. When we boarded, my 8 year old
son who always to choose to sit behind the wing so he could see, adamantly chose
to sit over the wing. My son’s seat selection
led me, an introverted and definitely not a chatty flyer, to have a friendly
conversation with one of our flight attendants.
During this conversation we learned she was also going to our final
destination (Reno, Nevada) and we discussed our boarding glitch issues.
Later in the day, waiting for our connecting flight to Reno, we bumped into
this same flight attendant. Not only was
she on our same flight but she told us she would be holding a row of seats for
us until we boarded allowing our family to again sit all together.
Each
one of these events individually is out of the ordinary and surprising. When you string them together and see the end
result they become extraordinary. As
hard as it was, I surrendered and had faith; and dammit, faith won.
“When
we stop trying to control events, they fall into natural order, an order that
works.” Marianne Williamson.
No comments:
Post a Comment