Never Fear (Blue is Here!) :-)

When I was a new flight attendant, I was surprised at the large number of people who were afraid to fly. I'm talking plain old "I need Valium to get on a plane" terrified. It seemed like there was at least one severely nervous customer on every flight.

Flying had never fazed me personally, but one quiet night when everyone was pretty much sleeping and there was nothing to do, I was sitting on my jumpseat and began to think about all the things that could go wrong, and which would pretty much result in my inevitable death, under the circumstances. Just as my mind started to imagine different scenarios and I could have gotten carried away, I had the most clear, calm feeling come over me, and the following thought came to my mind: “Your life won’t be one minute longer or shorter than it is meant to be. Fear not.”

This distinct impression caught me off guard, and I quickly realized the wisdom in following that counsel. Fear not. Living in fear does no one any good. If you are fearful of all that might happen, and it never comes to pass, then you’ve lived a life of worry and anxiety all for naught. Whereas, if you don’t fear, and something bad does happen, you just deal with it as well as you can at the time. If our plane suddenly took a deadly nosedive, I’d probably have a minute or two of worry…but there would be little I could do at that point. So better to not have spent my life worrying in the first place.

These were all the kinds of thoughts that I had that night, and there were significant enough that I wrote them in my journal. The date was September 9, 2001.

Two days later, I was never more grateful for that experience. Many people asked me if I would quit flying because of the attacks on September 11th. It had actually never crossed my mind…just as not driving hasn’t crossed my mind even though I've been a passenger in several accidents, and have known people who've been killed in automobiles. You may say that's not a fair comparison, but in reality, it isn't any different. Nothing is really in our control. We have a false sense of security in situations that are most familiar to us, such as driving. But there are no guarantees. Ever.

Being prepared as well as I can, and living with faith that things will all work out is how I've generally approached life. I try to be street smart, take reasonable precautions, do what I can to be proactive, responsible and ready for things, and self-reliant, but then I just leave the rest up to the goodness of God. In so doing I’m able to live with an undercurrent of peace that is devoid of unnecessary worry and anxiety.

No one gets through mortality without their customized supersized serving of trials and tribulations. But it is those very trials that operate as kind of a laboratory to teach us all that we need to know. Our problems seem almost like custom-made experiments to test and purify our metal. I love verses 3-5 in my favorite hymn, How Firm A Foundation particularly. That concept that when fiery trials come to us, the purpose of them being “our dross to consume and our gold to refine”, is of great comfort. Some of us need more refining than others. Clearly I’m one of them. But I’m grateful there’s actually a process to refine me. I’m grateful for the chance to grow.

I don’t seek for calamity nor do I handle hard times any better than anyone else. In fact I probably whine and freak with the best of them. But I’m glad I have that ability to live without fear and anxiety. Maybe I’m naïve, but it’s the only way I know how to do life.