“Plane! Plane! Plane!” It was the first of a thousand times we would hear the plea from my two year-old. Recently I flew out to Texas to visit my family. I flew there with just an infant and flew back with the infant and our two-year-old, who loves planes. Emory is just old enough to understand the basic concepts of time, location, and travel, but not old enough to process the fact that there are usually several steps to go through before getting to our final destination. He loves flying. We told him that he would get on a plane tomorrow and then see “Dada.” I’m fairly certain that tomorrow doesn’t compute in his brain yet.
Emory did a lot of waiting on our journey. He waited throughout the six hour drive to Dallas with my parents who were catching an international flight the next day. He waited while we were in stand-still traffic on the fringes of Dallas. Nonnie (Grandma) was quick to supply Emory with Youtube videos of monkeys, cows and planes….Emory’s current favorite things. There wasn’t much that would quiet the crying infant, however. It’s common knowledge that babies are only happy in a car seat as long as the car is going 40 plus miles an hour.
Emory waited through the night in our hotel room, sandwiched between Nonnie and Papa in bed. It wasn’t that he was unhappy in the present, he loves being with his grandparents, but he was constantly looking to the future…to tomorrow. He couldn’t understand why it was taking so long. He waited yet again through the continental breakfast, another car ride to the airport and then came the longest waits of all—in the airport. Thirty minutes in line to get our “lap child boarding tickets” seemed like an eternity. At least at every turn around the tape in line we came across the same fuzzy plane-bound puppy for Emory to pet.
Then after that we waited to board. I over-heard a stewardess tell the ticket taker that the plane we were waiting for had to be unloaded of its current passengers first, and that someone had thrown up on the plane so would take extra time to clean. My infant was a sweaty, crying mess smashed against my chest in the carrier and cried harder if I tried to sit down—I was exhausted at this point—and Emory was in terminal melt-down status (as my sister and I like to call it). We were 45 minutes late to board, but I have to say it was worth the wait to avoid smelling or sitting in vomit.
We finally made it on to the plane. And we finally made it home to Dada. To Emory it felt like an eternity, to me it was a day. A very long day, but just a day. I saw the big picture, Emory saw the short-term. Granted, waiting is one of the hardest things to do.
Why does God ask us to wait? He has always asked his children to wait. How long did Noah wait to enter the ark? How long did Abraham and Sarah wait for a son? How long was Joseph in prison? How long did it take the children of Israel to enter the Promised Land? Years! Some of them waited 100 years or more.
I, like Emory, have asked God for things over and over. I feel like even in the last year almost all of my prayers have been answered wait, or no. We’re talking about big life things. Not, “please don’t let it rain today” or “please let my favorite Voice contestant win” but huge, life-changing things. I can count at least three or four big requests recently that were backed with the most fervent faith I’ve ever mustered that God answered no.
Each time I prayed I was sure that my faith was finally strong enough. And every time another request was answered no I felt my soul crushing again. Was it because my relationship with Him wasn’t as strong as it has been in the past? Was it because I really didn’t have enough faith? Was He simply trying to teach me something? I’m usually not satisfied by the answers to any of these questions. But in a small way, our travels to Texas helped me to remember the big picture; I am like a 2 year-old compared to God. "My thoughts are not His thoughts and my ways are not His ways" (Isaiah 55:8). For now, that is enough. Our travels through life ultimately bring us to eternity and unity with Him—our “Dada.” Everything then will be made known; everything then will be made right.
