This month, I went flying- my first time in an airplane. Our church’s Royal Rangers group was going to the local airport to learn more about airplanes for one of their badges, and since our pastor was the pilot, I was invited on one of the flights.

I’ve always heard that for your first flight, you definitely do not want to go up in a small plane. Well…the plane we flew was a three-seater, so that let out THAT piece of advice.

But it helped that I trusted my pilot. He gave me all kinds of information before we ever left the ground, and before he made any kind of changes, he told me what to expect. Of course, I was still nervous. And when I get nervous, I quit breathing- just hold my breath in anticipation of the terrible thing that’s going to happen. So here I am, flying along with my pastor at 1300 feet, feeling like I’m going to pass out because I’m not breathing. Then I remembered: I trust my pastor and I know he loves me. So I reminded myself to breathe, and looked out the window.

When I first went up, I noticed that if I looked at the ground at a certain angle, it made me dizzy, so I just looked at my knees. Then as we leveled out, I could start looking out again.

It was AWESOME! It was amazing how different things looked at from a different perspective. We flew over our house – I never thought about how shady our lot was until I realized I couldn’t see our house, only the trees around it. We flew all around our community. I never knew so many folks had pools in our area. I never realized how the grass looked at this height. So much texture- so many colors – so many details to see that you would never think you would notice.

As we got ready to go into the landing procedures, I noticed one light that quickly flashed red a couple of times, and I got scared. But I noticed that my pastor didn’t seem concerned, and neither did the young man sitting beside him, who is also training to be a pilot. Once I knew that they weren’t worried, I didn’t worry either.

And the reason I’m telling you all this? I learned so many things from that 20 minute flight.

– pick trustworthy people to work with, and then TRUST their decisions or actions
– try things you’ve never done before, even if you’re afraid- after all, what’s the worst that can happen? (I know, in my case that’s probably not a good question, right? )
– look at things from a different perspective
– don’t forget to BREATHE!