Delays

Yesterday I flew home after being on the road for eight days.
I was scheduled to be home in Dubuque by 3:30 pm.
Woke up at 3:30 am to be on a scheduled 5:38 departure - Check!
Plane left at 5:38 am and we landed at first stop 15 minutes early - Check!
Connecting plane scheduled to leave at 9:55 - Check!
9:30 rolls around and the Gate Agent announces said flight canceled due to weather - Oh no!
Run as fast as I can to the United Service Center to reschedule - Check!
Customer Service Agent "Luz" (which means light!) secures my seat on a 1:34 departure - Check!
The fifth person behind me does not get on the next scheduled flight because next flight is now full...

I am on the 1:34 flight, in my seat, seat belt secured ready to get home.
Before they close the door, Gate Agent Randy comes on the plane and says, "We're oversold and we are overweight. Someone needs to get off the plane before we can take off."
With various incentives offered, a young lady wearing an Iowa Hawkeye sweatshirt gathers her belongings and exits the plane. The plane does not take off.

Some kind of oxygen sensor is not working properly. Maintenance needs to take a look.
Meanwhile pilot says over the intercom - "Bad weather in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Snow on the runway with heavy gusts of winds. We might be able to land. We might not. If we cannot land we will be rerouted to Des Moines. Thank you for flying United Express"

Twenty minues later, wheels up and just about two hours later we land on a snowy runway in Cedar Rapids. Since I've been gone, 6-8 inches of snow have fallen on the airport parking lot. I find my car only because the license plate was uncovered by snow. Twenty minutes later after removing all the snow off the car in 21 degree weather. I am on my way.

Should be a quick 90 minute drive at most. Highway going home is covered in snow, ice, black ice and being buffeted by heavy crosswinds and it's also dark. My max speed going home is 40 mph. My shoulders and fingers are tight and tense as I hold on to the wheel as hard as I can. At 8:14 I pull up in the driveway. Home at last and then PANDEMONIUM!

It's good to be home...

My iWitness...

Delays...

Anything delaying you from getting to your destination on time? Anything keeping you from moving forward? Anything slowing you down?

Sometimes delays are forced by circumstances outside of our control. Like the weather that delayed me there are storms in life that come our way that slow us down or blow us off course.

Sometimes our hustling and getting "after it" can move us forward in a speedily fashion. Had I taken my time getting to the customer service center, I would not have made the next flight and would have been delayed even further. No time to sit around and have a little pity party.

Sometimes we are all ready to go but we are grounded because we are "overweight". Something needs to go. Something needs to get off our plane in order for us to soar.

Sometimes, even when we are on the right track it is slow, slow, tense going, with crosswinds threatening to knock us off track.

Sometimes, excuse me... not sometimes but always when we reach home there will be PANDEMONIUM!!

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12. 1-2)

I'll see you out on the highway of life.
It's good to be traveling together.

And that's my iWitness...
Laugh often and Fear not!
David!