A High Price to Pay

At 36,000 feet, you can clearly see what's not visible from the ground. Miles above the surface of the planet, everything looks different, and with no effort on your part, perspective shifts and your eyes see what was once hidden.

Difficulties are kind of like being 36,000 feet in the air.

You need to understand that I hate to fly. Hate. It. I have to be medicated and nearly crush my husband's hand during takeoff and make people around me nervous that I'm going to lose my mind. I once nearly hyperventilated on a flight from Miami, and on my last flight from Chicago, my shirt was stained with sweat rings. There is no place I hate worse than the cabin of an airplane. My most fervent prayers have been as my flights taxi towards takeoff. I pray that the rivets will hold, the crew ate a nutritious breakfast, the fuel is untainted, the tires were manufactured properly, fellow passengers have only the best intentions... No area is untouched by my prayer life when it comes to planes.

So the beauty of those pictures? There's a high price to pay for them.

There's a high price to pay for all beauty in life, though, isn't there?

No one invites difficulties or welcomes them with open arms. We pray against them and do what we can to avoid them. We want smooth sailing, life to continue as we know it, and comfort to surround us. What we think we want is safety and familiarity - the absence of hardships. What I've learned, though, and what God continues to show me is that safety and familiarity - the absence of hardships - lead only to complacency and a distorted perception of life.

We need the valleys of life to see the 36,000 foot view. The logic of God makes no sense to our humanity.

It has been in the pit - and because of it - that I have even begun to understand the glory of my redemption. It has been through the worst that I have been able to smile at the best. When life has been smooth sailing here on the surface of this planet, I have lost my desperation for my Savior and my reverence for his role. The hardest days of my life have lifted me beyond what ordinary eyes can see and have shown me the view from Up There, if only for a moment. From the depths of a depraved world, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. 

To see with eyes like Christ, you might have to suffer as He did. To gain his perspective, you might need to share his pain.

And to see from 36,000 feet, you'll probably need to fly on a plane.