God, Keep Us Safe
Before flying I get an unwanted dark feeling inside my body.
The clouds cover the sun and the temperature drops and I know something is not as it should be.
It’s similar to the feeling I get before entering a room full of strangers.
Fear shoots and squirms throughout my body and I think, “I’d rather be anywhere else, but here.”
But here is the only place I can be.
Thoughts and emotions swirl in my stomach and storm in my mind like a tornado with sharp knives and bad breath and distrust.
It’s uncomfortable and powerful and surprising and if you let it, anxiety will steal you away from yourself.
Before stepping onto the airplane, I pause, doing the only thing I know how to do.
I don’t worry about what the people behind me think, I need to do what I need to do.
Sometimes you need to do what you need to do, even if there are people behind you.
And sometimes you just have to remind yourself that you need to do what you need to do because it matters.
I place my hand on the outside of the airplane and whisper these four words:
God, keep us safe.
He hears me.
Every single word, every single time.
It’s a prayer that goes before me and behind me and with me.
When I enter the airplane I notice a dozen other passengers who are telling themselves what I always tell myself: everything is going to be okay.
Everything is going to be okay is the silent song us anxious passengers sing together.
Everything is going to be okay is how I imagine God responds to my prayer.
While in the air I don’t let my mind think about the fact that we are flying thousands of feet above the earth in a thin tin can.
Instead, I continue to pray those four words over and over again.
God, keep us safe.
He hears me.
Every single word, every single time.
Everything is going to be okay.
