When Courage Fails: Building a Braver You

Just about 2 years ago I found myself in the Seattle airport waiting for the last little flight that would take my family home.

We had just wrapped up a long week of vacationing hard.  Late nights, long days, theme parks and time with extended family and we were all ready for our own beds.  It was a vacation filled with a lifetime of memories, but also one that leaves you feeling like you might just need a vacation when you return home.

Traveling with four young kids has a way of doing that, no matter where you go.

My kids were 8, 5, 3 and 1 at the time and we had a 4 hour layover in the Seattle airport so my husband and I spent our time trying to feed and entertain everyone as best as we could.  By the time our plane arrived we were all done, done with waiting.  The oldest kids were bickering, the 3 year old was ready to meltdown and my husband was losing patience.  I could feel the hot stares of all the other passengers waiting beside us to board the plane.  Apparently, not everyone loves the idea of boarding a flight with a family with a handful of tired little people.  I can’t say I blame them.

Right as we were about to board the plane the baby decided to completely fill his diaper so I grabbed him and made a dash for the nearest bathroom.  Except there wasn’t one.  Because there never is when you are in a hurry, right?

So I rushed down one corridor and on to the next (which felt twice as long as it actually was) and finally found a bathroom.  Unfortunately, as soon as I stepped into that bathroom and unfolded the changing table the poor woman in the stall nearest me got very sick.  Very, very sick.  Maybe it helps to know that someone is always having a worse day than you are.  Maybe it helps to know that no one was offended by the smell of my baby’s dirty diaper because the sounds and smells coming out of that stall were, well, over-powering.  But I took no notice of that, I changed that baby’s diaper like a NASCAR pit crew and did my best not to gag, seriously.

I was both sweaty and shaking by this point.  Elated to simply exit that bathroom, as soon as I stepped out I heard my name broadcast over the airpot intercom.  “Paging passenger Katie Westenberg, your flight will be leaving momentarily, paging passenger Katie Westenberg your flight will be leaving momentarily.”

What?  Seriously?  Couldn’t my husband have told them I where I was?  Did they all just think I stopped at Starbucks for a Peppermint Mocha while I’m caught up in a bathroom nightmare over here?

So I ran.  Frantic mother with a baby on the hip and diaper bag over my shoulder, I ran.  Only to be a greeted by a not so happy husband and flight attendant who were giving me “what the heck happened to you” looks.

There was no time to explain.  We walked straight to the plane and sat down.

On that little walk to my seat, I prayed one simple prayer.  “Lord, help me do this well.”  I knew we were all a mess.  It was late and the situation was just ripe for all kinds of crazy.  I meant to say “please help my kids behave and help no passengers to hate us when this is all over.  Please help the baby to sleep and not scream at whoever is seated next to me.  Please help this all to be over quickly.  But it all came out in those six words. “Lord, help me do this well.”

 

So I found my seat next to a woman in her late 40s.  She appeared meek, guarded and just barely friendly as she greeted me with a quick smile.  Slowly, as our plane took off, we began to talk a little.  Like a leaky faucet she began to let her guard down, and drip by drip, tell me about her life.

She was coming home from her brother’s funeral.  Her raw emotions, just barely under control.  Tears slipped from her eyes occasionally and she would stare out the window for long periods of time.  She told me how much she loved her brother.  How he had called her just a day or two before he died, but she was in the middle of something, too busy to talk, so she told him she would call him later. There was no later.  His death was a complete surprise.  Gone at the age 50.  Asleep and never woke up.

Here’s the part I don’t really want to tell you.  I was only half listening.  Yes, I heard what this woman was saying but my heart was only half listening.  Part of my mind kept thinking of my kids, my mess.

I had the baby on my lap, the two oldest kids shared a row in front of me and my husband sat with the 3 year old.  Every few minutes I did a mental rotation of checks on them.  Doing good, good, good, good.  “Sweet, thank you, Lord!  This is awesome. I’m doing this well.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I felt compassion for this woman, but I wasn’t willing to really lean in to where she was.  And the worst part is, I knew it.  I knew it.  I kept her at arm’s length in my heart “wow, sucks to be her”, I thought.  And I knew I was intentionally not willing to go there.  I didn’t know what to say.  I didn’t want to be weird and start preaching to her or something so I just offered up shallow rhetoric, “I’m really sorry for your loss”, and went back to being happy that my kids were totally doing awesome on this flight.

I had missed the point entirely.  God heard my prayer.  He was helping me out with my kids, but I was so distracted with what I thought “doing this well” looked like, that I completely missed out on what was right in front of me.

This story is getting long, friends, but there is more.  More that culminates in a similar flight that I took just a week ago, more than two years later.  You can read part 2 over here.