The Light Above

On a cold winter morning this past December, my husband and I settled in our seats for the 2 hour flight from Indy to Ft. Myers. An overcast sky spit icy snow from the heavy cloud cover as the crew readied us for take-off. I watched from my window seat as they de-iced the 737. Soon we taxied out to the runway. At once our plane climbed upward, only to disappear immediately within the clouds. The wings cut through billowy puffs as the thick, grey mist enveloped us. Gradually the sky began to glow. I waited for the anticipated moment when the jet surged out of the clouds into the light above.

Hundreds of times during my childhood, I sat in the same position watching in wonder for our small plane to pop over the clouds into the sunlight. My first flight in our single engine Beechcraft Bonanza took place when I was only 11 days old. My father’s passion for aviation transformed my earliest memories. He obtained his private pilot’s license at the age of 17, studied Aeronautical Engineering at Purdue and served in the Air Force Reserve. When I was 7 years old, my parents bought a small airport and for a time we lived in the apartment attached to the office. Just about everything we did revolved around aviation. The passion for flying passed down through kids and grandkids so that now we have 3 generations of pilots in the family.

Even though I don’t have the opportunity to fly often anymore, it still fills me with wonder. There’s just something unique about viewing the world from above. Seeing the earth from the heavens gives us a hint of God’s perspective. We look at life through the narrow lens of our own existence whereas God sees the whole of history. The struggles and pain of the human experience , obscure our vision like a thick fog. We look around but all we see is our own feet. If only we raise our eyes to the heavens, we would notice the light above filtering through the misty veil.

Each of us is innately drawn to light. We bask in the warmth of its rays as the days grow longer every spring. The Good News, the Best News, is this. Jesus, the Light of the World came down to live with humanity. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”1 Hope is born through recognizing the Light that penetrates this present darkness. We do not have to rise up through our own efforts to reach Him for the Light above has come to us

1John 1:4-5

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