~I'm glad that I found my place in it.~

I flew home this past weekend from Seattle, Washington.  It took me 4 flights in all to get there and back again.  For the first 3 flights I sat on the aisle, close to the front.  I liked it that way because for some reason I didn't feel so claustrophobic.  It worked out pretty well.  On the last flight however, it was a different story.  My seat from Denver to Oklahoma City was next to the window.  It was crowded with two gentlemen sitting in the seats next to me.  There wasn't much to do except settle in and hope that the next 90 minutes would fly by.

For the record, they did.

As I was sitting there in that seat by the window, I had a real bird's eye view of what the landscape below me looked like.  Although I've seen the sights from that high up before, this time it seemed a bit different.  I can't put my finger on what the difference was, only that it didn't seem quite the same this time.

Perhaps it is because I am getting older and everything in life seems to be changing.

I wanted to take a picture from up there, one that would forever remind of my time in the sky. Just as soon as we left Denver, the opportunity arose as we began to fly over acres and acres of gigantic wind generators.  I couldn't believe how many there were and I grabbed my cell phone to take a quick picture of it before it was too late.  I took several and came up with what I thought was the best one.  We were flying somewhere over America, more than likely southeastern  Colorado when we came upon them.  From the air they looked like miniature white crosses, dotting the landscape for miles and miles.

I loved the way the picture looked.

Hey, for a little cell phone camera and a vantage point pretty high up in the sky, I thought the picture didn't turn out half bad.  I made a memory with it.

Looking at the patterns of earth below me was like looking at God's masterpiece, His work of art if you will.  The colors and patterns in greens, browns, and blues seemed so striking from where I sat.  I marveled at all the geometric shapes that I saw and immediately connected them with math lessons I've been teaching my 3rd graders at school.  There were bar graphs, pie graphs, halves and fourths, and a plethora of figures and shapes for the eyes to witness.  

Imagine that.  

It reminded me of a time when Mike and I were first married.  We had gone to the top of the Grand Mesa, the world's largest tabletop mountain.  Mike wanted us to go the summit in order to look down at the view.  For a Kansas farm girl who had never left the Flatlands, it was a sight to behold.  I could not believe how majestic and magnificent it looked.  I marveled at it for a long time and took a picture of it not only with my camera, but with my heart as well.

It reminded me of the topographical map that always hung in my old social studies teacher's room back in Kansas.  Mr. Rex McMurray forever taught us about geography lessons like this. 

Now I was actually living it.

Mike and I stood at the top of the mesa that afternoon and paused to take our pictures.  I remember how quiet it was as we waited there.  It was my first time ever to see such a sight. I will always be thankful that I did.

I've had the occasion to see many beautiful sights in my life and I would be hard pressed to tell you which one was the most beautiful.  The opportunity to see the world below from the sky above is a special one for me, one that I shall forever remember.  

You know, the world is a pretty scary place sometimes.  It's filled with confusion, folks who cannot get along with one another, hatred and bigotry, mean spirited people, and those who might wish to harm us.  Sometimes you really don't know what the day ahead shall bring.  It takes a shot of courage to even get out of the bed some mornings, yet we do anyways.

One thing is for sure though in this crazy world in which we live.

God's handiwork is always around us, perhaps put there to bring us peace and comfort in our troubled lives.  The view of the earth gave me that feeling Sunday evening and also on a summer's day in 2013.  

One thing about us people is for sure.  

We are just one small part of a great big world around us. 

I'm glad that I found my place in it.