Pre-Flight Meditation (And Lots of Numbers)

It still doesn’t feel real.

Terminal 3, Gate 41. Flight 136 from LAX to London Heathrow, to arrive at 14:15 Greenwich Mean Time.

14:15. That isn’t even a real hour.

I am alone but not lonely, isolated and surrounded on every side by saints that number the stars, the millions who have gone before me into strange and distant lands in pursuit of a calling. In pursuit of a purpose.

Already it is hard to remember all that I am leaving behind. I had a conversation some months ago with a like-minded friend, lamenting the hundreds of distractions that assail us each day and prevent us from being wholly devoted to holiness. This is the luxury of a Missions trip abroad: those distractions are suddenly 5412.52 miles away. Convert that to metric, and you have 8710.37 kilometers. I figure that’s about one kilometer for every distraction.

Goodbye work, goodbye phone, goodbye car, goodbye home.

Goodbye family, goodbye friends, goodbye ocean, goodbye trends.

Goodbye heartache, goodbye strife, goodbye comfort, goodbye life.

Between Dana Point and Cambridge, God is the only constant.

My suitcase weighs 52.4 pounds. That’s 2.4 pounds over the limit, but they let it pass. They extra weight? One black leather-bound ESV Journaling Bible. God’s sticking with me, even if he has to break a few rules along the way.  

To America, with Love,

Andrew Sears