UA Flight 922 - Part VI

I didn't realize it at the time, but God had prepared me for this moment.  I kept praying for grace to make it through the night, but that grace was already prominent in my life.  That grace was given me by the way my parents raised me.  That grace came during those 40-minute drives to school when I had nothing else to do, but be with God.  That grace was a culmination of 23 years of growth for this one moment when I was being detained.

And that's not a conclusion that you can come to while you wait out the storm.  You will experience the storm.  You will feel the heavenly deluge sweep you away drip by drip.  It doesn't matter if the deluge comes in the form of simply failing some school exam or if your best friend gives up on you and walks away from a relationship you've known and loved for years.  Strife and sorrow can come in any form.  And it will affect you.

So your mind will be set on the day and the hour of your plight.  But you will make it through because the Lord's given you the means to get through.  He's prepared you.  His grace already saved you.  It's a grace beginning at your conception, beginning at the mere loving thought of the possibility and potential for you being formed in the womb.  And grace even began before that.  Don't try to comprehend it.  Go along with it.  And praise God for the simple fact of praising him.

I've been through plenty in 23 years, but nothing like my immigration problems.  I've known the hurt of losing a grandparent.  I've known the tears that don't stop when you walk up to the open casket and see a woman who loved you and believed in you and spoiled you with as much Gold Fish and M&M's as a child can handle.  I've known the heartache of never being good enough to make it with the college baseball team.  I've known the fights and arguments with a father who loves me so much that I take it for granted; the arguments that always ended in me blaming the entire situation on his not being a Christian.  I've known the fear of disappointment when I come home with yet another speeding ticket.  But I've also known God.

The one defining factor throughout the night was God.

It was late into the morning when the immigration officer finished her questioning.  She offered me a drink from the vending machine before she went on her way.  Told me I could have a sandwich if I was hungry.  I wasn't.  I was near sick to my stomach at the idea of not knowing what was going to happen next.

I went for the vending machine.  Just a water.  Nothing else appealed to me.  All the fancy bells and whistles operated at my request.  I thought, only in England can you get a cup of tea from a vending machine.  That would never fly in the US.  Maybe coffee, but I think most people would choose to go to the nearest Dunkies of Starbucks.  Oh, if only life was as easy as pushing a button on a vending machine and out pops whatever you want.  That would be grand.

Only when you're older and grown up do you think like this.  It's blasphemous to think such a thought when you're a kid.  Then all adventure is thrown out the window.  There would be no more play time.  No more cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, or any sort of space adventure.  There would be no adventure at all.  Summers off from school would transform into some sort of uniform-still-wearing-piece-of-work for eight weeks.

I don't know when I lost my sense for adventure.  And this trip was trying to reclaim it for me.  Not many people can say the government's detained them before.  Not many can say they've sat down in a very Hollywood-esk interrogation room and been grilled for hours.  

God was working in me that night more than I could fathom.  And he was doing it in the only spirit-quenching forum possible - adventure.

Adventure leaves you with only the next step.  It drags you and pulls you.  It's the not-knowing-what's-going-to-happen feeling, which is the quintessential adventure mentality.  Sometimes you won't have a place to rest your head.  Sometimes you will just collapse because your muscles ache so much.  But then you will get up.  You will always get up.  It might not be by your own strength, but it will happen.  Because you are called to take one more step - one more step into nothingness, into wild, into eternity.

I live by a verse in Psalms, one that I found three years ago.  It tells me that God's way is through the sea, his path through the great waters, though no footprints were seen.  That is the adventure I live for.  I experienced it within the course of 36 hours.  And I may only be sitting at home now, writing this story, but my soul longs to take another step.

That night in detention I never realized I was living adventurously.  I never stopped to think that I needed to take one more step.  I collapsed.

I barely got any sips of water before another immigration officer came to get me.  He was a bigger fellow, the type that suits a uniform.  He introduced himself as Michael Kane.  That was an easy name to remember.  I definitely wasn't starring in a new Austin Powers movie, unless it was some sort of premier Reality TV show where random people get stopped at Customs and made to go through a night of paranoia.

And I was off again.  To where, I didn't know.  You never know where the next step will take you.  But your duty is to take that next step.