It’s hard for me to believe that I’m turning thirty one today. Sure, I’m certainly grateful to continue to enjoy birthdays, but if I thought that thirty seemed old, thirty one seems even older, as I am no longer on the cusp of the thirties, but now firmly entrenched in them.
We’re over the North Pacific, at 11,600 meters, roughly 38,000 feet (we’re in Russian airspace, and they like meters instead of feet). I feel pretty blessed to be spending my birthday aboard a Cathay Pacific 747 that we are piloting from Anchorage to Hong Kong. There are three pilots, and we each get about a three hour break on this 12 hour flight. I’m still not used to being paid to take a break while flying.
Yes, I’d like to be home with Laura, but it’s still pretty cool to be at work. I look at it like an opportunity to be in the cockpit of a 747 for a birthday “free ride” gift. If someone had told me twenty years ago that I’d be flying a 747 for my birthday at thirty one, I would have jumped for joy. I’m still excited, but it is a job, after all.
I get home in a few days, and then I’ll celebrate surviving thirty one years here on Earth with Laura and her family. I hope to get home to Texas to see my family sometime in March, as it’s almost been a year since I’ve been down to the great red dirt state of Texas. My schedule needs to cooperate to make that happen. As I take stock of my life so far, I can see nothing but the gracious blessing of God’s hand, undeservedly so, everywhere I’ve gone. He protected my family growing up in Indonesia, gave me the opportunity to learn to fly and go to school in Indiana, protected my jobs with the airlines, given me a great wife, a house, and family.
With the current economic troubles the globe is having and God’s promise to end this world someday, I have no idea what my future holds, and what will happen in my next thirty one years. But I know, just as I look out the windows and see the sun rising above the clouds, that His hand is protecting me on this airplane, that His hand is also guiding me along life’s turbulent waters, and that He will be blessing me all along the way. Why? It’s simple: He promises too.
There are birthday pics if you click on my photo above.