I looked up at the flight announcement to see that my 9:40 PM flight back home was now departing at 8:00 AM the next day. My travel fears had come upon me! Rather than responding with maturity, decisiveness, and gratitude—completely assured of God’s care for me—I sat in the airport and cried. Then I cried because I was crying. I started to condemn myself: Why aren’t I better at this? Why can’t I be the mature kind of person who rolls with the punches? I don’t even know what to do next. Do I sleep here? Do I find a hotel? Do I get an uber? I, once again, have no clean clothes.
As it turned out, I stood next to a familiar face. When I’m flying home to our small airport, I often see people I know who are also returning to Penn State. This time, a kind woman approached me who knew me from a long time ago when she came to my home to buy some signed books. She was a dear friend of my friend, but I didn’t know her well at all. I maybe had one conversation with her in my whole life.
But this woman? This mid-60 year old woman? She was fierce, decisive, and joyful. She basically said, “You’re coming with me.” Within a few minutes, she had comforted everyone around us, assuring us of a flight crew in the morning, and guided me through the airport once she arranged a ride and lodging for us for the night. I followed her like a desperate little duckling. A sad little crying duckling.
Apparently, she’s taken care of weary travelers many times before. With her obvious gift of leadership, she’s taken complete strangers under her wing. She’s shared hotel rooms, paying for everything for people falling apart over canceled flights. She’s rented vans and driven groups of strangers all the way home when another flight had been canceled. Leadership. Kindness. Positivity. Decisiveness.
As I flew home this morning, marveling over the way she confidently woke up a young man who had slept on the floor of the terminal to make sure he wouldn’t miss our boarding call, I thought about everything I was not. I thought about how she was the one gathering all the information. She was the one making decisions and leading everyone. Then it occurred to me: I remembered the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 about the body of Christ. Paul writes this:
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
My friend was the head; I was the feet (or something like this). I was the weaker, unpresentable member. She was the leader; I was the follower. And all was arranged “just as [God] wanted” this to be. I learned that I’m not supposed to be everything. I can let the body of Christ be the body of Christ. I forgave myself for crying in the airport and stopped punishing myself for not being the woman I imagined I could be. Instead, I said, “I’m not that person, and that’s OK.” And when it comes to trials of all kinds, I’m learning to look around me. We’re never alone when it comes to the body of Christ. You’ll find everything you need, and we’ll all end up home safely together.