LOOK straight in the HORIZON

"Look straight in the horizon"!...those were the instructions that were given to me by my pilot friend. Hmmm... it's been so many years ago when a co-worker/manager friend of mine took us flying with her one fine afternoon- this was in the late 80's. I could vividly remember... there were four of us that went on this flight-on a private jet plane-parked in Addison airport, Tx., owned by my friend's dad. Her father was a pilot for Delta airlines and my friend wanted to be a pilot just like her dad. She told us she had to earn more flying miles so she wanted to treat us by flying us to waco, tx with some stopovers along the way. It's kind of funny because we did not expect we were going flying that one afternoon right we had finished our semi annual inventory at Dillard's Valley View. Our friend just asked us if we would like to go flying with her that day and three of us were so excited to go not realizing what we were in for.

Anyways... that was quite an adventurous afternoon and evening! The adventure began with this... when we arrived at the airport we were all excited to get in the small private plane. But as soon as we knew we were about to board the plane, our pilot friend asked us who amongst the three of us wanted to be the co-pilot. Everybody got so quiet... and i thought to myself... one of us had to do it. I still remember me asking the two ladies if they wanted to do it... i said to them that it would be "fun" to experience that on our first take off. Well, i ended up doing it since they both flat out refused to go through it. So, okay... we were ready to take off! My friend had a take off checklist on a clipboard. I was so confident that everything was going to go smoothly. We were all excited about our first take off that we kept on talking as i carefully observed our friend skillfully performed her take off maneuver. I was so curious why i did not hear her go down the check off list before the plane took off. We were already up in the air when i started asking her about the door that was left ajar on the co-pilot side. As soon as i brought it to her attention, she immediately said, "Oh-uh, we left the door open but we can not turn around to the airport where we took our from (Addison airport) because of some aviation rules and regulation". I said, "oh, boy... i'm way too close to this danger on the right hand side of my body". My friend had asked me to try to shut the door, for a minute there i thought what she just asked me to do is something that i would see in a movie stunt. I thought she was kidding of what she had instructed for me to do. Soon afterwards, i realized that she was serious. And that she really was instructing me to follow her instructions to solve the problem. The next thing i knew i was trying to pull my mighthiest to close that airplane door but it just would not budge. I knew i was pulling against the air pressure and it was impossible for me to close it. Then came the next obstacle... our pilot friend said to the co-pilot, which happened to be me! :( , here, let me try to pull the door shut while you hold the stick, and i said what??? what do you mean hold the stick? i never ever held this stick before!!! the next thing i did was... i unconsciously pushed the stick down and the plane went up abruptly:)... after our pilot friend struggled to close the door herself to no avail she plainly told us that the door just needed to be left like that-ajar- until we land the plane in Mesquite, which is the closest airport from the current location of the plane.

During this precious "once in a lifetime" short flying air time experience that i had i learned to carefully follow all of the instructions of someone at these crucial moment because of the danger that was involved. Our pilot friend kept telling me to "look at the horizon" so you won't be distracted. I have known that what i had seen that afternoon was soo beautiful... to actually see the clouds straight from the cockpit- head on! Like you could almost touch it... Also, to add an excitement to the event the biggest challenge we had that night was to point out the planes in sight that would be coming at us. All of us- my friends and i had our eyes wide open to watch out for those planes, although our pilot friend was communicating with aviation traffic controllers. Her added instuction was to be on the look out for those unexpected planes that would just show up from any direction. Oh boy, we did not know that any surprises like that could happen from up there.

I am so glad i am still remembering and learning from that experience that i had from that one GOD Anointed Day. I PRAISE GOD for letting me see the UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL beauty of HIS WORKS.

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“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”- 1 Chronicles 29:11