This trip was both absolutely wonderful in many ways, yet incredibly frustrating in others. This was one of those wonderful invitations. I love speaking in a few specific parts of the Northern Hemisphere, especially the New England area and also in Canada because the culture is so different from the usual, sort of, churchy culture of many other parts of the country in this area. I was thrilled to get an invitation to speak at a Women Unlimited Conference in Ontario.
This is a group of people, just a darling group of ladies led by a woman named Betty, who are putting together conferences all across Ontario that reach out to women of all different denominations, really into the secular world, and just give a woman a great day out with some other women from all over who they may not have known before and they all come together and sing and listen to a speaker and it’s just a great model. I’m so glad they’re doing it in Canada, and I was very glad to be able to be a part of that because as I said, I loved being able to speak in areas that often don’t have a lot of speakers who come out of a perspective of life that includes strong Christian faith.
So I enjoyed very, very much speaking to this precious group of women. They were very responsive. It’s always so wonderful as a speaker, to have an audience that actually laughs at your jokes and cries and listens to the stories, and you can actually see God opening their eyes and changing their hearts - it was just wonderful.
The frustrating part, however, was the travel, and I sometimes wonder in the midst of days, such as this, how on earth to keep my patience. The flight out from Atlanta to Toronto was delayed by more than two hours for mechanical problems, and so we got in quite late and really cut down on my ability to rest and refresh before things had to get started that night and then on the flight back I was absolutely exhausted. It took a while to clear customs and get into the Toronto Airport and at my seat, on the plane. I called my husband and said I’m just absolutely wiped out, it was a late flight, it was supposed to leave at 8:30 at night; after a long day of speaking and a long week of being up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning because of the books deadline ‘For Young Men Only‘ and so I was so looking forward to just getting on the plane and getting home, even though it meant that I would be home probably close to midnight.
So we get on the plane, the plane taxies away from the gate a few feet, stops, doesn’t go anywhere for a while and then the voice comes on the loudspeaker, “Ladies and gentlemen, there is a problem with our brakes, they’re going to have to check us out.” A few minutes later, he comes back saying, “Well, there is a big problem with our brakes, so we have to go back to the gate and unload you all and find another plane.” Two hours later, we finally get on another plane and leave. So I’m calling this blog-in at almost 1:30 in the morning as I drive towards home and it’s so funny for me to think about, at times, of just how easy it is to lose your patience, how easy it is to let tiredness take over and just snap at people when they are trying their best in a difficult situation just like you are and how essential it is that I tried to maintain my Christian witness, especially.
I can still remember on a situation like this, at Christmas time last year, going into a store where a woman was not doing a very good job of serving the customers unfortunately and I lost my patience after about five attempts. I was tired, I shouldn’t have done it but I finally just got very irritated and said, “I’m so frustrated, this is a very difficult situation, please help me with this,” and after the transaction was finally completed she handed me back some money and said, “Thank you very much, and oh, by the way, I loved your book.” I was mortified that here was this person who I had basically snapped at and I did not do a very good job of living out my testimony as I should.
So, today I hopefully managed to emerge on this much travel delayed trip on both sides with that intact, but it’s always a challenge sometimes to look at this as a learning experience and a test of character. The good thing, though, is that no matter what travel difficulties this trip threw in the way, it was so absolutely delightful to be with this group of ladies today and to laugh and cry together and to learn things we didn’t learn before and that is what matters.