Carry on

The other day a plane landed in Denmark and the right gear collapsed (everyone was fine). Wanna watch it?: http://blog.flightstory.net/290/video-sas-dash-8-crashed-at-landing/ (Yikes!) It was the second incident within 3 days involving the landing gear on that type of plane. My company flies 33 of those planes. It was recommended that we ground and inspect any of those planes with more than 10,000 landings. That was 19 of them. So, we had to cancel a lot of flights. Later it was decided to ground all of them until they were inspected. Crippling. Today is the 3rd day we've cancelled over 100 flights. I got an extra day off because all of my flights were cancelled. I'm not getting paid, but I was glad to have another day off. I'm also glad that I got home instead of being stuck somewhere.

Maybe you've heard about some of Mother Teresa's personal letters being published. I read an article about it in Time magazine. It was interesting to find out that for the majority of her life she did not feel the presence of God. From about the time her ministry started to work out and take off she felt that God left her. There was about 1 week that this was not the case. For decades she felt she was in the dark. Before her ministry started she says Christ spoke to her. I wonder if once you hear God's voice and then you don't hear it again if you will be left feeling that God is far from you. I wonder if her perception of God's closeness was a little skewed? I think she had such a strong desire for God that she felt she never had enough. I don't know.

The article says that she was only interested in sharing the passion of Christ. But it says that she never would've imagined that the way that desire would've been answered would be the moment on the cross when he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" as God's presence leaves him. She lived that moment for years. After she finally found someone to help her see her predicament in this way she was able to accept it. Some of the agony left her. She saw that she was indeed living out Christ's suffering.

What is most amazing to me is that inspite of her constant "darkness," her doubts, and wondering why God would not draw close to her she still became one of the most well known servants. She still lived one of the greatest lives of faith in our time. She inspired so many people. And I find even now, knowing what she dealt with, she still inspires. To know that such a humble and great woman experienced the same doubts and questions that so many of us deal with and yet persevered through it gives me comfort. Obviously people will respond to this in different ways, but that's my take on it.

It's been 10 years since she died. 10 years for Diana too. Both women were well loved. I think they both continue to be as well. They both were doing good things in the world. May their lives continue to inspire us to do good works! (There is one life that should cause greater inspiration.)

Also, today is my dad's birthday, 2 days ago was my grandpa's, yesterday would've been my grandma's. I miss her. I think about her a lot. The blanket she made me is currently my most valued possession.