Walking by Faith…through the clouds

“Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith.” –Oswald Chambers

After arriving in Dhaka, Bangladesh at 12pm, August 2^nd, this was the very first thing I read (that wasn’t in Bangla) and I literally laughed out loud. If you had been in my pocket traveling with me, you would immediately know why. In case you’re wondering, basically everything that could have gone wrong on my trip, did. Our flight left from DC two hours late because of mechanical troubles so instead of being on the plane 13.5 hours, we sat on it for 16. Thankfully I had been given some sleeping pills by my gracious cousins who hosted me in DC for a few days while I sorted out Visa troubles (which is a whole OTHER story) and I also sat next to a very sweet Pakistani woman who made the last few hours go by quickly. Sidenote: I had determined from the very beginning that I would be pleasant and as kind as I could be even if things went wrong and I’m glad to say I stuck to my plan (by the grace of God) because by the time we landed in Abu Dhabi, my flight to Dhaka had already left. Thankfully as I exited the plane there was someone waiting for me with new boarding passes to Dhaka (shout out to Etihad airlines) and so almost immediately I boarded a different plane to Dhaka, via Karachi, Pakistan. And that’s where things got even more interesting. Everyone was shuffled off the plane a couple hours later (the middle of the night at this point, although it was probably daytime in the States…I lost track of the sun and all sense of time) and moved toward immigration. I tried to avoid this by asking at least 5 different “official” people who all looked at my boarding ticket, “listened” to what I was saying and then proceeded to tell me to get in the immigration line…which, if you’re not a frequent international flyer, essentially means you’re committing to staying in that country and you better have papers to prove it (which of course I didn’t!). I was far enough back in the line to not panic, when a nice man came up to me and pointed to my name on a list he had in his hand (fortunately for him I was the only white person in the entire Pakistani airport so I was pretty easy to pick out of a crowd). He then took me to a waiting area where two others were needing the same connecting flight to Dhaka. These Bengalis had also ended up in the mess, to which of course my first response was “Hooray! I’m not alone!” It might be hard to believe that the emotional response was joy and relief at having to wait in an airport for 6 more hours before another flight, but these people ended up being just what I needed to get me through. Our seasonal friendship kept us going up to the end where we all made lost and found reports in the Dhaka airport, because even though our bodies had made it to our connecting flight, (surprise) our bags had not!

Let’s pause the story for just a moment to point out something: there were quite a few “clouds” (as Oswald defined) that I had encountered on this hairy adventure, but I continued to choose not to freak out or cry and scream (even though I was tempted to do all 3) and I know it was by God’s grace that I chose to see each different “cloud” as an opportunity to use for His glory. I obviously don’t know the eternal impact of being kind, making friends, and losing my luggage (temporarily, it’s here now woohoo!), but I do know that through the clouds, God was strengthening my dependence on Him. I didn’t even have clothes to change into when I got to Dhaka, and even though there was a moment where I felt a little lost without my “things,” I knew God had my back and He was with me, and that’s really all that matters, period.

So maybe you're going through something and you're thinking right now "Well, at least I'm not that poor girl!"...then I'm glad to provide some healthy perspective :) Or maybe you are questioning those clouds in your life that seem like they may never lift. Don't worry...God hasn't left you, in fact He's moving in the clouds to make you weaker, so that you depend on Him more strongly than you ever thought possible.  Keep walking with Him!