Welcome Home?

Well, it’s the day after a long day of travel. And the end of another amazing adventure! I don’t have much to say today because I’m exhausted…LOL The travel yesterday was pretty smooth until the very end. My flights were both within minutes of their scheduled times. There weren’t any shifts in the gates I needed to be at to get to my planes. And I enjoyed some time working on my “Peace” art piece. So overall, it was a pleasant day.

The trouble from yesterday only happened once we landed. We landed within a few minutes of the scheduled time. But the normal gates for the airline were blocked last night by construction. The airport wanted us to park at the international gate. But there was still a plane there when we landed. After about 15 minutes of waiting, it was announced that they were moving us to another gate. However, that gate still had an empty plane parked at it…LOL So another 10 minutes went by while they moved that plane out of the way.

After I got off the plane, I didn’t recognize anything. It was a terminal I had never been to. I stopped off at the restroom first. But then I had to follow the signs because I had no muscle memory of where to go…LOL It was easy to navigate, though. Once I was at the main terminal, Phoebe and I had a little chat…LOL She’s the giant flamingo that Tampa Airport is known for. I explained the inconvenience of the evening to her so she could talk to the higher ups about it…LOL I kid, of course.

Once I got to the train to get back to the economy parking lot, I had just missed the train that was there as I got to the top of the stairs. The sign said they were running trains every 6 minutes. But after 10 minutes, nothing…LOL Then the next train was finally on its way…in 5 minutes. Yeah, that was a long wait after the nearly 45 minutes of waiting since we landed. Plus, I was thinking about how long the flight was to begin with…LOL

Once I got to my car, getting out of the parking garage was pretty easy this time. I typically have issues at the pay gate. But this time, it worked perfectly. However, once I got out of the airport, my usual route home was blocked for some reason. I started to follow the detour with the help of GPS, but the GPS weirded out all of the sudden and couldn’t figure out where to go. So I drove a little ways without knowing where I was going or even where I was actually at. The roads around the airport are like a bowl of noodles…LOL The GPS eventually got its bearings straight and I ended up in a familiar territory.

After the whole ordeal, I was home around 2am…about an hour later than I supposed to had the plane been able to park at the gate when we arrived. Normally, I wouldn’t complain about such a thing as what I experienced last night. Life be life’ing sometimes. But this was at an ungodly hour after traveling all day. Plus I worked today. So I admit I was not happy about it.

Which brings me to something I’ve learned from such experiences…

I think the patience included in the Fruit of the Spirit isn’t so much about how we deal with things like last night. The original language talks about long suffering. Patience of today is more about waiting on things. In today’s world, long suffering would be things like mourning the loss of a loved one for the rest of your life while still finding happiness without them. It has very little to do with waiting for gates to clear or trains to arrive. It’s also about the long suffering we endure while we wait to be in God’s Heavenly Kingdom. In this world, we have trouble until we get there. The troubles of work stress, war, economic uncertainty, crazy people running the country…etc. The Fruit of the Spirit type of Patience is looking to Jesus through it all. I won’t loose heart as I focus on Him.

But, I think I might be justified in being frustrated about how things went last night without missing that Fruit of the Spirit. I think it’s okay that I acknowledge that it wasn’t fun and I didn’t like the situation. It impacted how I slept last night in preparation of my workday. This sort of thing hasn’t ever happened to me. If it does happen again, I’ll have a little experience with dealing with it now. But last night, I can say I was upset. Not angry-upset. Just disappointed-upset. Which for me, is actually worse in a way. I don’t outwardly express being upset. But deep down, it made me sad.

But all that said, I’m grateful God got me home safe and sound. I didn’t exactly feel a welcome home when I got back. That’s okay. It will all be fine. And I get to enjoy time with my parents and sister with her husband for the next few days. That’s a wonderful thing. It also helps that I just had another amazing adventure with my best friend. We had such an amazing weekend. I can’t wait to write about it! I’ll likely hold off until next week so I can devote the attention it deserves ❤️ Although Tampa didn’t welcome me home, friends and family wished me a Blessed Welcome Home. I can only imagine what that will be like when we all enter His Gates with thanksgiving in our hearts…and His courts with praise 🥹

I forgot to attach the photo of all the amazing birthday gifts I received from Cherie when I wrote about it the other day. So here it is now…with a bonus photo of the shirt she helped me choose with the gift card she gave me ❤️