View Blog Entry

“If it comes too quick, I may not appreciate it,” wrote Sara Groves, popular Christian singer and songwriter.

I sat with my back against the window at gate A13 in the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. There I was, among the passengers, waiting to board Delta Flight 1700 to Sacramento, California.

My entire adult life, I had anticipated meeting my birth family. I wanted to discover where my birth mother lived and raised children after me. My half-sister, whom I found on 23andMe, was eager to welcome me home after she visited my house four months earlier.

I glimpsed Jesus in my fellow travelers. A couple’s group discussed their upcoming excursion to Napa Valley’s wine country. A middle-aged woman with a purple carry-on casually flipped through a magazine. A young man chatting on his cell phone accidentally kicked his duffle bag, causing his lunch to spill onto the floor.

I also saw God in a small boy on the floor, reading a book to his mother. My Creator was in the parade of travelers navigating the broad aisle, some sprinting to their destination.

From seat 20F, I spotted my heavenly Father ten thousand feet over the late-summer, dry, brown, northern California landscape. He pointed out sights that my birth mother viewed when she flew into Sacramento from Boston, her hometown.

Upon landing, my lost family history was revealed to me, no longer hidden. People and places crept past my eyes during the week, like a disobedient child avoiding his mother’s stare. I finally shared a lifetime of missed memories with my birth family.

“Be careful what you wish for,” a co-worker once reminded me, “because you just might get it!”

This opportunity called me to slow down and pay attention to people and places of my past, present, and future—as the psalmist advised us to do. I hope you will too.