Kite Flying - Thoughts on Flying High and Plummeted to the Ground

I think he saw it on Kipper.  Kites.  And wouldn't stop talking about it until we went to the store and got one.

And then wouldn't stop asking about it until we ripped open the package and freed it into the sky and the wind.

It kept his attention for all of five minutes, but the kites gave me hours of entertainment, relaxation, and times of meditation.

Something about watching something so light have so much power and height made me think.  Something about listening to the wind whip through the tails caused me to feel.

That little kite submitted itself to the wind.  If the wind blew to the left, that little kite swerved.  If the wind died down, a plummeting nose dive soon followed.

Yet, the majority of the time, it was so relaxed up there.  Just floating.  Letting the wind do the work.  And I heard God ask me, Why do you not let me do the work in your life? And I realize all the times that I fight God.  That I resist the direction He takes me.  That instead of a kite in the wind, I'm a salmon swimming upstream - against the current.  His current.  His plan.

And to feel.  To feel peace.  To forget worry.  To rest.  To experience His love.  To float.  To live.

He speaks again.  Why do you not just rest?  Rest?  What about my surmounting "to-do" list?  What about teaching my kids their letters and manners?  What about my business?  What about death?  And pain?

It could all be gone tomorrow.  They could all be gone tomorrow.  All of it could.  And there is nothing I can do about that.  But I can have peace.  Experience peace.  Know peace.

Peace that doesn't make sense.  And the sooner I stop trying to understand God and just experience Him, the better it will be.

Because God doesn't make sense.  Bad things happen to good people.  Young mothers are taken too soon. Children get hit by moving cars and could be gone before they were ever really here.  And God is good?  Yes.  God is good.

We can't know His plan or His reasons.  And, for me, it's better to just surrender to that.  Not as a escape or an excuse to make me feel better.  But to allow me to move on and to see the good.  To see people rallying together that otherwise would not.  To see brevity and the mist that life is - and embrace it.  Each minute.

Each smile. 

Because the wind may die down and there is nothing we can do except plummet to the ground.  And somehow, that is exactly in His plan.

 

PS... Word to the wise.  Since I'm not an expert in kite flying, I have lots of advice to give.  Tip #1:  Watch where you're running.  Especially when running backwards to coax your kite to embrace the wind.  There might be a drain just waiting to swallow you.  Embarrassed {yet painful} laughter will ensue... along with days of soreness.

Yep.  That's the drain.  Taller than my 15 month old.  My leg went right through those holes and my body did a terrible twist and tumble - landing in what I'm sure resembled the chalk outline of a dead body.  How's that for lightening up a serious post?

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