The Good News About Being Stuck

Last week I went to Utah for my fifth Young Living convention. It’s a highlight of my year….hanging out with my peeps, learning about healthy lifestyles and growing my knowledge of the products Young Living sells. They have hundreds of natural products and I love checking out all of the new things and visiting with friends from all over the world.

The trip was supposed to be short, Wednesday morning to Saturday morning. I was traveling with two of my YL besties, flying together and rooming together and all the things….lots of sharing and caring and laughing. Everything went perfectly, kind of too easy, until the last morning when we got to the airport at 6:45am for our 8:30am flight home.

We were worn out. We had been up way too early every morning and out way too late every night. That day we had to rise at 5:30 to get to the airport on time. We had no makeup, junky clothes, no one cared. We couldn’t wait to get home by 2:00 and have the rest of the day to unpack and unwind. Or so we thought. When we arrived we got the first of what would turn out to be many notifications that our flight time had changed. It was ok at first, roll with it and all that. But as the day went on we started to wonder what was going to happen. 10:00 changed to 10:45 to 11:30 to 2:00 and on and on, ending in the last notice we got at 6:30pm that our flight had been canceled.

One of the things that really upset me was that we had chosen to miss the last day of convention to go home early. There was a whole day we could have attended instead of sitting there in the airport 15 minutes away. But we couldn’t leave because all of our checked luggage was there and we had no way to get it. I have learned to trust God and I do know that if I was supposed to be at the convention that day He would have gotten me there. So I move forward, nothing to do but give thanks.

The hard part came when we explored every single option from renting a car to flying home the next day, to taking a bus to hitching a ride and nothing, NOTHING was working. At one point I had a little breakdown right there in the rental car area, feeling completely drained and lost. It was 8:00 at night and we had nowhere to go. How does one get from Salt Lake City UT to Austin TX with no plane, car, bus or train? I stepped away from my friends to cry and try to empty my mind of the pressure I felt from the difficult day. And we used every oil we had and shared them around with all of the other passengers with us! It definitely helped with the stress, but essential oils can’t carry you 1,200 miles.

It did not escape my notice that this was the second time this summer I was stuck far from home with no way to get back. In June I went to Kansas to visit my daughter and on the way home, in Dallas, my car broke down. I was 6 hours from home with no car and three kids. That was hard. I had to find a place to repair my car and ask favors from friends to take turns driving us parts of the way home. Once I got home I was without my car for two weeks until I could go back and get it. Then a month later I got stuck in SLC, but that was too far to ask any friends to come and get me. YIKES!

I ended up asking for ideas on Facebook. I knew there were 40,000 people at the convention and maybe someone was driving back to Texas or had an idea that our exhausted brains hadn’t thought of. I got a lot of suggestions, but most of them wouldn’t work for us. Then I got a message from someone I don’t know well. That person (who asked to remain anonymous) offered to get us tickets on a flight home the next day. I wasn’t sure how they were going to do that since from what I was finding all flights were booked except a few late night flights that were way too expensive.

But guess what….they did get us tickets and we were amazed. This anonymous friend is a believer and we all agreed that God used them to help us get home. No doubt it was His hand on the entire episode. I don’t know why I ever doubt that He will take care of me.

He does that every day actually….covers our messes and takes care of times when we feel stuck. Several times over the past week I have had the blessing of listening to friends who feel stuck for one reason or another. Each of their situations is different, but none too difficult for God to handle. From marriage struggles to school decisions to travel disasters, He is right there with you.

It’s a matter of letting Him lead and not getting frustrated that it’s not going our way. In my case with the canceled flight, I would never have thought it would get resolved the way it did. I was spending a lot of energy (which I had to do of course….God taking care of it doesn’t mean we don’t have to work) looking at our problem from every possible angle and in the end it wasn’t any of my ideas that got us home.

That’s the coolest part! God gets ALL of the glory. He gave someone the ability to help us and connected us at the right time. He made 3 tickets on a previously empty flight open up and He got us on that plane. Honestly I am constantly humbled by His grace.

Today I am home and won’t be struggling with being stuck 1,200 miles away. But I will get stuck. I will have kid attitude issues or money decisions or the plumbing will get backed up (don’t get me started on this latest thing we’re dealing with over here) and I will feel like I have no way out of it. That’s when we need to stop and step back and take a minute to let God show us an idea we hadn’t thought of, a solution we never saw coming. He is creative and brilliant and omnipotent. Who better to ask for help?

Where have you felt stuck lately? Do you wonder if you will ever get our of a hard situation? Do you find yourself thinking of ways to escape? I know it feels impossible sometimes, but His promises are real. It will likely not happen the way you want, but He WILL take care of you.

Whatever you are dealing with today, whatever crazy mess you have that seems like there’s no way it will ever end…..there is hope. Real hope. And it will most likely happen in a way you never expected. <3