| After six months of traveling literally across the world and back again, life has taught me one important lesson: get out of the pilot seat and take the rightful window seat in life (the aisle or middle seats work too). Last year God called my family of five to literally uproot the life we had been living for the past 12 years and join Youth With a Mission’s (YWAM) Fire & Fragrance Discipleship Training School. So in January 2024, my husband, myself, our twin 10-year-old daughters, and our then 6-year-old son moved onto the YWAM base in Kona, Hawaii, for a 3-month training school before being launched with our team of 14 to South Africa, where we spent over two months traveling the nation teaching about Jesus (imagine moving 10 times and clocking over 60 hours of drive time, all with our kids). But after all of the schooling, the healing, the outreach experiences ranging from deliverance to physical healings to praying against witch doctors riding by our tents in a remote tribe and even preaching in a church on Mother’s Day, the 80+ hours of flying gave me so much time to reflect on what–actually where–I belong. What I learned over and over is my need to stay humbly put in the window seat of the metaphorical airplane that is my life. Friends, to say that I have been the obsessively planned, prepared and organized lady of the house would be putting it nicely. I was the one who would be planning out my family’s next vacation before leaving the current vacation I was on. I wanted all reservations, all obstacles already overcome and every detail worked out. I wanted no surprises. But guess what else I was also, “working out?” I was efficiently working faith and the miraculous out of my life. Now I’m not saying that being organized is not being faith-filled. I love a good checklist, believe me! But when we operate primarily from our thoughts and ideas, we can easily forget God in our planning. I could have never, in a million years, “planned” out that in 2024, our family’s life would take on this direction. My little human capacity for what’s possible is so small compared to God’s. And whenever I scored on a flight and got the window seat, I was reminded of my smallness. And better yet, I was reminded of His greatness! I had to hold my life, my plans and even at times what I felt like was my safety and the safety of my family, so loosely. I could not hold on to anything very tight because I was not the leader of my team (for perspective, our leaders were 20 and 24) and for me, that was such a good thing because it put God in His rightful place; as the leader of my family’s team and the pilot who is flying the plane of my life. Before we had left for YWAM, God had told us to rent out our home for the year, so we did. He also spoke the word, “Sabbatical” over my next season. So later this summer, my family will be sitting in the window seat once again and following the next piece in God’s glorious puzzle, as we will be hooking up our 5th wheel and taking an extended sabbatical-style road trip. And homeschooling. We will be listening for the Holy Spirit to lead us where to go, how long to stay, and who we need to meet along the way. Maybe there is someone in Texas who needs prayer for healing. Perhaps there is a homeless man in Tennessee who needs to hear the gospel. Or there might be a group of kids on a playground in Mississippi who God wants my kids to tell their story of God’s goodness to. We don’t know and better yet, we don’t have to. He knows. And I have seen over and over and over again, that His ways are so far exceeding anything that this writer’s brain could ever dream up! My palm is open for whatever and wherever God has for us. And I am at peace because I know his plans are to prosper us (but don’t take this as prosperity gospel) and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11 paraphrased). Follow our cross-country road trip! Dates and details coming soon. And hey, if you have any must-sees we should know about, comment below! |
By Jaime Mathews
Why You Should Live Life from the Window Seat
The Sweet Life
July 18, 2024
Enjoy the latest Posts
Find your next favorite post