It has been over 40 years since I got my wings and finished training in Dallas/ Fort Worth to become and airline Stewardess for American Airlines. I left college after two years, not finding my purpose there and not wanting to waste my father’s money (perhaps somewhere knowing that I might need his help more later down the line, as I spent twenty-five years as a divorced single parent). Anyway, after working in NYC at Bloomingdale’s for a season, my Dad mentioned something about stewardess being a good job, and somehow my heart leapt at the thought. I immediately sought out the two best airlines, in my estimation, and set up interviews.

While TWA wanted me to come back for a second, then a third interview, American said we have a class starting next week and we want you to be in it!There was something about them recognizing me as their type of employee, it seemed almost a spiritual match, like when you find a sorority in college that feels like a lot of people very similar to you and you instantly feel a part of the whole. It seemed a good sign and I was ready for change and off I went.

As with many things in my life, at first I didn’t seem to fit the teachers molds, and some doubted my sincerity in being there. I remember being chosen song leader of my graduating class, and of being the only one who cried at our graduation. I was probably the most sincere, but I had an aloofness that at first sight might make you think I didn’t care. I was always afraid of rejection, and always held myself back in groups until I got the feel for where I fit in.

As I was driving home from Publix today with groceries I hoped would last the month, I prayed that God would help me to be a good steward of the food I had just purchased. I realized that sometimes I bought things knowing exactly how I was going to use them, but after I put them on the shelves or in the refrigerator, I later forgot what my intention had been. I hated throwing out food that I had forgotten to use before it expired or went bad. It seemed like being such a bad steward.

What came to me as I prayed was the word stewardess. Somehow that brought a smile to my face and always will. It reminded me of times where even though the flight might look like the same one I had made many times before (say NY to Chicago), there was something different about it each time . In fact, the thing I remember most about being a stewardess (yes, they are called Flight Attendants now, but back then we were all women) was that every time we boarded a leg of a flight there was something different. If not all new, there were always additions and subtractions to the passengers, even though some were going through with us to the next destination. There was a different meal to be served (yes, we still served full course meals then :-). There might be an addition to our crew if the flight was full. Even if I was going from the same place to another place I had been many times  before, the people I was going with were entirely different.

This was the way God encouraged me today. Simply by adding ‘ess’ to an old word for taking care of what the Lord gives you, I was changing the way I perceived it completely. I now smile and think of myself in my uniform with a red, white and blue bow in my hair(It was the sixties!)and I can give myself another chance to do things differently.

I am grateful for His sense of humor and for the constant ways He gives me a second chance to see what He wants me to see. He knows just where to go in my old picture albums in my mind. May I learn to be a good stewardess of what He gives me today.