The heavens glowed berry-blue, the clouds candy-pink, and Dijon-gold sunbeams danced amongst them. I didn’t care. I didn’t dare peek out my window, not even for a peep. I know exactly what skulks out there, and I don’t like it, I thought. Thirty-five thousand feet of vertical nothingness, then twelve thousand one hundred feet of heaving briny sea.

But that was the fare for getting there. The Land of the Rising Sun, the Cherry Blossom Isle, the Island Kingdom, or more simply put, Japan, bobbed four thousand two hundred and thirty-eight miles away, and the only mode of getting there was plane. And so, afraid to glimpse outside, the airline’s inflight entertainment system became my chief solace with Tetris the main absorption. Wedging particoloured bricks so they formed perfect lines became the world’s most dire distress, and I the only one astute enough to resolve it.

Left, left, left. Right, right, right. I spun those digital bricks into position until my eyes blurred and my brain fatigued, then a new diversion. I slashed my inflight meal carton into strips, an unsuccessful attempt at constructing a homemade tiddlywinks game, flipping cardboard discs into my empty plastic cup. With that a complete flop, I became creation’s biggest consumer of apple juice, the airline seemingly having copious amounts of ice-cold fruit syrup stored somewhere unseen.

The eyes of the flight attendants narrowing with every new glass served, I decided perhaps my thirst had quenched. I sat twiddling my thumbs, now engrossed with chilling mental images of me falling thousands of miles through the air or slamming with great speed into the earth’s crust, the plane erupting into flames. Will this flight never end? I wondered. Then, I thought of other tactics I’d used on other journeys to sidestep anxious thoughts while flying. I’d tried gliding at night, so as not to see how high in the sky I am or soaring right after a night shift so if the aircraft plummets, with any hope, I’ll be fast asleep during the whole calamity.

Then, a switch flipped inside of me. All these worries are beyond my command, I thought. Even when grounded, I can’t extend my life by a day, not even if I eat healthy or exercise. Death dates and death methods are beyond my authority. God ordains them. I can only confess my sin, thank Jesus He paid the price for them, and leave the rest in His hands.

It’s said a third century martyr felt no pain during her persecution and that another martyr, at Rome’s infamous Colosseum, was attacked by a leopard rather than a bear just as he had prayed, but we know other saints have died in great agony, our Saviour, one of them. So, I don’t know how or when I’ll die. None of us do, but whether death is painless or pain ridden or our preferred death method or our most dreaded, God will be there and He’ll make it what it should be, then after that, it will be Him and Heaven and more than we can imagine.

1 Corinthians 2:9 NKJV

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