I could not find my 15-year-old son this morning. A wave of panic ran through me. He wasn’t in his bed. He wasn’t in the house. He wasn’t responding to his phone. In a matter of seconds, my brain jumped to worse case scenarios. Would he have reason to run away? Had he been abducted? How long had he been gone? Was his bed still warm? All his clothes are still here? I literally had to choke down yelling and screaming to my husband.
The AP reports that Tammie Jo Shults, a former Navy veteran landed a Southwest plane in Philadelphia moments after an engine failure caused an explosion which resulted in the death of one passenger. Shults’ calm, collected demeanor during the emergency landing which avoided any further deaths is being praised across the airways this morning. You can hear her conversation with air traffic control here.
Yesterday I was sitting at a stoplight with my youngest son. He pointed out an accident involving a school bus possibly a half mile down the outer road from us. We immediately started to pray for the children to remain calm, for emergency crews to get to them as soon as possible, and for protection and peace for all involved. Not 30 seconds later I see my dear friend Skip, Assistant Chief for our local fire district race by in his vehicle headed to the accident. My stomach lurched again thinking about all fires, accidents, and times of danger these guys willingly rush into.
- We can’t live in fear but we also can’t live with the idea that nothing bad is ever going to happen to us. We need to be prepared to keep calm.
- When we are faced with stress, anxiety, accidents, tragedy, fear we need to work toward the mental discipline of drawing near to our Lord, relying on His love and strength. Look to the training of first responders and our military for those examples for how to keep calm.
- If it is at all within our power, choose peace especially with other humans much less the voices in our heads leading us to panic. Keep calm.
- In the words of my dear hubby and Winston Churchill, don’t make a bad situation worse. Keep calm.
BTW, my 15-year-old son decided to ride the bus this morning because he didn’t think I had woken up on time. He kinda kept calm and came up with another plan. Just one that didn’t involve communicating that new plan to me. All is good.
Photo by Christian Kielberg on Unsplash
The Rabid Mime 