I can still hear the loud crack that ricocheted through the otherwise quiet cabin, instantly sending over one hundred passengers into a panic. None of us knew what had caused the strange noise but we were all well aware it wasn’t a sound one should hear on a commercial flight while cruising thousands of feet in the air. The first thought that came to mind was one of misplaced relief, acknowledging that my husband and all three children were on the flight together so, if anything should happen, at least we wouldn’t be leaving anyone in our immediate pack behind. I made sure to address the four wide eyes beside me immediately with my best forced “I’m sure everything is just fine” mama smile and then looked across the aisle to my husband silently pleading with him to assure me all was ok.

There was probably a full 30 seconds before the stunned silence broke with the desperate plea from a passenger for someone to answer, “what is going on?” The pilot mercifully came over the loudspeaker a few minutes later explaining that our plane had been hit by lightning but, after careful review of all the instruments, things were functioning normally.

When I think back on it now, I am struck by two things. The first is that, in this small space, there were literally hundreds of stories – men, women, children – husbands, wives, sons and daughters – all with different backgrounds, different goals, in different phases of life. But in the instant our plane was hit by lightning, we were all equal – every one of us was as vulnerable as the next. The second is the pull of human nature to look to one another for comfort and assurance. We tend to base our response according to how we see others reacting. This raises the question for me – who do I look to when I am vulnerable, not in control and searching for answers?

A few weeks ago, our great state of NH recorded the largest earthquake since 1940. I was happily breakfasting with a close friend at a small diner in town when we heard what sounded like an explosion, then felt the ground rumble, heard a second louder explosion, and then felt the ground rumble with even greater intensity. After the first “boom”, one of the waitresses shouted throughout the small space, “what was that?” She hadn’t even finished her question before the second “boom and rumble” hit. The experience was unsettling, to say the least, figuratively and quite literally.

I looked across the table to my friend who had her purse in hand, ready to make a quick exit. It only took a few seconds for someone to claim it must have been an earthquake, so we both reached for our phones for confirmation. Once we had a second to process things and realized we didn’t need to eat and run, I looked around and found it rather comical that the other patrons barely seemed to take a pause from their eggs and hashbrowns before transitioning back to life as normal. My friend and I laughed at the great misfortune meeting our demise at the neighborhood diner would have been.

The moment that earthquake hit, every one of us in that restaurant was leveled in our vulnerability. At that moment, it didn’t matter what plans we had in front of us for the day, what problems might have kept us up the night before or how much we did or didn’t have in our bank accounts. The human instinct to simply survive whatever was happening was suddenly bumped to the top of everyone’s to-do list for the day. We all had our own initial thoughts about what had caused the sound. I personally assumed it had something to do with the large propane truck that had just rumbled by the window. From our seats in little Greenland, NH to the seacoast town of York, ME that sits closest to the epicenter of the rumble, across the expanse of MA, thousands upon thousands of people jumped to their own conclusions about what had transpired. Most assumed their furnaces had exploded – my sister was one of them and reports screaming and running out of her house.

In the midst of any sort of fearful situation, I think it’s fair to say we all want the same thing – the assurance that things will be ok. When we are on a plane, we look to the flight attendants. When we are digesting a diagnosis, we look to our doctor. A particularly stressful financial situation has us searching for a qualified advisor. And an explosive noise and earth rumbling has us looking to…the lady sitting next to us enjoying her muffin and coffee? The guy gobbling up his bacon and eggs?

The thing is, even with all of the brilliant minds that inhabit this earth, there are not always answers to what leaves us in fear. We have more information at our fingertips than ever before, but life isn’t always something we can make sense of, no matter how many ways we adjust our Google search. This information age has left us increasingly uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. And maybe – just maybe – it’s because we forget to look to the one – the only one – who has all the right answers. Rather, we tend to reach for our phones, trust a particular news channel, a Facebook vent or any stream of consciousness that is in line with our own priorities and therefore leaves us feeling –  at least on some superficial level – comfortable – until we’re not.

We are living in the unknown, yet, although the intensity of that unsettling reality has ebbed and flowed throughout history, the simple truth of not knowing what tomorrow may bring is no different than what all our counterparts have faced since the beginning of time. We are surrounded by questions today and will be tomorrow and the day after that. It’s just how things work without that crystal ball we all wish we had. So, we are left with two choices. We can look at the unknown with fear, bitterness and despair or we can look at the opportunity – and freedom – it brings to hand it all over and trust in God.   

Whether the answers are to be revealed to us today, next year or perhaps not while we walk this earth, there is – I promise – such peace to be found in knowing we don’t need to know it all. Spoiler alert  –  this opportunity to hand over our fears in no way hinges on whether we are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or a self-proclaimed atheist. We are all equal in the love that is unconditionally offered to us and the best way to wrap yourself in it is with the beginning of a conversation – a simple prayer, a request, a handing over. We can drown in the despair or we can find hope in prayer, in the unchanging truth that there is someone we can always look to, someone quietly whispering through the noise, “I’ve got this”.

The next 40 days are a time of focused prayer for Catholics in preparation for the celebration of Easter. I’d love to be a prayer warrior on your behalf – to pray specifically for you and your intentions. If you’re interested, please respond to this post, comment your name, or private message me a specific intention, and you can trust that your prayers will be on my heart daily over the next 40 days. With a little prayer, we can all be assured things will be ‘ok’.