A short story.

The boarding pass in my hand said Gate N13, destination Reykjavik. A vacation to Iceland in the dead of summer sounded like heaven to me. I don’t do heat. I really don’t do a hundred-five-degrees-with-eighty-one-percent-humidity heat.  The psalmist’s thought, “My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer,” nailed how I felt about summer. Iceland would do nicely to revive my strength.

I looked at the airport map. To get to Gate N13 I needed to turn right at the Sephora shop, walk halfway down the B Concourse, take a left at Starbucks, head down the stairs, and hop the tram to the N Concourse. Easy-peasy. A small sigh of relief escaped my lips at the thought that soon I would be out of this god-forsaken heat.

Sephora, check.

Starbucks, check.

Wait, where are the stairs? I don’t see any stairs. 

Oh, for crying out loud! I must have read the map wrong, I muttered to myself. 

People scurried past me like rats on a treadmill. “Great. It can’t be that hard. I will just retrace my steps and figure this out,” I mumbled out loud.

Starbucks. Check.

Sephora. Check.

What? How can this be Concourse C? Didn’t I start on Concourse B? “Good grief.” I muttered louder this time.

Slowly turning to my left, I took note of the stores around me. I turned a little more to my left again, and again, until I made a three-sixty surveillance of the concourse in which I stood.

OK, right. My best bet to resolve my confusion would be to head back to the center pavilion and ask for directions. As I began walking, I noticed that the signs were no longer written in English, and the cacophony of voices around me weren’t English either.

“What the . . .” I stumbled over my feet as my heart began to race. I am never going to make it to my gate on time! This cannot be happening to me! Looking around, I hoped to find someone who could help me figure out what was going on.

“Excuse me. Can you . . .” my words trailed off as I tried to catch someone’s attention.

An elderly man saw my uncertainty and shuffled toward me. I met him halfway, with hopeful eyes.

“Excuse me. Can you tell me how to find Gate N13?” 

He had a puzzled look on his face. “No N13 gate. Which gate you need?” he responded with broken English.

“N13,” I whispered, showing him my boarding pass.

“No N13,” he replied, shaking his head and lifting his hands in a sign of bewilderment and defeat.

“Thank you for your kindness.” I gave him a half smile while my heart pounded, making way for the beginning of a panic attack.

Deep breath. Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t panic. There has to be an explanation, right? OK. I can do this. God knows what is going on even if I don’t.

I closed my eyes, praying silently that I would find my gate in time and soon be on my way to Iceland. Sweet, blessed, cool, not a hundred-five-degrees Iceland. I slowly opened one eye, then the other. Taking a deep breath, I started walking again, and this time with a mustard seed of hope that I would find my gate.

A smartly dressed thirty-something businessman whooshed past me, bumping my hand that held my boarding pass. The treasured piece of paper took flight and fluttered off beyond my reach, floating to the left, then to the right, eventually landing upside down on the floor. 

I bent over to pick up the thin piece of paper that held my gateway to paradise. As I turned it over, I could see that it wasn’t my boarding pass. Panic rose to despair as I grabbed for another piece of paper. The entire floor was now covered in paper. “What in the Sam Hill?” I grumbled under my breath. 

Frantically, I grabbed another piece of paper, and underneath it was a fifty-dollar bill! Confusion led to disbelief as I reached out for another piece of paper. A hundred dollars! And another, twenty dollars. And another, fifty dollars. Money galore under every piece of paper. I didn’t know what to think. Had I lost my mind? Why was there money on the floor? Where was my boarding pass? A deep sigh escaped my lips. There would be no Icelandic adventure without my boarding pass. I began to mourn the loss of my beloved vacation.

“Beep. Beep. Beep” erupted behind me, pulling my focus away from the papers and the money covering the floor. “Beep. Beep. Beep.”

My mind and heart struggled to sort out the difference between conscious reality and fiction. I opened my eyes and felt sweaty sheets wrapped around my legs. Still a bit hazy, I lay in bed another fifteen minutes. Finally, I stretched out one arm and then the other. I could feel my cat sleeping next to me. It was Wednesday, garbage day. That must have been the garbage truck backing up outside my window waking me up, saving me from the anxiety of my vivid dream. It felt so real!

The questions of where I was going and what I should be doing had continually been on my mind for days. Perhaps this was a vision from God? How did Abraham know it was God who told him to “leave your country and your family and go to the land I will show you”? How did God show him? Or how did Joseph know that it was God who told him to flee to Egypt with Mary and baby Jesus and stay there until “I show you”? Another wait-until-I-show-you directive.

How could I know if God was showing me something? Oh, boy, if this crazy dream was God’s way of getting my attention . . .  Could it be God? Then again, how could I be so obsessed with a piece of paper printed with a boarding pass when there was a treasure chest of twenty-, fifty-, and even hundred-dollar bills at my feet? 

“Hey, honey! You will never believe the crazy dream I had last night! What is summer like in Iceland?” I shouted to my husband as the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee wafted into the bedroom.