I do realize that my little 6 hour jaunt into the unknown was absolutely nothing like being a refugee but hear me out because today gave me a new appreciation for the things that I have and the things that are readily available to me.
My husband lost his father a little over 14 years ago. My father in law loved planes. He loved everything about planes, he even worked for Delta. My husband and his father had gone to an air show in Knoxville years ago and that air show was coming back this weekend. We knew that the Blue Angels would be performing so this has been on our calendar for quite awhile. We left with plenty of time to get to the show but that is where things went south....insert creepy music.
What should have taken us 20 minutes took us 3 hours because of traffic, bumper to bumper, less than 5 mile an hour traffic. After finally getting to the parking lot, which was more so a field with a bunch of cars in it parked every which way and no one directing traffic what so ever, we finally started walking to the show. Thousands of people joined us on our 30 min trek from parking lot to show.
My daughter is a tiny little thing. If that girl misses a meal she will blow away, because of the traffic she is now 2 hours past when she should of eaten, and because of the rules that the show had announced I had no food on me to give to her. She is looking like she could pass out at any moment, we continued on our quest.
We arrived to where the crowds were, and I heard people complaining how everything had an hour and a half wait to get food. I again felt helpless. I witnessed the lines to the restroom I thought my word we are going to die here.
Now. We are fine. We walked a little further into the craziness and found a pretzel cart that we purchased the last 3 items they had on the entire cart and she ate that. We walked a little farther and there was a hot dog stand that was only a few deep in line so we all enjoyed hot dogs and drinks. We found a nice place to set up our chairs to watch the show and other than a little sun burn we are no worse for the wear.
The getting back to the car, while just as tedious was less stressful because I wasn't worried that my baby girl was going to eat concrete, and getting out and back to civilization only took about 30 min. There was one incident where the men in the family jumped out of the car for drinks but we aren't going to talk about that, I'm just putting it here for posterity.
It made me think how reliant I am on others to provide me with my basic necessities. I realized that without a grocery store or restaurant, I'm not eating. It made me sympathize with real refugees who have lost everything to protect their families. As we walked in a giant herd we were watched over by the military every few feet. Now, they were there merely for crowd control but it just as well could have been that they had guns and were forcing us to walk somewhere.
I am thankful for all of the blessings in my life. I am thankful that I live in this beautiful country that I live in, and I am most thankful that I am the daughter of a King that is bigger than all of this.
Now, who can help me start a garden and get me some chickens?
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