I seem to be a magnet for crazy. If you follow me on twitter, you know I had an eventful weekend. If you don’t follow me on twitter, and would like to join the madness my twitter name is @LysaTerKeurst.
And if you think twitter is weird, I used to think that too.
Now I tweet about deeply meaningful things like the mattress I saw fly through the air and get lodged underneath the car in front of me on the highway this weekend.
That was right before I did an event with Laura Story and my mic was somehow hooked to her little ear thingies. So, while she was on stage trying to sing her smashingly awesome song, “Blessings,” all she can hear is me chatting away backstage and flushing the toilet. Lovely.
But the most eventful thing of all was my flight out to St. Louis.
Everything was quite normal during the boarding process. But as we were about to take off, things got very abnormal. A lady just a few rows behind me started screaming obscenities.
And when I say screaming, I don’t mean talking too loudly. I mean full out vocal extremes.
She was completely undone because she found gum stuck to her bag of chips. Where the gum came from was a mystery. But how she felt about that gum was not.
What came out of her mouth was so rated R it made my already big eyes look like a bug on steroids.
She was loud and so out of control the flight attendants quickly alerted the captain to abort the flight. When it became obvious the flight attendants were not going to be able to contain the situation, two plainly dressed men stood and flashed federal marshal badges.
And just as a side note, I don’t know how you get one of those badges but I’m totally into it. I suddenly had visions of being a Charlie’s Angel flashing a badge, doing high karate kicks and subduing the bad guys. Or screaming woman in this case.
Seriously, if this speaking and writing thing doesn’t work out, I’m going to get a badge of some sort.
Anyhow. One of the marshals gathered the flight crew while the other went to talk to the woman. Everyone immediately went into procedure mode. They’d been trained and retrained on how to handle crazy situations. They didn’t get emotional or unglued in any way. They simply followed procedures.
I watched in amazement as the lady kept escalating but the people trained to handle her never did.
She screamed.
They talked in calm hushed tones.
She threatened.
They deflected her threats with gentle warnings.
Then she took things to a whole new level, “I HAVE A BOMB! I HAVE A BOMB! I HAVE A BOMB!”
I’m not kidding.
I know you think I am. But I am not.
That’s when I pulled out the anointing oil my pastor had given to me the day before. My seat became oily and holy. I called Art and my friend Amy and asked them to pray. And I tweeted asking my cyber friends to pray.
Eventually, the air marshals, two policemen, and homeland security people handcuffed her and removed her from the flight.
I never once heard the people following procedures yell or come unglued in any way. And I was absolutely amazed.
Because I will be honest with you, this woman took unglued to a level I hope I don’t ever see again in my lifetime. But the training and procedures were in place and not only did it keep the officials calm, it kept all the other passengers calm as well.
So, I started thinking I need a set of procedures to default to as well. When I start to feel a little unglued… I wonder if I had a plan in place to follow if it might help me stay more calm. More godly. More in line with Scriptures.
I think so.
So, that’s what I’m writing about in Unglued today. I’d love your thoughts.
And if you happen to know where I might be able to get me one of those badges, I’d love to know that too.
The winners of last weeks random drawings for the Target gift cards are….Katrina Bristol and Carol Schneider! Please email Holly@Proverbs31.org to obtain your cards.
