A Bird's eye view

I've lived in this town for more than six years. I feel like I know all it's side roads and shortcuts, it's neat little hole-in-the-wall restaurants and bars. But everything seems so different from the air. This afternoon I got to do something I had never done before... go up in a helicopter.

Ok, so I complained about having to work during the hurricane. It's part of the job. But so was this, and this was so amazing. Another reporter arranged for us to go up in the police helicopter to survey the hurricane damage in the Tuscaloosa area. Once we got up you really couldn't see much damage at all, but the view was breathtaking. The city looked so different. I saw my house from above, with it's little white picket fence. I saw the building where I worked, it's sign still very legible from the sky. I saw campus and the sidewalks where I used to walk to class everyday, my boyfriend's apartment where, (as I found out later) he was sitting on his balcony looking up at me in the helicopter. And I saw my old house.. that old duplex that I love so much.. and the huge mass of tree trunk beside it.

I don't know that I've never felt so small in my entire life. From up in that helicopter I could see almost all of the entire city that I've lived in for so long. It was a humbling experience, and I thanked God for it. In a way, I felt like it was his little reminder that I'm just a small fish in a big pond, and we really have no control. It is he that blesses us.