Bible Connection Podcast: On Wings Like Eagles—Reading Scripture Through Adversity
Even though she is regarded as a hero for one flight, pilot Tammie Jo Shults has a much richer story. In this eighth episode of the Bible Connection podcast, Tammie Jo talks about the obstacles she overcame throughout her life and amazing career. From being told to “find something women can do” as a teenager talking to pilots at a career fair to becoming a pilot in the Navy and one of the first women to fly the F/A-18 Hornet, she talks about how important the Bible was in keeping her grounded in her true identity through all of her story.
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Captain Tammie Jo Shults
Before becoming a hero during a catastrophic moment on one Southwest flight, Tammie Jo Shults spent a lifetime faithfully serving the Lord as a pilot. In a lot of ways, she had to blaze her own trail in the world of aviation and she faced major obstacles along the way. From a pilot telling her to “find something women can do” at a career fair to being rejected by the Air Force and Army, Tammie Jo relied on the Lord to guide her into a successful career as a pilot for the US Navy.
After her time in the military, Tammi Jo spent time as a commercial airline pilot. During one flight in April of 2018, a catastrophic failure occurred on the Southwest aircraft Tammie Jo was flying. Her composure, ability as a pilot, and reliance on the Lord made her able to successfully land the badly disabled plane.
In this episode of the Bible Connection podcast, Tammie Jo talks about how her devotion to the Word of God and love for the Lord has guided everything she has done. Despite the many adversities and obstacles she has faced, and overcome, in her life, Tammie Jo stood firm in her identity as someone who is loved by God.
Listen to Tammi Jo’s routine for spending time with the Bible every morning and how it has impacted her entire life. She shares about the importance of knowing and reading Scripture, God’s love letter to you as she calls it, and the ways it can change and shape your understanding of the world.
Excerpts from This Podcast
2:40 — “The Bible is not just for those that are in Christian ministry; it applies to all of us that love the Lord. I think about it kind of paralleling flight. Any aircraft that I’ve flown—and I’ve flown professionally for 35 years—I never just get into an airplane and take off. I always look at the systems, everything about it. Whatever was written by the person that manufactured it, I know that before I get in and launch off. The Bible is basically the manual, not only for us but about who made us.
7:52 — “There was just a number of things that would not have been where they were or open to me to do if I would have gotten in on my own timing. So sometimes “no” is “wait” and sometimes “no” is an answer and then sometimes it’s just an opinion that we have to work around.”
9:38 — “A bully is never a bully to just one person. So when you stand up to a bully, even if you don’t stop them, even if it looks like they got you, you slowed them down for the next person. And silence is consent. Bullies are very, very sensitive to peer pressure. So, when you’re silent, you’re applauding them and their behavior.”
10:52 — “Having that truthfulness with ourselves about ‘Do I have the merit to do this?’ and also ‘what’s my motive for being here?’ Because you may have the merit, but if your motive isn’t good, then you do need to seek something else.”
12:40 — “Adventure is one of the things that draws us out to do things; that propels us into life to try things that we think we can do, that we hope we can do. But always there’s adversity in those. And I think that’s part of what grooms us. Sometimes we feel like it chisels us or forges us; it is not pleasant, but that’s what gets us ready to meet the next challenge and make a real difference. I don’t think we’re ever the product of a moment in time.”
15:49 — “It’s amazing the joy that comes from just realizing where your real worth comes from. It was such a reminder through my career in aviation that my worth—thank goodness—did not depend on my flying ability.”
17:16 — “When I came to know who Christ is, and who he is to me, there was a natural draw to the Word of God, to find out more of what he had to say to me. The Bible is a love letter, not a collection of commands. So realizing that and reading it through that perspective of love really changed Scripture for me.”
18:22 — “We went through a pretty dark tunnel of time as a family when our oldest went through some really dark times. I remember just thinking I have cried to the Lord about this until I have nothing left to say. And that’s when I started reading a Psalm every morning and letting Scripture pray my prayer. And a lot of it was praise and I realized, wow, we are in our darkest time and my brightest moment in the day is when I’m turning praise back to the Lord. Praise that he wrote a long time ago.”
22:52 — “The friends that you spend time with, you grow a deeper relationship with and I think God is the same. The amount of time we want to spend with him and being faithful just to read the letter that he gave us.
27:20 — “Scripture is, for those of us that love the Lord, it just is kind of our life’s blood. Because that is our word-for-word connection with the Lord. And it’s interesting how you think you’ve read it and then your life shifts or your day shifts and you see something completely different in that Scripture. So it never gets old.”
30:50 — “Daniel is one of my heroes in Scripture. The fact that when he was given accolades, he gave them back to the Lord. When he was given hardships, he gave them to the Lord. So I think it was his habit to do that so that when those big storms came and when he was thrown in the lion’s den, that was the name he called out. He had that habit.”
Featured Scripture: 2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Episode Links:
Nerves of Steel: How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings and Landed the Plane
Nerves of Steel, Young Reader’s Edition
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