I wasn’t supposed to be on that particular flight, not originally.
I’d visited my grandson, I’d told him what I flew out there to say, and then it was time to leave Ian’s soul in God’s hands and fly myself home. Connie doesn’t like me traveling alone. Says I’m too old for that. I suppose one day I might need to slow down, but I don’t think that day’s here.
Not yet.
There were snowstorms in the Midwest. Lots of flights were getting cancelled or delayed. If I’m remembering correctly, originally I was meant to fly from Boston to Chicago, and from Chicago on home. I was looking forward to it too because last year when I was flying through Chicago, I met a woman who served me tea at a little restaurant, and she looked so sad, and I asked her what was wrong, and she told me a tragic story about how the foster father she loved like her daddy had just gotten shot, and more than anything she wanted to be there to spend her Christmas with him, except she didn’t have any money and was desperately worried about her father.
Well, I prayed with her, and I ended up sharing the gospel with her too. I figure if God’s granted me the chance to travel and hasn’t decided to take me home yet, that’s just because there’s more people here on this earth like that worried waitress he wants me to witness to.
Fine by me. I know my marching orders.
Anyway, I gave that young woman my phone number, and she promised to be in touch, but I haven’t heard from her since. I don’t know if her father survived his injuries, if she made it to be with her family that Christmas or not. More than anything, I want to know if she took anything that I said to her that day to heart. She told me she grew up in a Christian foster home. Her father was actually a pastor out East. But you can have a saint for a parent and still not be saved. Just look at me. My parents were missionaries during some of the most dangerous periods in China’s history. And even then I didn’t come to know the Lord personally until well into my adulthood.
But that’s a story for another day.
Well, I’d been looking forward to reconnecting with that waitress in Chicago. Then my flight got cancelled, and the airlines decided to fly me out to Detroit instead to catch my next plane from there. Well I told God that was fine with me. I figured the Almighty had that nice young waitress taken care of, and instead there must be somebody in Detroit I was meant to minister to. Either that or maybe somebody on the airplane.
I could tell even while I was waiting for my flight that the Lord was working mightily behind the scenes. Some days I travel and use the waiting periods to pray and think about all the blessings God’s poured out on me during my long life on his beautiful earth. Other times, he just seems to send one person after another my way, people I can share the gospel with or give a little word of encouragement to.
That’s what happened in the airport while I was waiting for Flight 219.
First it was a young mother traveling alone with her little boy. He was a real sweetie too. Perfect manners. Absolute gentleman.
Turns out they were headed to Detroit, but the flight they were on was cancelled, and this little tyke was so sad he wasn’t going to be able to see his grandma for Christmas. Well, the good news was I’d been at my gate by then for a little while and knew they were calling standbys, so I told them they should see about getting on my plane.
I had a real heart to pray for that young woman. She struck me as anxious. Sad. When her son said they were visiting their grandma, I could tell his mom wasn’t nearly as excited as he was.
And so I prayed for her.
Prayed that God would be working behind the scenes to restore her relationships. To bless her little boy. To show them both just how incredibly he loves them and wants what’s best in their lives.
I still pray for her, by the way. I don’t know her name, but I’ve added her and that darling little boy of hers to my prayer list. When I first started praying for them each afternoon from my prayer room, I got such a heavy sense of sadness, but now my prayers feel lighter. I hope that means this young mother has finally found some peace. When I talk to Jesus about that little boy, my heart’s just filled with joy. I’m convinced he’s going to grow up to change the world for Christ. I just know it. Sometimes I get a sense about these things. And I might be wrong sometimes, but in this case I have no doubts.
Well, I kept on waiting for my flight, kept on running into other passengers. And it’s interesting. It really is when you sit back and realize just how intertwined our lives all are. It’s like a novel, where each of the characters comes in and out of the story, and you realize there’s somebody at work behind the scenes. There just has to be. These things don’t happen by chance.
But I suppose you didn’t come here to chat with me about the people I met and prayed with before we boarded Flight 219, did you? It’s interesting though, isn’t it? How we’re in a spiritual war each and every day. And yet it’s things that happen in this temporal world that make the news. A plane getting hijacked. A young girl being kidnapped. That’s the only danger most people see. They have no idea about the spiritual battle raging on around us each and every day. I suppose the devil likes to keep us blind like that. If we spend our whole lives scared of terrorists and kidnappers and murderers, we almost forget that the real battle is for our souls.
Flight 219 was a war zone, both in the physical and spiritual senses. God gifted me a premonition of the attack before it started. I was at the gate praying with another passenger when he gave me the vision. Maybe you want to know why I didn’t sound the alarm, let somebody know. Well it doesn’t quite work like that. See, I didn’t know if God was giving me a picture of my own flight or someone else’s. I didn’t know if the danger was going to happen today or five years from now.
All I saw was a plane going down in smoke. I could hear the screams of the passengers. And there I was in the back of the cabin, my hands outstretched just like Moses while the Israelites fought in the valley below him, and I was praying for God to uphold that plane.
That’s what I saw.
It could have meant almost anything.
It could have meant that God was showing me what he was protecting me from.
It could have meant that God was prompting me to pray for my grandson and his flight to China.
It could have meant that I’m an old, old woman with an active imagination, and sometimes when I let my mind wander during my prayers, I see pictures that don’t mean a single thing.
Like that time God gave me a dream about a goat in labor, and I was so sure it meant our little doe was in trouble, and I made Connie get out of bed and her husband too, and we all went to check, and everything was fine.
But that’s a story for another day.
At the airport, when I was praying with another passenger before we were supposed to board, I saw an image of fire and smoke and a cabin full of terrified passengers.
It wasn’t until that man knocked out the air marshal that I realized exactly what my vision meant.
And by then, it was too late.