Just Trying to Be a Blessing!

I do not know why it is, but I get excited every time I get on a plane to see who God sits beside me today. I am sure that the person who gets stuck beside me may be as fearful as I am when I see who it is; but nonetheless, I look at it as an opportunity to talk to a stranger I would have never spoken to otherwise. Over the years, it may or may not have just been to talk to the person about God. One time I remember flying out to a skin care convention for the latest skin care line I was selling, so that lady next to me that day got the spiel about that and my business card, and a brochure! You get the picture. It is a guaranteed audience that has nowhere to go for an allotted amount of time. You see, if I am flying from Dayton to Chicago, I do not waste time and cut to the chase of what is on my mind that day. However, if it is a trip from Phoenix to Dayton, I have time to get to know them a bit before going in for the prize! Haha! It sounds like I am really a pain to sit by but most of the time we all come away blessed and glad for the opportunity. I remember one time in particular when I had been in California visiting my brother while my husband was there on business. My husband had to stay a few more days after me, so I boarded the plane out of Los Angeles alone and sat down beside what appeared to be a successful businessman. As we began the usual small talk, he asked me what I did. At that time, I was a homemaker but had just helped open a crisis pregnancy center so I cautiously started telling him about that. I always say cautiously as you never know what reaction you will get when they find out you are actually saving babies and not aborting them. I never understood that. Anyway, then I asked about what he did. He did not really want to talk about that. Rather, he wanted to ask me more questions about the crisis center which I thought really odd especially out of this middle aged man in a suit. As we were talking a little longer, he literally started to break down in tears. You see, his daughter had recently had an abortion without his wife and him finding out until after it was over that she was even pregnant. I spent the next several hours of our journey comforting this man who was hurting to the core over a decision his daughter had made regarding his first grandchild. He was harboring a lot of guilt and anguish about not being the type of parent his child could come to for help. God gave me wisdom that day and by the time we got off on our next stop, he was feeling better and finding some peace in the situation that he had never felt able to talk to anyone else about other than his already grieving family. Another time, I was heading to Florida for a weekend to meet my son and his friends. I was recently divorced and lonely, so again, as I boarded the plane, I was in hopes of meeting a handsome man who would talk to me on the way down and later marry me! If he were traveling south, I would think he must be the man for me! It did not take me long to look down and see a wedding ring on my seatmate’s hand so disappointedly, that fantasy was squelched in a minute and I started thinking, what on earth will I have in common with this person for a 2 hour flight? Somehow we started talking and as usual, he started telling me his life story. I say this because this is a regular occurrence for me that strangers want to tell me everything. Anyway, he said he was returning from a guy’s weekend in Chicago with some good friends of his. Apparently, he and his wife had been leading a church in Florida that had recently folded. It was a startup church and they were discouraged that they had not been able to get it going enough to keep it running and growing. His wife thought it would be a good time for him to get away with some old friends just for fun to try to ease some of the pain he was experiencing over his recent loss. Ah, ha! I knew now that God had put me here again for a reason. You see, I had experience in starting ministries that grew and did not grow, and understood the pain of church politics and how unforgiving sometimes the church was when we were not perfect. These are unfortunate things but since the church is full of imperfect people, it is a truth we must all experience at some point in time in our life in a church. He poured out his heart, his feelings of failure, his disappointment in God, and his disillusionment with the whole scenario. He questioned, now that he no longer had that ministry, what could God possibly have for him to do? After listening intently for quite some time, I shared a bit about my life and the issues I had recently gone through. For some reason, it always makes everyone feel a little better about their lives once they hear about mine! Again, he and I were able to minister to each other and by the time that I got off the plane, he had given me his business card to keep in touch! I did keep in touch for a while with him and his wife, and then eventually, lost track of what they were doing. The last words I remember him saying as we parted in the airport was, “The next time I see you, it will probably be in heaven. Make sure you are there!” The last time I was traveling alone, now as a married woman again, there was this man who had obviously been drinking, reeked of incense and had big long hair that I could envision extending over his seat on the plane and into the unfortunate person’s face next to him. He was wandering around the gate as we were waiting to board our flight and I was thinking to myself, “Lord, I want to serve you and want you to feel free to use me, but please do not let it be him that sits beside me today. I am really not up to it.” However, you guessed it! He came bouncing down the plane aisle with ticket in hand, lighting up when he saw that he had finally arrived at his seat…right next to mine! Again, just as others had done in the past, he began telling me his life story and about how afraid he was of flying. He said he has found that if he drinks enough before the flight, he can usually make it through without a panic attack or something. When I asked him what he did for a living, he told me he was a hit man. He laughed and said, “You had better keep on my good side!” I knew that deep down, he was not a hit man (or at least I hoped not, other than the fact it might make an interesting chapter for my book) and after a long conversation, found out that he was an unemployed plane mechanic. We had a nice talk, about family and its importance, both with his new wife and son as well as his aging parents. I listened to him as he told me of his struggle with living so far away from his parents and not being able to help take care of them like he wished he could. I prayed for God to use whatever I said to him that day to make a difference, but I will probably never know if anything even stuck considering the huge amount of alcohol he had consumed before meeting me that day. I could go on and on with experiences where God has put me in situations and asked me to be his ears and voice. You know though, if I did not get on those planes expecting God to use me, He probably never would. You see, if you are looking at the world through God’s eyes, every encounter should be for Him. Not just the ones where your audience cannot get away, but every person, cashier, taxi driver, that comes your way may be a God-appointed opportunity just for you. 1 Chronicles 4:10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him what he requested. ...Live your life with God-Centered expectations and you will never be disappointed!