For the gift of our brothers and sisters
in Christ throughout the world, let us give thanks!
Greetings Prayer Warriors,
Recently I was on a flight and savoring the time I would have to pray and
do some spiritual reading. After boarding, I jumped right in to my scriptural
readings, smiling at the empty seat next to me. Five minutes later, a large middle-aged man was
sitting next to me.
"How long is this flight?" he asked.
I politely answered his question as the plane took off, and by now I was
delving into praying the rosary.
"Can we get up from our seat to use
the restroom since the seatbelt sign won't be turned off during this
flight?" he asked.
I responded by hitting the flight attendant call button and saying I
don't know. Within minutes, he received his answer, got up, came back and
by now I was delving into praying some favorite prayers.
"Excuse me, " he interrupts,
"I don’t mean to be nosy, but are you a Christian?"
"Yes, are you?" I responded.
"Yes" he said, "and for
some reason I feel that I am supposed to talk to you. That’s why I kept asking you
all those questions You know, I wasn’t even supposed to be on this flight, but
I missed my earlier one.”
“That’s funny,” I responded, “I wasn’t
supposed to be on this flight either. I
was scheduled on a later flight.”
Suddenly he shared, “You know, a year
ago I should have died of a heart attack but the Lord saved my life.”
I closed my book, put away my rosary and focused on this gentleman. Perhaps the 2x4 the Lord hit me with got my
attention. The Lord knows He needs to be
super-obvious with me.
The remainder of this short flight was spent listening to this man’s life
story. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed
to say. I made a few comments of
acknowledgement, encouragement, and asked how being given his life back changed
him. I added that perhaps the Lord was
asking him to step closer to Him and get to know Him. The short flight was over, and I saw how
little I was able to give this man. I
handed him my bookmark with a prayer on it and said that perhaps this would get
him started in prayer. I started to
apologize for not having anything else to assist him in his journey, when I
remembered my rosary. I gave it to him
and this Southern Baptist man gladly accepted it. I told him I would send him info on how to
pray it.
After some discernment, rather than sending instructions on how to pray
the rosary, I simply challenged him to meditate on the crucifix hanging from
the rosary, to help him understand how much Christ loved him.
I did receive a few emails from this man during the following weeks. The Lord was obviously transforming this man,
and to my surprise, I now had someone praying for me!
For he is our God, we are the people he
shepherds, the sheep in his hands. Oh, that today you would
hear his voice. Psalm 95:7
I am sharing this not because I did anything great, but rather something very little.
However, when that “little”
was touched by the Lord, he made it great.
It makes me wonder how many times before the Lord had tried to use me as
His instrument, but I was just too preoccupied. Perhaps all of us should spend some time in
prayer, asking the Lord to keep us alert to His attempts to use us for His
purposes, gathering His children so that one day they will be ready for His loving embrace.
Peace, Joy, and Love,
Janet
Share His love, pass it on.
