God's Instruction.

The saying goes that God sends people into our lives to instruct us, to help us, and to show us his awesome mercy and love.

Today, I was witness to this and thank God for showing me His great Love and Comfort.

On the long flight home today from visiting my folks back in the midwest, I traded an aisle seat for a window seat with a young muslim woman dressed in hijabi. She wanted to sit across from her sisters, so I offered to trade places with her despite my claustrophobia at being crushed into the window seat. Her frown turned into a quick smile as she settled into my coveted aisle seat. As I scanned the boarding passengers, trying to guess which larger one would get the middle seat, thereby sandwiching me to 4 1/2 hours of being boxed in against the dreaded stickey airplane wall, I watched as the whole plane boarded and no one took the middle seat.

Then, as I was sighing relief, I saw a figure of a tall lean older man in a baseball cap seemingly skip down the aisle heading toward my seat.

"HELLO!" he bellowed, stepping gingerly overly the young muslim woman and thrust his hand out to me. "I'm Gary". "mmmmcarol" I mumbled and tried to squeeze towards the wall as I quickly slammed down the armrest to establish my personal space. "greeeeeeat...." I sighed under my breathe. I'm stuck, and I have a small bladder, and I'm crushed against the wall for the next several hours, and I'm hungry... Good job, dumbass, I berated myself. Look what you get for being nice, stupid, stupid, stupid. And he's going to talk to ME the whole time; I just know it. Why doesn't he talk to the Muslim lady.... I just had that vibe that he would turn toward my direction....

I looked the other way and wiggled to my left to give the man more room. I thought about flipping down my sunglasses to pretend to sleep. I wished my IPOD wasn't broken so I could put on the head phones and flood my ears with sounds other than a human's voice.... "Oh do you have enough room? I don't need that much room" the man grinned at me and stretched out his long long legs. I looked at him sideways, as that was all I could do but look at him sideways. Ok, not a serial killer or a sex offender...so far, just a guy in his late 50s of so, clean cut and rather intelligent looking.
Soft features and crinkley smile lines....Like my love.
He had eyes that laughed and sparkled. Like my love.
How I miss Kevin....oh how I miss Kevin....
I settled in my seat and held my breath for what I just knew would come....

He turned to me and began his story. He told me that he was from Sedona, and that his sons were his pride and joy and that they had taken him on a trip to the Netherlands. He told me he loved God so much, and that he was so blessed in life, and that he was an elder for his church. I listened politely, smiled and nodded my head. My eyes started to flutter closed and my bladder started to bother me.
Ugh.

Then, he turned to me and said: "God brings people in our lives at different times to tell us certain things. I had 7 flights to choose from to return to the U.S; my son is a pilot for this airline, and he gave me a list of all these flights to choose from, but for some reason, I felt I just had to choose THIS particular one, at this particular time, and I know the reason why: it is to talk to you. I just knew I was supposed to meet you and to talk to you".
I squirmed in my seat and felt goosebumps. This is getting weird. I think I have to go to the bathroom....

"I want to tell you to Trust Him and to Give it All to Him and to go ahead and to ASK Him to give you exactly what you need. He is talking to you now and telling you that it is going to be alright. It is going exactly according to His divine plan. A miracle can happen if you pray for it, but you have to ask for it in prayer, and all you have to do is to believe in Him and that He will do it".
I stopped squirming and turned to really listen to this stranger, this person who had been rambling on and on about how great his life is.

"He is using the person you are thinking of right now in your life to teach you to have faith and to trust in Him completely. The person you are thinking of is going through what he is going through right now because there is a Great Lesson He wants you to learn. Miracles happen, no matter what science, man, or anything or anybody else says; When you put God first, you will see that there is nothing greater in this whole world than God's Power".

He then asked me about the elements of the Fruits of the Spirit and reminded me to live like that; he reminded me how I would hear God's word every single day if I took time to really listen; he told me it wasn't selfish to ask God for seemingly selfish things, because it wouldn't hurt, because God always listens; It would bring me closer to Him. He then asked me: what's his name; and I told him about what happened to Kevin.

Then, he leaned his shoulder against mine and said a soft prayer: God please give comfort and strength and healing to Kevin; Please heal him and bless him. Please give them both peace and happiness and lead them to live life in such a way to glorify You in all they do.

I couldn't remember exactly what else he said, but I knew that right at that very moment in time, God was talking directly to me, through this complete stranger.

Gary turned to me and said: "Carol, who is the Great Healer?"
I turned back to him and nodded. yes; God.