Points of Light on a Southwest Flight

We recently traveled with five of our children on a Southwest flight to Colorado.  In our culture-shocked muddle (we constantly feel like “deer in the headlights” in this foreign country), we failed to find out all the necessary information about flying with Southwest. As a result we were the last to check in.  Southwest boards its passengers in order of time of check-in so we were the very last to board the plane.  To complicate matters, Southwest has “open seating,” meaning passengers can sit wherever they like.  That’s bad news for a large family boarding last on a completely full flight.  The only seats available were single seats between the window and the aisle seats, and those were scattered throughout the sixty rows of the plane.

Cheerfully as I could, I directed my ten-year-old son to sit towards the back between a bald man and a business woman.  My teenagers found their own seats, and I asked a man if he would be willing to move to a middle seat so I could sit next to eight-year-old Rosy, who was nervously clinging to my clothes.  “I don’t want to move,” he announced curtly before returning to his newspaper.  Rose and I managed to find seats within eyeshot of each other, but when I glanced across at Rosy, she was blinking back worried tears.  I deviously plotted to get up several times during the flight to help the unfeeling passenger next to me realise how much easier it would have been for him to shift instead of forcing me to sit away from my little girl.  And yes, I did pray.

Calming myself by pulling out my iPod and listening to a Tim Keller sermon, I noticed that the lady next to Rose was taking special care to engage her and check that she was okay.  My 19-year-old daughter was next to a lady travelling alone with a baby, and soon Tiff was entertaining the baby and chatting with the young mum.  After I finished the sermon, I turned to the grandfatherly man on the other side of me and found him friendly.  It was a dream gospel conversation, leading easily from everyday topics to the deeper issue of preparing ourselves to meet God.  At the end of the flight, Grandpa asked me to pray for him and agreed to talk with his “born-again” son about the personal matters we had discussed on the plane.

As I passed through the plane during the flight, the kind lady next to Rose told me how much she had enjoyed Rose’s company.  Rosy herself was relaxed and chatty, a sure sign of the grace of God at work in her childlike responses.  The young mother with the small baby enthused about Tiff’s willing help with the baby on the four hour flight.  For this mother,  a long trip alone with a demanding infant had been transformed into a happy time with a new friend.

I mused on the wily plans of God for us that day and smiled.  My disappointment, anxiety and even resentment  had been turned into another opportunity for God’s grace to be spilled out in the ordinary path of my life and the lives of my children.  God Himself had scattered us to be points of light on a Southwest flight.  How is He using your disappointments to bring Himself glory today?