Grace Notes II
He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! - Luke 12:22-24
Friends,
Several weeks ago I wrote of “Grace Notes”. These are events in life that don’t seem to be important but often show the presence of God in the events of a person’s life.
The other day my wife and I were flying back to San Francisco from Tampa with a layover in Houston.
Unfortunately, the first leg of our trip was delayed for one and a half hours. In addition, my wife was feeling terrible as she was coughing continually and could not seem to stop.
Finally, we all boarded. We went to our assigned seats toward the back of the plane. We sat in an aisle seat and a middle seat.
We noticed there were many empty seats when a young woman came and sat in our row by the window. Hearing my wife cough, the young woman decided to sit somewhere else. Who can blame her?
Now there were only two people in our row, so we left the middle seat empty to give us more room. I noticed the same thing happened in the row in front of us as a woman moved to another row leaving the row in front of us with only two people and the middle seat empty.
After this version of musical chairs, the plane took off for a two-hour flight to Houston International.
My wife kept coughing. She kept coughing more and more. Finally, she had a major coughing episode and was unable to catch her breath.
Suddenly the woman in front of her turned around and asked her if she was okay, My wife shook her head no.
The woman responded, “I am a respiratory therapist”. The woman began to take care of my wife and help her breathe. The woman called for the flight attendants to bring oxygen.
The flight attendants began to spring into action. They worked very professionally with the respiratory therapist.
The short of it is the paramedics met the plane in Houston, my wife was given oxygen and medicine and we caught a later flight.
But here is the grace moment. All the people moving about on the plane and switching seats led to the respiratory therapist sitting in front of my wife, able to keep the situation from getting worse.
God truly does take care of people.
Peace,
Ricky Adams
Pastor
Peace Lutheran Church
Mill Valley, California