As I run into the bathroom to collect my overnight case, throw on my clothes and grab a baseball cap I check my cell phone / alarm clock. It's still keeping time, but the keys are unresponsive. It's frozen overnight causing me to over-sleep.
As I gather some necessities and put my slacks on, Priscila takes my overnight case and starts to put it in my suitcase. I tell her, "My flight boards in 30 minutes". There's a chance I'll make it so I have to try. I've only ever missed one flight and been one of the last to board on a couple occasions.
Without much discussion, she rounds the kids up and gets them into the minivan. We throw my luggage in the back and start the ignition at roughly 7:00. If you knew what it took to get the kids in the car on a normal day, that's a little miracle by itself.
Priscila starts praying for protection and that I make it as we exit the neighborhood. She's the only one thinking straight. I'm still wondering what I left behind..... We do our normal "keep the angels around our car" prayer but I get a vision of the Red Sea parting and ask the Lord to part the people like He did the waters. Priscila gives a short laugh, probably at the dramatic image of dozens of people and cars thrown to each side..
She also prays that if I'm supposed to miss the flight, for whatever reason, that I will. We never know the eventual outcome of a situation and it always best to be where the Lord wants you to be. Neverthless, I have to try to make the flight for my job's sake. This is the reality of existing somewhere in the continuum between the Spiritual and the Physical.
Priscila asks the Holy Spirit to guide her on the best path to the airport. To question the path she chose would be to question my own faith, her ability to listen to the Lord and all the possible unseen traffic problems on the other routes. Let's just say the Holy Spirit would have led me down different streets ;)
The drive is uneventful. We pass an ambulance headed the opposite way and selfishly hope the reason we went here is because something clogged up traffic "back there". Even traffic at the airport is a more quite that I usually see. Not by much, but Priscila is able to navigate the van to the end of the terminal and get me dropped off.
The time is now 7:15. My flight should be boarding. Alaska Air usually keeps things moving, so I'm betting First Class is already boarded.
For me, here's where the answer to prayer / miracle really starts to come in to view. As a frequent flyer, I get to go in the "short line" at PDX, but that's typically clogged by Seattle shuttle customers this time of the day. Sure enough, the line is 15 people deep. To my right is the TSA agent furthest from the rest of the regular travelers checking in - and she has no one at her station. I walk right through.
I pick the shortest line with a bunch of business travelers in front of me to begin the gauntlet we call "TSA Screening". Like George Clooney said in "Up In The Air", when it comes to airport security, "I stereotype - it's faster." An agent behind me tells several of us there's an open screening lane. There's two ladies at that lane who are both carrying walking devices of some kind (canes, walkers, etc.). The guy in front of me says, "I assumed it was for special screening." We all did.
The two guys that are now in front of me aren't ready to go through screening. Not only are the guys not ready, but they ask me if I want to go around them and there's ample room for me to get through. The 2 ladies with their extra stuff are nowhere to be seen. If God didn't make them disappear, He did the next best thing: He got them expedited to a private screening.
Even with a random gunpowder residue test on my laptop, I still make through the gate and to my seat at 7:26. I'm not even the last one on the plane.
The facts are:
- We made it approx 15 miles to the airport, over surface streets and freeways in 15 minutes
- I made it through TSA screening in less than 10 minutes
- It was approx 45 minutes from the time I woke up until the time I was in my seat.
2 comments:
Love how God works in our daily lives...his extraordinary in our ordinary
Wonderful! Faith in the Lord and Family, the perfect match.
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