Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. (Matthew 8:23-26 NIV)
Sitting at McDonald’s in the Dallas airport, choking on tears, I asked Mary, “why do I have such little faith?”
All through the night last got I had worried, tossed and turned and awoke very early this morning. Worried. Fretful. Thinking that our luggage situation was too big for God to handle. Oh, I never would have said that I thought He was unable to handle it, but in my fret and worry, I was as good as saying it.
I’ve been high strung and tense about this luggage all week. Weighing, repacking, harping on having so many carry on bags. Making myself (and admittedly sometimes those around me) miserable about it.
As we neared the airport this morning, my stomach began to church, my nerves began to tighten and my faith wavered. Wondering to myself if it was possible that this was a colossal mistake. After all, if we can’t even face the mountain of luggage, how will we face whatever happens tomorrow. Silly, I know. I never claimed to have it all together. Rationally speaking, my fear was founded…because when you see the pictures of the luggage, you will see that there, indeed, was no way that we could handle that luggage in London.
In case you didn’t know, the plan was going to have to be that we would pick up our luggage and somehow get it to the hotel in London and then back to the airport the next morning. Somehow. We called the airline and asked what other option we had and were told that there was no other option because of how long our layover is in London. We weren’t happy about it but what could we do?
We pulled up to the airport with the big van, a pickup, and a covered trailer for our luggage. A dear friend paid two skycaps to help us and to move them through checkin so we wouldn’t have to mess with them. What a blessing.
We got up to the counter and thankfully there was no one in line so they started on us. They were very kind and eager to help us get checked in…not put off at all by our number and the amount of luggage. Huge blessing.
A couple of minutes into the process they found out we were moving to Ukraine as missionaries and asked why we were staying overnight in London. We told them that because of the schedule, we would miss our Kyiv flight by thirty minutes. They said they were sorry about at. They asked us why we wanted our luggage in London and I said that we didn’t have a choice. The kind lady said just a moment and clicked around on her computer and then said, “I can fix this.”. She proceeded to recode our tickets and checked our bags all the way through to Kyiv and informed me that we would not have to touch our bags in London.
I’m not kidding you when I say that I had to choke back the “ugly cry”. I was so devastated by Gods goodness. And my unbelief.
They started putting the bags up on the scale. I was so glad to see that the first bag was right at 50lbs. My weighing had paid off! Until the second bag went up. They glanced it and said nothing. Tagged it and moved to the next one…which was also overweight. Yeah, I had done great! The point is that bag after bag went by overweight and not only did they kindly say nothing, they didn’t make me shift things around or pay the overweight fee ($200 per bag!).
Again, I was amazed. What I had fretted about and worked myself into quite a dither about was a non issue.
If that was the end of the story…I could say…WOW WHAT A MIRACLE!
But after they got us all checked in and the luggage was gone, she said, “boy, you have a lot of carry on bags. I could check four of them for you through to Kyiv and will override the charge and just give them to you”. Once again, I literally had to choked down the ugly cry. You know the one that comes from your feet and if it comes out becomes uncontrollable? Yeah, that’s the one. I wonder what she would have thought of me then?!
So there we were with everything checked in plus four of our carry on bags checked through to Kyiv. No having to worry about it.
But not the end of the story.
We got security and they were so nice. Mary’s brother, Robert, who works for an airline went through security with us to help us get to the gate told them we were moving as missionaries and they said…wow, you need all the help you can get!
Robert pushed our stuff through the X-ray for us while we got coats off, computers out, liquids out, strollers folded, etc. At DFW they use full body scanners. They take a long time. They also had a normal walk through type magnemometer or whatever that thing is called. They kindly allowed us to use that instead which was much faster! Then they helped us move all of our stuff off the belts over to a spot where we could reassemble everything. So helpful!
But that’s not all.
We got to the gate and of course they allow people who need extra time to board to go first. We got up to the boarding pass scanner and they said…could we help you with some carry on luggage? Could check some through to Kyiv for you at no charge to help you. We checked five more bags on to Kyiv. I was speechless at God’s greatness.
All the time that the perceived storm was billowing around me concerning our luggage, I wondered how God could allow such an impossible thing in our path of obedience. Was He asleep while we were drowning? The truth was…He wasn’t worried and fretting and wringing His hands wondering how it could possible work out. He had it already planned out and planned for.
What a great and mighty God. Great and mighty!
I sit here on the plane…enchanted by His love for me and my family…astounded by His grace…comforted by His peace.
We arrive in London in about seven hours. We will stay at the hotel for the day. The kids can watch tv, play cards, whatever… Then off to bed early. And we will leave for the airport about five tomorrow morning for the last leg of our journey.
Blessed be the Name of the of Great God!