I had "priority boarding", which meant I was among the first to board. And yet, when I arrived at my bulk head seat, there was already a man in the seat next to mine.
The first thing I noticed was that he wore a pair of Beats headphones. Hard to miss. The next was that he had slipped one shoe off. Underneath his bare foot was a cell phone. I watched as he used his big toe to swipe through his music, choosing between tai chi meditations and Wiz Khalifa.
A woman sat down on the other side of him and asked, "Is that your daughter?"
His home screen was a picture of a little girl. When I glanced down to see it I noticed instead the twenty dollars inside his shoe.
I watched him struggle to use a forearm to slide the headphones off one ear. His hands were curled; his fingers useless. Occasionally one arm would wind its way behind him. Either an uncontrolled reflex or to reach a spasm or an itch.
"Yes," he said. "I have three daughters." He looked at her and then at me and added, "You guys would love them."
I watched as he struggled again to slide the headphones back in place, wondering if this was the result of a progressive disease or if he was born this way.
I've been reading about miracles lately and wondered (worried!) if God wanted me to pray with him. Not just for him, because that I was already doing, but actually with him, out loud, with my hands on him just praying in the healing hand of God.
When I think about serving God I think about things like this. BIG things. Life transforming things.
And then, all of a sudden, I knew what I was supposed to do, how I was to serve this man.
Just as we were backing away from the gate, his arm brushed the clasp of his seat belt and it came undone.
"Oh!" he said, and it dawned on me that one of the flight attendants must have buckled him in before I got on the plane. He looked at me and said, "Could you...?"
"Of course," I said, reaching across his lap and refastening his seat belt.
In that moment I knew that I had served.
No comments:
Post a Comment