He was a handsome young man who sat next to me on the flight to San Diego to visit my daughter, Kelly and her family.  He sat his breakfast down on the seat as he started what he called “the process”.  He placed his carry-on in the overhead compartment, he then methodically removed his jacket, folded it and placed it there also.  While still standing, he removed from his briefcase sanitizer wipes and began to wipe down the whole area causing me to wonder about my own environment and who had been there before me. He eventually sat down and began to put his things on the tray in front of him. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a notebook with neat hand writing with specific points spaced evenly. 

At this point I took my last bite of the bagel and egg sandwich that we had bought at the food court earlier.  As I finished I turned toward my seat mate in search for my seatbelt, which I was sitting on.  When I did, an ever so small morsel of egg flew from my mouth, through the air in slow motion down, down, down.  My eyes as well as the stranger’s eyes watched in horror as it landed somewhere between us.  I noticed a definite fidgeting in his seat after that.

I thought of how this man as well as myself like to control our lives.  We pray, “Lord keep my family safe and healthy.  Keep them from problems and burdens and sterilize their world so they face no hurt or anxiety.”  We praise Him for victories and successes, all the while we have our God sanitizers out, not really expecting that morsel of egg to fly from the mouth of an old lady sitting next to us.

Most of us want complete control of our lives, even those who don’t consider themselves “control freaks,” and when we lose that control, we flail not knowing what we should do.  We fall apart not remembering who says “My grace is sufficient”!  Or “with God nothing is impossible”.  “For we walk not by sight”.  “Be still and know I am God”.  We switch to high gear trying to figure out what we can do when all the while God says, “trust in Me”!

The young man, I found, was such a nice person and a blessing.  When we parted, he wished us a Merry Christmas.  Most of us forget that Hope was born that night so long ago.  Hope for our hurts and burdens can be found still in Jesus!

“Look to the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns” (or sanitize their lives) “and yet you’re Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26 NIV)

Warning!  Don’t sit next to anyone eating an egg sandwich!

Jeanie Nihiser
Answers2Prayer volunteer